Abby Arace, OFLA Beginning Teachers
French Teacher, New Albany Middle School

Teaching is not for the faint of heart or the weak willed – though it is an honorable and rewarding profession, it is occasionally onerous and overwhelming, especially for your first few years on the job. Here is some humble advice for beginning teachers as I reflect on my first five years of this career – I hope if you are new to this field that this helps a bit on a hard day!

1. Set boundaries with work time. As a new teacher, your to-do list can seem never-ending. However, as an intervention specialist told me once, you don’t get a prize for being the last car in the parking lot every day. If everyone stayed at school until they were finished working on anything that could be worked on, no one would ever leave. At the end of the day, complete what you need for the next day – Slides, lesson plans, copies – and then go home. Try to keep work time and home time separate as best you can. Carve out specific time on weekends to grade or lesson plan if necessary, but the oft-cited work-life balance is oft-cited for a reason: it’s important to give yourself time and space to enjoy your life outside of school.

2. Ask for help. Language teachers in particular can sometimes be on their own islands – for my first four years of teaching French, I was a department of one. Though it can sometimes feel lonely in the world language world, it’s important to ask for help when you need it. Lean on your mentors, colleagues and administration if you are struggling with anything in the classroom. At various points in my teaching career, I have asked my student-teaching mentor, my RESA mentor, my teacher-friends, my principal, a guidance counselor, a coach, and my mom for help with things in the classroom – behavior intervention, teaching strategies, lesson content, how to replace the batteries in my string lights… I could go on. You’re not in this alone! Ask for help when you need it.

3. Take it one day at a time. A mantra I used to repeat to myself in my car at the end of any particularly hard day was: The kids are learning something everyday. It’s easy to be bogged down in big-picture worries about your school year, but sometimes all you need to remember is that one sentence, even if it doesn’t feel like it some days. Try to focus on one day of learning at a time, and know that your students are learning something everyday. 

4. Every teacher was in your shoes once. A thought that centered me when I felt overwhelmed in my first year or two of teaching was that every colleague that I looked up to and thought of as an all-star educator, whose pacing and classroom management I looked to with envy, was once a first-year teacher. They felt the same feelings I did and had the same problems I was trying to solve. With time and practice, you will be just like them. 

5. Soak up small joys. For every difficult moment of this job, there is an equal and opposite joyful moment. Revel in your connections with students, any time a kid makes you laugh in class, any time something clicks for a student for the first time, and remember these when you’re having a bad day. These moments are what make the job worth doing.