New Teacher Tips

Lucas Hoffman, Beginning Teachers Committee Chair

I trust that you’ve all settled into your school year by now.   A new school year provides a wonderfully fresh start but can be frankly overwhelming as we try to implement the new ideas and best practices we learned about over the summer.  Be careful, and do this all in stride.  Nicholas Provenzano, via Edutopia, shares 3 strategies to avoid teacher burnout (a problem to which beginning teachers are commonly susceptible):

1. Partner up!   Find a teaching partner with whom you can talk and share your work.

2. Make Time for You!  DO give yourself a break.  You work hard; make sure to play hard too.

3. Just Say No!  OK… I do hope you do say “yes” a lot of the time.  (Speaking of saying “yes”, does anyone want to join my Beginning Teachers Committee, for example?  Email me: lhoffman@sylvaniaschools.org) Honestly though, when enough is enough, it is important to say no.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-burnout-start-preventing-now-nicholas-provenzano

Some of the statewide and regional organizations have already started to “partner” up for you.  Check out these links below for resources to pull into your classroom:

CSCTFL Pinterest page: http://www.pinterest.com/csctfl/

AATF-Ohio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/AATF-Ohio/373608971725

AATSP-Ohio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AatspBuckeye

Are you more into Twitter?  Jump on Twitter Thursday nights at 8:00 p.m. to participate in discussion among an active community of world language teachers.  You’ll walk away with some great ideas!   https://twitter.com/search/realtime/%23langchat  More info: http://langchat.pbworks.com/w/page/39343677/FrontPage

OFLA 2014 Conference

Start planning for the OFLA 2014 conference.  It will be held April 10-12 at the Hilton at Polaris, in Columbus.

Every year OFLA awards scholarships to beginning teachers (1-5 years of service).  We usually have scholarships to spare.  PLEASE APPLY!  Take advantage of this money to get you or a beginning teacher friend to come.

Talk to your principals NOW to get their support while building/district/sub money should still be available.  The earlier you make the request, the more likely they will be able to help you.  Then, this fall, watch out for the Beginning Teacher Scholarship coming from the Scholarship Committee.