Emily Rice, BSEd ’14, MSEd ’15
Neysa Callison Elementary School, Round Rock ISD, Fourth Grade All Subjects
Looking back on my first year of teaching, I immediately think, “I survived!” I just accomplished the most challenging thing I’ve ever tried in my life. E-portfolios, interning, 20-page papers, and master’s comps were nothing in comparison! However, I know that without the years of experiences I got at Baylor, that this year would have been immensely more challenging than it was.
Baylor prepared me for so much going into my first year. The saying around the School of Education is that SOE graduates go into the field as second-year teachers. This must be true, because several times I was asked, “You’re a first year teacher? I wouldn’t have known!” Lesson planning, time management, and classroom organization fell into place with ease for me.
This year definitely had its highlights. There were moments when my class was roaring in laughter and moments where my heart just smiled. I saw students gain confidence in themselves and their knowledge. I beamed when they told me, “I love math stations!” and asked me, “Can we read more of that book?” I also found some of the best mentors and friends in my fourth-grade teammates. I was accepted into the team with open arms and immediately found my niche. I leaned on them a lot, and as we learned each other’s strengths, eventually we all leaned on each other.
This year also presented numerous challenges. I entered into a fourth-grade classroom in a Title 1 school. My students’ backgrounds and needs were diverse. I taught students with split and broken families, diabetes, incarcerated or deceased parents, ADHD, dyslexia, speech impediments, depression, and more. These students opened my eyes to a whole new world. They taught me what it feels like to not know where you were sleeping after school, or to be told you were stupid when you brought home a bad grade. Above all, they taught me that their emotional stability and sense of safety was more important than any math lesson or expository essay I had planned for them. I instead had to find the time to teach kindness, gratitude, integrity, and perseverance — how to get what you want without throwing a toddler-style temper tantrum; how to say, “Excuse me.”
I tried, and it was not easy. I cried with them. I cried for them. I rewarded and I punished.
Then I tried to teach a lesson.
I don’t think that anything could have prepared me for the emotional toll that this year would take on me, but I did it, and I’m OK. I taught the curriculum, gave them a safe place, and hopefully made a lasting impression on their lives.
Lastly, there are two pieces of advice that I would give another incoming first-year teacher that I wish I would have had (or should have taken to heart).
- Someone on your campus knows how to teach that better than you.
Maybe we come out of Baylor feeling invincible (as we should), but the fact remains that you are a first-year teacher. You are surrounded with a wealth of experienced teachers, instructional specialists, interventionists, counselors, and librarians that have done it, tried it, and perfected it. So utilize these gems! Maybe I was trying to prove to myself that I could do it all on my own, but in hindsight I was being hardheaded by initially planning, teaching, and disciplining singlehandedly.
I urge you, if you have the chance to go observe your mentor teacher, take it! Better yet, if you can get someone to come model a lesson or strategy in your own classroom with your own kids, snag that! It took me a couple of months to realize the power of utilizing these resources.
- You don’t know what you don’t know until you find out that you don’t know it.
There were countless times this year that I sat in a meeting or read an email and panicked — I didn’t know I needed to do that! If I had known that I would have collected some data, made another phone call, taught reading lessons differently, etc. And so, several times during the year, I ended up raising my innocent hands in the air and playing the ‘first-year teacher card’ admitting, “I didn’t know.”
I’m here to tell you that it’s OK. Nobody comes into an unfamiliar school knowing the ins and outs of campus protocol, intervention systems, and parent communication. A lot of things you are going to learn with experience, and nobody faults you for not knowing. Now that I know, I am already planning on changing 100 things next year. Good thing there’s a fresh start each August.