New Teacher Mistakes Part 2: Shooting for the Stars.

During my first year of teaching, I spent many nights attempting to plan a lesson that dominated. I wanted to be the best I could, and my students deserved that. Looking back, it may have been better to take the “easy road”, meaning, teach a lesson in ways I already had.

New Teachers do not Want to be Boring

It is not easy to be a new teacher. If you are a new teacher that is passionate and caring, worrying about being good enough gets in the way sometimes. I recall many days I felt I taught well and then stressed about making the next day at least just as good. Assuming that the next lesson had to be better or different, to keep the students interested always arose.

New Teachers Think Students Have High Expectations

Students are faced with all sorts of teachers. Those that do literally nothing or everything, teachers that are great or awful, etc. As a new teacher, you do not know what your students expect, if anything. New teachers assume that the students judge every action or every lesson, but they only do if they are asked. Otherwise, they move on to the next period. If a lesson is taught poorly, they will forget by the next day. It is okay.

My Advice

Students gravitate to teachers who truly care about them more than those who do extravagant lessons. It could be argued that these go hand-in-hand. However, as a new teacher, you will have very few lessons that absolutely kill it. That does not mean each day cannot be labeled a success. I put a lot of effort into my teachings, but when the year is over, my student-teacher relationships go further than what was taught. If you are able to care for your students and hear their needs, you will be a success.

If the urge of creating an unbelievable lesson occurs at 6:00 pm on a school night, save it for the weekend. No matter how great the lesson is, if you are tired it will not have the effect it was meant to have. Even if pushing it a few days later means it will be out of sequence, the lesson can be a review.

Here is another post I recommend.

Submitted July 10, 2020 at 03:54AM by mattsnotes https://ift.tt/3iNPeuq