Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Index of My Guestblogs at NYC Educator

Hi friends!

All my blogging energy (until today) has been going into my guestblogs at NYC Educator. For the summer, I've been blogging with the new teacher in mind in a series called "What No One Will Tell You When You Come to Work at the DOE," focused around practical tips and tricks on day-to-day survival in the classroom. In my first year of teaching as a New York City Teaching Fellow, I had a very fine professor who told me something I never forgot: "In your first year," he said, "it's fine that your goal should be to just survive. You're not going to be a great teacher yet. It's just not going to happen. If you make it to June feeling like you have just enough energy and commitment to try again in September, you've already beaten a lot of people who burn themselves out in less than a year and quit." That was fine advice. I hope my newbie friends take it.

Future installments will deal with family and home relations, collegial relations, and the particular vagaries of the NYCD/BOE.

Here's an index of my guestblogs thus far:

Classroom Setup

Planning Your First Lessons

Classroom Management

Discipline

Assessment