Malloy Butler, BSEd ’14, MSEd ’15
Coppell High School, English II Honors, English III
Baylor gave many opportunities to be comfortable with my content, classroom management, and student-teacher relationships, but that first year can be a challenge. When I had discipline problems, I often felt it was due to my inadequacy in classroom management. But that is not true; it is completely normal to have discipline problems.
It is hard to have an authentic experience with parents and administrators in your student internship. Most of the communication I had with administrators and parents as an intern was through my mentor. So as a first year teacher, I found that reaching out to parents and administrators was intimidating at first.
The most important thing that I learned this year is to communicate with parents and administrators regularly. With parents, it is important to have positive conversations with them about their students. At the beginning of the year, I sent an email to parents whose student made an A on our first assessment, asking them to celebrate their students for their high grade. So many of my parents responded with thankful, positive emails (which were awesome to read), and I ultimately believe that initial positive communication strengthened my relationships with both parents and students throughout the year.
I will admit, this year has been challenging. I am so thankful that there is some mercy in the teaching career in that we are given a “reset” button every August.
However, there were plenty of amazing moments. The most rewarding part of teaching came at the end of the year. Often teaching is a thankless job, but as the year ended, so many of my students became oddly nostalgic and thankful.
To summarize the tone of the overall sentimentality expressed by my typically noisy, rowdy, and sweaty boys I am including a quote from a student on the last day of school: “Ms. Butler, we had our ups and downs this year. I’m sorry you had to deal with me, but we made it. And you’re pretty cool.”
During my first year in the classroom, I grew not only as a teacher, but as a person in general.
My main takeaways this year are the following:
1) on the first day of school, your classroom will not look as cute as you have planned via Pinterest! Thankfully students remember you and your classroom from the last day of school!
2) It is indeed possible to survive a year of teaching three sections of juniors consisting of a whopping 90 junior boys and about 10 junior girls.
3) Parents and administrators are not the enemy
4) Every mistake made, every stressful day, and every tear cried are worth it for the relationships you build with your students.