Collaboration
Teaching is not a job you can do alone. It's too immense and overwhelming to take on yourself. I relied on veteran teachers, my MTC classmates, and the librarian to help survive my two years at Byers. I turned to other teachers to come up new ideas for my lessons, for advice to deal with difficult students, to commiserate over challenges of the job, and to share funny stories from our classrooms. Yes, teaching can be a difficult job, but it doesn't have to be a lonely one.
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Read further on collaborative efforts within my district: The Marshall County Village: District-wide Collaboration
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I will keep this one short because I'm not sure I could articulate accurately how much I have appreciated the love and support of my classmates. I am also feeling sentimental, so this is sure to be sappy. We did a lot of struggling and growing together, but also laughing and celebrating. It's weird that I won't being seeing everyone on a regular basis for classes next school year. We will be moving forward independently for now, so I only have two things left to say:
1) Thanks for listening to me complain, a lot; and 2) good luck!
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Lindsay White provided mostly emotional support during my first year of teaching, while also introducing me to fun student activities like Franken-story. Almost everyday after school, I would walk down to her classroom and talk about my day. If I needed an impromptu sub-letter printed, she had my back. We were partners in implementing reciprocal reading in our classrooms as well. She was more successful and so I leaned on her my second year to better utilize the reading strategy in my classroom. Through her notes, I taught my eight graders reciprocal reading and persevered in making them practice this skill.
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Read further on my collaboration with Ms. White: Support System
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MTC Classmates
Ms. White
Ms. Towle
When I learned I would be teaching eighth grade ELA, I reached out to Liz Towle, an MTC alumna and the content area advisor during the first fall semester of MTC, for guidance. She graciously granted me access to her Google Drive materials, which I used as a loose skeleton to build my own curriculum around. I still made my own worksheets and keynotes, but her support lessened the burden of planning multiple curricula, deciding what was next and if it fit the standards, and creating five new distractor-analysis multiple-choice questions on a weekly basis.
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Mrs. S, the Librarian
The library was a poorly utilized resource my first year of teaching, but I have since gotten to know Mrs. S, the librarian, and become a more frequent visitor. I never successfully implemented AR reading in my eighth grade classroom, but through the librarian's support, I learned how to use the AR system, build standards-based tests on EADMS.com, and began taking my students on regular library visits. If I planned far enough ahead, we would arrange a Makers' Space activity where student created various objects (wheels, ladders, towers, etc.) with certain materials (popsicle sticks, pipe-cleaners, magnets, etc.), allowing students to be creative, get out of the traditional classroom setting, and have some fun with an educational activity.
My principals have been nothing short of supportive. In my first year, I frequently talked to my principal when I was struggling with students, whole classes, and sometimes other teachers. He would give me advice on how to proceed. In my first parent-teacher-administrator conference, he did his best to keep the heat off of me and focused on what the student had done wrong. My second-year principal encouraged me to be more organized in my documentation. He emphasized the importance of documentation and calling parents. This way, referrals and failing students could be appropriately held accountable without unnecessary blame falling on the teacher.
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My Principals
Parents
I called parents typically for behavior problems and/or failing grades. Parents that were invested in their child's education were powerful allies. If that student was disruptive in class and the parent actually spoke to their child as they promised on the phone, behavior improved. Especially if I kept up consistent contact. I would call certain parents after every progress report for a grade update if they had requested it. In a more specific example from my second year, when Larry had a failing grade in my class on his progress report, you could bet his mother would call the school that evening and have a conference scheduled for the next day during my planning period. Larry would get his grade back on track through her vigilance. Parent support wasn't consistent, so I made the most of phone calls and conferences with parents who were willing to work with me.
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