Advice: Dime a Dozen

One of the things that makes first-year teaching so difficult is the constant time stress one faces. Not only are you  trying to create engaging lessons (which as I mentioned in a previous post, are critical to your success in managing behavior) on a daily basis, you are bombarded by your own education and training. In my case, I have graduate school classes, mandatory Teach For America events, and tons of district professional development. This week, I have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights blocked out for these commitments, which amounts to back-to-back-to-back 13+ hour work days, not including the hours I spend at home planning my lessons. Needless to say, there is absolutely no shot that I will get more than six hours of sleep this week. This has become the regular for me. I bust my ass throughout the week with the intention of using the weekend to get a head start on the next week. But by the time the weekend comes, I'm so wiped out that I need the time off to recuperate. On the bright side, fall break is only a few weeks away, and I'm excited to take some real time off and travel back home for the first time in almost a year.

However, what I really want to talk about is the content of much of my "teacher training". By now I have sat through hundreds of hours of professional development, ranging across topics from science-specific to teaching literacy to classroom management. There is no shortage of advice or information for new teachers. Everyone has opinion, and everyone wants to share their wisdom. While I understand that this is done with the best of intentions, I think that much like our students, who try their best to master the "inch-deep, mile-wide" curriculum, new teachers feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they receive. Even more confusing is that much of the advice a new teacher receives is contradictory. Countless times I have received advice from a colleague only to have that advice refuted by someone else. The most striking example of this was during my new teacher induction right before the start of school. On a particular day, we had an "expert" talk to us about how behavior narration (a technique where you literally narrate when students are behaving correctly) was completely useless. The very next day, we had another "expert" swear by this same technique. As I've encountered this phenomenon more and more, I've realized that successful teachers treat advice (and professional development) like items in a thrift shop. Most of the stuff you hear is junk-- not in the sense that it is worthless to everyone, but that there are only a few things that you can realistically use in your own classroom. It takes some digging to find, but there are gems out there for everyone. What I may find to be completely useless someone else will find to be their diamond in the rough. The challenge of the new teacher is that while you are often digging, you aren't very adept at finding those rare gems. Regardless, I'll be getting a lot of advice this week, whether I want it or not.