A first year teacher reaching out for help on a teacher forum:

“I love teaching. But I am a first year teacher and I am always feel like I am drowning! Between meetings, paper work, planning, prepping, contacting parents, and managing a VERY difficult class… I feel like I can never catch up. I have a great team and a great support system at home and work but sometimes that’s not enough.  I feel as if I’m not being the best teacher that I know I can be. Will this feeling go away? And is it normal to feel this way??”

We offer our own advice in dealing with teacher overwhelm and being a newbie!  It’s important to be reflective, take care of yourself (as mentioned in our 6th Episode: Burnt Out on Teacher Burnout), and prioritizing in order to work efficiently.  You don’t know what you’re doing for a few years, but eventually, you will figure it out!  Experience does NOT match your teaching credential program!  Be sure to network with other teachers at your school and join our private Teaching Bites Facebook Community Group to share ideas and stay fresh.  We also recommend that veteran teachers reach out to the new teachers at your school and offer support and help- it can go a long way!  So, to the first year teachers out there, take those deep breaths and keep it up!  You can do it!

Links mentioned:

* book: Joy on Demand by Chade-Meng Tan

* listen to the podcast, Note to Self: Mindfulness on Demand with Chade-Meng Tan

Music by Jukedeck

To us, the “great lesson” is not a core curricular area but something that is more nuanced and intangible.  This episode was inspired by a post from Quora, an on-line forum with expert advice.  Fred thinks it’s hard to teach students to research online appropriately as they often cut and paste information without reading the whole article from beginning to end.  This has parallels to adults reading fake news on Facebook, especially around the U.S. Presidential Election.  I think it’s hard to teaching empathy, gratitude and being kind to others (as Ellen DeGeneres says!) and find it best to teach these concepts in both designated lessons and as incidents arise in my classroom.  During a conflict, do I address the whole class, a small group of students or just the individuals involved? Do I stop the lesson and take care of these problems? What’s your most difficult great lesson to teach?

Links mentioned:

* Episode 89: How Scratch Can Create Community & Collaboration

* My math specialist journey blog post

* Episode 14: Teaching on the Fly

Music by Jukedeck