see me after class

8/14/2019 See Me After Class

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SEE ME AFTER CLASS

A D V I C E

F O R

T E A C H E R S

B Y

T E A C H E R S

R o x a n n a E l d en


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2009 Roxanna Elden

Published by Kaplan Publishing, a division of Kaplan, Inc.

1 Liberty Plaza, 24th Floor

New York, NY 10006

All rights reserved. The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be repro-

duced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Elden, Roxanna.

See me after class : advice for teachers by teachers / by Roxanna Elden.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60714-057-3

1. First year teachers--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Classroom management--

Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title. II. Title: Advice for teachers by teachers.

LB2844.1.N4E43 2009

371.1--dc22

2008049706

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Kaplan Publishing books are available at special quantity discounts to use for sales

promotions, employee premiums, or educational purposes. Please email our Special

Sales Department to order or for more information at [email protected],

or write to Kaplan Publishing, 1 Liberty Plaza, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10006.


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To my mother, for making me a writer

To my students, for making me a teacher

(except a few of you and you know who you are)


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Contents

1. What This Book Is and Is Not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. The Ten Things You Will

Wish Someone Had Told You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3. First Daze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4. Maintaining and Regaining Your Sanity,

One Month at a Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

5. Piles and Files:Organization and Time Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6. Your Teacher Personality: Faking It, Making It . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

7. Classroom Management: Easier Said Than Done . . . . . . . . . . 63

8. Popular Procedures That (Probably)Prevent Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

9. The Due-Date Blues:

When High Expectations Meet Low Motivation . . . . . . . . . . 103

10. No Child Left Yeah, Yeah, You Know:

Different Types of Students andWhat Each Type Needs from You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

11. Parents: The Other Responsible Adult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133


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12. The Teachers Lounge: Making It Work

with the People You Work With . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

13. Please Report to the Principals Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

14. Stressin About Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

15. Observation Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

16. Testing, Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

17. Grading Work Without Hating Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

18. Moments Were Not Proud Of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

19. Dos and Donts for Helping New Teachers

in Your School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

20. Making Next Year Better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Thanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227


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1

1

What This Book Is

and Is Not

S

ome teachers are naturals from the first day. They instinc-

tively motivate students, set high expectations, and man-

age not discipline their classes. They stay positive and

organized, tracking progress in binders of color-coded data and

planning lessons that address each childs unique learning modal-

ity. These teachers dont just teach they inspire! They spring out

of bed each morning knowing materials are laid out, papers are

graded, and their classrooms are welcoming environments where

all students can succeed. This book is not for them.

This book is for anyone who wishes those teachers would stop

telling you how organized they are while you stare at a growing stack

of ungraded essays. Its for those of you who are sleeping less than

ever before, raising your voices louder than you ever imagined you

would, and wondering why kids take sooooo long in the bathroom

and often come out covered in water. This is for any new teacher

wondering whether to get out of bed at all.

Read this when a lesson goes horribly wrong, when your whole


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2 See Me After Class

class forgets a major project, or when a parent curses at you in front

of the kids. Pull it out at lunch on a bad day or on Sunday night as

you battle those six-more-hours-till-Monday stomach cramps. This

is meant to get you to school tomorrow.

But first, a few warnings

This Book Is Not Professional Development

No book can replace the difficult, necessary process of learning

to teach. Read this after you have attended more than enough

workshops, received so many lists of recommended books you get

tired from reading the lists, and gotten plenty of advice about time-

consuming things you could do to be a better teacher. Im assuming

youve heard the terms benchmark, classroom management, anddata-driven instruction. You also know which of these describes what

you were doing wrong when your principal walked in.

You may even be enrolled in a certification program, where you

spend some of the longest hours of your life watching PowerPoint

presentations on the importance of hands-on lessons, taking mul-

tiple-choice practice tests, and praying this isnt how your students

feel while youre teaching.

This book is meant to keep you from getting discouraged when

it seems like all those fabulous ideas you learned in training dont

work in your own classroom: no one understands the directions, and

it turns out you had no business giving those kids glue in the firstplace, and it also turns out theNational Geographicmagazines you

found cheap and felt great about became a gallery of nude pictures

for your sixth-graders. Its also for the next day, when parents show


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up to complain even though their kids are downloading much

more graphic pictures on their home computers and bringing them

to school which is why their printers ran out of ink which is why

their projects arent finished.

You, on the other hand, still have to prepare that sample hands-

on lesson plan for your training class tonight.

This Book Is Not Chicken Soupfor the Teachers Soul

Its more likeHard Liquor for the Teachers Soul new teachers need

something stronger than chicken soup. Read this on the days when

any book by a teacher who taught kids to play violin during lunch or

took busloads of perfectly behaved fifth-graders on a tour of college

campuses makes you want to beat your head against the wall until

pieces of scalp and hair are all over the place.

The basis for this book is an idea that worked for me: teachers

willing to admit their mistakes are much more helpful to rookies

than those who say, Well, they would know better than to do that

in my class. The stories in this book should be bad enough to make

you feel better.

The real reason to feel better, though, is that all the people who

shared their stories in this book went on to become successful,

experienced teachers. Theyre not administrators (who, dont get

me wrong, do important jobs). Theyre not counselors (who also doimportant jobs). Theyre not presenters or auditors from a downtown

office (who do jobs).

They are teachers. In classrooms. And they love it most days.

What This Book Is and Is Not 3


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4 See Me After Class

This Book Is Not Teaching for Dummies

Dummies shouldnt be teachers. As a country, we need educatorswho have brains, dedication, enthusiasm, and common sense.

We need people who want to change things in the schools where

things most need to change.

But we need you to stay at your jobs, and stay sane.

Acting like a hard job can be done easily is a sure way to do it

wrong. The knowledge teachers need is complicated, its important,

and its way more than anyone can learn in one year. The great

teachers of the future know theyre not great yet. They know theyre

making mistakes, and some of those mistakes are big. Theyre sort-

ing through a million pieces of advice, each starting with the words

All you have to do is , until they want to lie on their backs in the

school hallway and yell, This is all the time and energy I have! Can

someone please tell me what I should really spend it on?

If you can relate to the preceding paragraph, you were my inspi-

ration. And this book is for you.

see me after class

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