First Year Reflections

I don't think that I have gained boundless amounts of wisdom through my first year of teaching, but after allowing myself some time to digest and reflect back over the summer, there were definitely a lot of learning moments happening not just for my students but for me as well.

What subject/age and where were you teaching?

I was itinerant my first year teaching. This means that I was traveling between schools. I worked three days a week in Darlington at an elementary magnet school that was grades 3 through 5 and was roughly 450 students. The other two days a week I traveled out to the very small town of Society Hill, where I taught at an elementary-middle school, seeing grades 5k through 8th grade. The elementary-middle school was roughly 120 students in all grades.

I taught general music to all students and then was in the process of building a band program for the 5th through 8th grade students in Society Hill.

What was your first classroom like?

My classroom at the elementary school in Darlington was a decent size, until you tried to have honor choir practice with 72 children. But, thankfully, that was not on a regular basis. My classroom used to be the cafeteria before they renovated and is located next to the computer lab (which was a slight problem during map testing) and across from the D/HoH classroom (deaf and hard of hearing). It was however, pretty well stocked with instruments and music. The only thing I wished for was a SMART board. I had a projector on a rolling cart that I would have to pull out any time I wanted to project something for the students. This was a little frustrating if I wanted to also have the kids dancing or if I wanted to use it for one grade but then only had a few minutes before a class of a different grade level came.

My classroom at the elementary-middle school in Society Hill was a wonderful size! It probably also helped that the average class size was 10 students, but I never felt like I didn't have enough room for any activity. The school is set up with separate wings that are connected through an outdoor walkway, so I am on the exploratory hall with the art teacher and guidance counselor. However, all exploratory teachers are itinerant at this school and so I almost always was on the hall by myself. Which wasn't necessarily bad, because then nobody complained about noise and we didn't have to be quiet during MAP testing, etc., but it did get a little lonely during my long planning periods not seeing students walking by my door. Unlike my other school, this classroom had a lot of music textbooks but not much else in terms of instruments. On the bright side, it had an overhead projector which was a whole lot less work for me to use.

Were you given supplies/materials?

I had a very reasonable budget at the elementary school and a principal that worked very hard to make sure she got you everything on your wish list (sans the uber expensive SMART board). We already had ukuleles and guitars and some drums, so this past year I used most of our budget to purchase an Orff instrument set and some Boomwhackers.

Then you have the flip of the coin, where I had a very small budget for general music at the elementary-middle school and roughly $1,200 for the band. In the past, the music teacher had been using the band budget to cover general music costs since there was no band. And while $1,200 sounds like a good amount, to start a band from scratch, I can tell you first hand it is nothing! The money went very fast when trying to purchase school instruments, method books, and instrument accessories (reeds, valve oil, etc.). We made it work, and I hope to write a grant and get some more DonorsChoose projects funded to cover our additional needs.

What do you remember about your first day?

I remember not being able to fall asleep and then waking up excruciatingly early because of nerves and excitement. I arrived to the elementary school and remember helping to navigate students towards classrooms that I barely knew where they were located. But I also remember being introduced to three of our deaf students and wowing them with one of my few ASL phrases of "nice to meet you." Their interpreter said that they probably had the best morning ever, because they couldn't remember the last time a "normal" teacher had signed to them.

Before each class, I remember sweating and hoping that I wouldn't forget anything or mispronounce any names (huge legitimate fear of mine and a long story, I'll tell another day). After the day was done, I thought it had been pretty successful and then recalled I'd have to do it all over again at my other school the next day.

What was the hardest part of your first year?

Umm everything! Just kidding, it really wasn't that bad and everyone talks about first year teachers being in "survival mode" the majority of the year, but I really only felt like that the last few weeks of school when I almost never saw the kids due to testing and when I would see them their little brains were completely fried and they were pretty unwilling to do basically anything.

The hardest part for me is something that I didn't really notice until I started to look back through the year this summer. I focused my collegiate career on middle school band and only took one class and clinical on general music. So I felt a little unprepared for the lesson planning. Most of my lessons were successful in the sense that the kids learned what they were supposed to. But I didn't have an overall plan for the year and didn't really connect week to week.

What was the best part of your first year?

The kids, 100%! Yes, I had troublemakers and kids that I had to pray really hard for, but I wouldn't ask for a different set of kids if I could. I think kids somehow know when they need to say something nice to you, because it was always on days where I just felt like I wasn't being a good teacher or I had yelled at a student for something miniscule. But then a student would give me a big bear hug and tell me I was their favorite teacher, or a student would spend some of his field trip money to buy you a rock necklace. I mean how much more sweet and loving could this kids be!! And as nervous and unprepared I felt for elementary, I connected with those kids and had far more success then I did with the middle schoolers.

What did you discover your first year of teaching that you didn't learn in college or student teaching?

"Welcome to the real world" is the phrase that could sum up what I learned that college and student teaching couldn't have prepared me for. College classes in education and student teaching is a perfect world. You teach lessons to your peers that already have musical backgrounds and will play along whether it is a successfully planned lesson or not. In student teaching, even if you mess up your cooperating teacher is there to fix it. I tried things that had worked in my classes and student teaching and had to realize I was working with a totally different population. I realized that just because something falls under my program, I'm not actually the head honcho the principal is. I found out how different general music for middle school students is compared to general music for elementary school students. There was no other adult in the room, I was the adult and I barely felt like one.

I had a great college experience and a great cooperating teacher and students, so when I say all these things that I wasn't prepared for it wasn't because someone didn't teach me well. There are simply things that we first year teachers won't know until you're living it. So, welcome to the real world!

Where did you draw most of your lesson plan inspiration from?

Not having a whole lot of experience with this area and age group, I pulled a lot from friends that were general music teachers and Pinterest. Pinterest was and is my favorite lesson planning source. I found all of these great activities and songs that my students absolutely loved! And I found some that they absolutely hated. But, I will continue to pull from Pinterest now and forever. Why reinvent the wheel if you don't have to. The only suggestion I would make to first year teachers is to map out what concepts you want your students to know by the end of the year, break that down into months, and even weeks if you want. That way all of your lessons have a focused purpose and you aren't just finding something cool on Pinterest each Saturday to do the next week (guilty as charged!).

What is one thing you know now that you wish you had known then?

I wish I had known how to set up a program. How do you get middle school students excited or even just agreeable about performing in front of peers? How do you know that your students don't know any traditional Christmas songs, so you started probably a month too late in preparing? How do you get parents to come to performances? My spring performances were much better than my winter performances. But both sets for weeks before I felt like a race to beat the clock in preparing, I felt exhausted, frazzled, pulled too many ways, and realized I had not delegated any tasks to anybody else. Granted no one asked if I needed help, but I didn't reach out to anyone either. As my mother would say, "Communication is a two way street."

I wish I had known how tired I was going to be the entire year. I felt like I could never catch up on sleep and even if I got 8+ hours I still felt exhausted and drained. I'm not sure I could have prepared for this by sleeping more the summer before, but a heads up would have been nice. I saw fellow first year teachers planning weddings, getting married, and having babies their first year. And let me tell you what I thought about them...YOU ARE CRAZY!!! AND HOW DO YOU HAVE THE TIME AND ENERGY? SHARE YOUR SECRET!!!!!

I think I can definitely say I learned a lot and I hope someone can learn from my triumphs and my mistakes.