The Three Main Things I learned In My First Year Of Teaching

I am writing this reflection on my first year of being a teacher in review.

So for me the most significant learning experiences for the year was learning to relax, being ready for the unknown, being respected rather than liked (by students), and being prepared.

The learning that arose from learning to relax was that the world wasn’t going to fall down around me if I did something that didn’t work.

Previously, I thought that you needed to have everything under control and if you made a mistake, it would be seared into a child's mind. In fact, kids are more interested doing creative things and at times it doesn’t matter if they don’t run particularly smooth. I found that all teachers find aspects of their job challenging and that it’s fine not to be good at everything. Cause no one is.  

This might be due to past experiences where as a student we think that our teachers are somewhat inhuman and have super powers.

The learning that arose from learning being ready for the unknown is similar to the first reflection point.

Previously, I thought that you need to stick to the plan you have, so that kids don’t end up running the class how they think it should run. However, after classroom experience and discussions with other teachers, I have found that good teachers flow off the spontaneity of the students. It empowers the students and you can link in the key learning into the channel of interest they have. Also school timetables change, this is bound to happen and having a flexible and adaptable mindset helps you work in with the school as a whole.   

The learning that arose from being respected rather than liked by my students is immensely empowering, as it sets the parameters of having the right boundaries within the classroom.

As a beginning teacher, actually knowing your style and the way you interact with students is particularly hard, well at least I found it that way. When you’re young and some of the kids you are teaching have parents similar to the same age as yours, I found it hard to be respected rather than liked. Partly it was a ‘maturity thing’ and also being so young. This point of being respected rather than liked was raised by Carrol Lynch from Edled after an observation she did on my class. She raised the importance of her point saying, ‘things get done and students end up actually liking you more’. Previously, I may have known this logically but after a short period I went to the default of trying to get them to like me, as I wrestled to establish the control. Carrol guided me through how achieve respect. Mainly through being consistent in discipline and expectations. My mentor also helped me by consistently offering ideas of how to do this practically, and having pos & neg awards for behaviour. Now I see the importance of having order, and having it upfront, so that you don’t get left on the back foot.

The learning that occurred from being prepared was that you need to be sure that you have gone through the task before you go through it with the students.

Previously, I thought that I could leave it till I do with the students to figure out the intricacies of the tasks. However this at times backfired and I ended up losing momentum in my lessons. I now know through feedback that it is important to make sure you have those fallbacks even though you might not end up needing using them. Extra time may be required but this is all about establishing the resource bank to make the job easier down the line.

Nate Sextus

Huntley School

2016