Amanda - The First-Year Teacher's Survival Guide-Third Edition

The book I read for my reflection was The First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide-Third Edition by Julia G. Thompson. This is a rather large book and it, as the title suggests, tells you what you will need to do as a teacher during you beginning year. This book has five categories:

1. Assume Your Professional Responsibilities
2. Establish a Learning Community
3. Promote Student Achievement
4. Design and Deliver Effective Instruction
5. Maintain an Orderly Environment

While all of these categories contain very useful information, I found it impossible to summarize the whole book without compromising on any of the good information. For this reflection I am instead focusing in on category 2. This is further broken down into two different sections, Section Four and Section Five.

 

Section Four is all about beginning a successful school term, and it gives some helpful tips and worksheets to do so. Part of this chapter focuses on the very first day of classes, which is something that I think is crucial, as I have not yet experienced what the first day of school is like from a teacher’s perspective. One aspect that I found to be useful for the future was page 108, which contained a section on how to cope with your nerves on the first day of school. I really appreciated how this book takes into consideration that teachers can be just as nervous as their students, and actually gives you some coping mechanisms that are more than basic platitudes that amount to a pat on the back.

This section of the book also contains many different inventory pages, both for the students and for the teacher. These lists are meant to help create a classroom community, by allowing the students to make their own personal remarks early on so that the teacher will be able to get to know them sooner. While I like the concept of this, I feel that a worksheet in this specific regard may be a little restricting. What I do like about all of these worksheets is that the book differentiates for different age levels. It has possible inventory sheets for elementary students, middle school students, and high school students. These could be used as a good basic introduction, especially when you are nervous about the first day of class.

This section then goes on to briefly explain what the rest of the week can almost assuredly entail. While some of the points on the list may seem a little bit intimidating, I find it inordinately useful in the fact that it lets me know exactly what to expect. The section ends with some more helpful tips, but this time it is all about things to avoid. While some of the points seem rather obvious, like not making learning your students names a priority (136), some helpful points include ideas like; do not listen to stressed out colleagues, and neglecting to plan too much until you familiarize yourself with your students and their abilities. These could easily be things that a first year teacher could succumb to, so having that extra warning could prove to be useful.

Section Five is entitled “Develop Positive Classroom Relationships”, and this is something that I will strive for as a teacher, so any extra tips found in this section were welcomed gratefully. This section starts off by informing you exactly what your relationship with your students should be. While a lot of the information mentioned is common sense, I also find it useful to be so clearly stated in writing. This then goes on to include a checklist to help enforce what an appropriate relationship is.

Another aspect of this section that I think many people will find very useful, myself included, is all about how to protect your students from bullies. This part of the section covers what to do before and after bullying occurs, and it also covers different types of bullying. It has a portion exclusively on cyber bullying, which explains not only what that exactly means, but it gives you some resources to go to if you need any more information or help. What I like about this section is that while it covers what to do in the aftermath of bullying, the majority of the section focuses on how to create a classroom environment that is risk-free for all. This focus on prevention instead of punishment is something really useful to be given before going in to teaching full-time. This section, while focusing on positive relationships, also tells first year teachers that there are some things that you are not equipped or expected to deal with yourself, and if these situations crop up, you should inform other professionals who are trained to deal with it (p. 156). I like how this book acknowledges the fact that it can be very easy to be swept up in trying to help our students, but this portion clearly lays out the fact that we cannot do everything or we run the risk of burnout.

This book contains a wealth of information on many different subjects, mostly pertaining to the beginning of the year and classroom management strategies. It gives a variety of worksheets and other resources to use which can help when trying to manage a large workload in your first year of teaching. The book also comes with a DVD which contains even more information, including a section on assessment strategies and how to keep track of everything.

Overall I would highly recommend this book, as it contains a lot of useful information in an easy to follow format. This book is not one I would consider a hard read, and it is laid out in an interesting and effective way. I will definitely refer to this book as I continue in my teaching experiences as I feel that it is one of those books where I will continue to find it a fount of knowledge.