Sasha Nygaard - Everything a New Elementary School Teacher REALLY Needs to Know

Everything a New Elementary School Teacher REALLY Needs to Know

(But Didn’t Learn in College)

By: Otis Kriegel

Summary:

Otis Kriegels book Everything a New Elementary Teacher REALLY Needs to Know (But Didn’t Learn in College) covers the little things that are often over looked or not thought of when entering your first year of your teaching career. Kriegels book is about the practical information and strategies that new elementary teachers can reference in order to make their first year of teaching a success. It covers the “day-to-day challenges of being a teacher so you can feel more confident, relaxed, and in control, which will enable you to be a more effective teacher” (Otis, 2013, p. 3). He chooses not to focus on the material that education graduates have already learned, such as the curriculum and theory. The text is broken up into four parts; before the school year, during the school year, your students families, and your life as a teacher. Within each of these four sections, there are several subsections that will help guide a new teacher through their first year. The book included several things that will be helpful when starting off in your first year of teaching. Some examples include getting to know the parents, the new student, working with specialists, I cant get their attention, transitions, community building, and much more!  Throughout the book Kriegel also adds true stories and little important “BTW” notes to help further guide new teachers.

Before the School Year:

This section helps new teachers turn an empty classroom into an environment that fosters learning.  Kriegel helps guide new teachers through setting up the different areas of your classroom. Some of the ideas that are discussed are room design, the teachers desk, the library, the meeting place, and supply organization. This section also talks about learning your school culture before the school year begins. This particular section covers some of the things that a new teacher should learn before the first day such as who you should become familiar with in the school, daily routines, teaching and school assessment. A final section in the before the school year section is setting up for a terrific year. This section covers some of the practices that a new teacher should focus on such as the daily schedule, lesson plan, morning meeting, and homework.

One of the ideas that are in this chapter that I have found to be helpful is his description on room design and traffic patterns. You and your students will be moving about the classroom and having a classroom that allow flow will help avoid tripping or traffic jams. Kreigel also discusses how being able to see the entire room is important because if you cant see a particular area, something may be happening that shouldn’t be. Setting up your classroom for the first time in your teaching career is something that I hadn’t put too much thought into but something that can affect learning in a substantial way.

During the School Year:

This section covers what to do once the school year has begun. This chapter covers some things that may happen in your classroom such as misbehaviors, managing the class, getting the class’s attention, transitions, and rewards. This section pays attention to the everyday problem solving tactics that teachers can use in their classroom. This section also discusses how teachers can interact with their principle.

One of the ideas that I thought would be helpful for early years teachers is the transitions section. For me personally, being in a kindergarten class for my practicum, the children have a difficult time focusing on what they should be doing. Kriegel breaks down the steps to a successful transition. He explains that in order for a transition to be successful, one needs to preplan exactly what you expect from the children. Breaking down your explanation into easy-to-follow instructions will be beneficial for you and the children. He then gives more ideas such as dismissing tables one by one, make easy to read charts for changing stations, and leave time at the end of the day transition. 

Your Students Families:

            This section covers everything you can think of when it comes to teacher and parent interaction. It discusses the relationship that you and a parent may have and how this can be beneficial for everyone. It discusses appropriate ways to communicate with parents either through email, phone, notes, or other forms of communication. This section also discusses the importance of sending notes home to inform parents of things the students did and perhaps what students will be doing in the upcoming week or month. The third major topic that is discussed involves when parents come into the classroom. It discusses parent-teacher meetings, volunteering, and how to talk to parents, whether it’s a simple interaction or sharing bad news with a parent.

            One of the things that I am quite nervous about is writing report cards. Kriegel suggests finding out what is expected in individual report cards and then seeking advice from other teachers about the key words phrases that are used while writing a report card. There will situation where a child may be having difficulty, but Kriegel explains that writing an effective and sensitive comment will be the best way to express the situation. Being specific is also important because comments may be taken the wrong way. Another helpful tip is when you have completed some of the report cards, don’t be afraid to copy and paste phrases. This will save you time and some phrases can apply to several children. His final tip is to know the people you are writing the report card for. Knowing their personality will help guide your writing.

Your Life as a Teacher:

            This particular section talks about caring for yourself in order to be successful in the classroom. This section discusses how to manage the workload from lesson planning to assessing to getting help. This section also talks about how to balance your responsibilities. Teachers often take their responsibilities past the classroom because teaching is such a demanding job.

One section that I found to be helpful in this section was on lesson planning. Kriegel advises not to come to class unprepared but also to not plan too far in advance. Limiting your planning to one or two weeks prior is what Kriegel suggests. Using the curriculum guides is also important. If you don’t follow these guides, you may be teaching things that do not need to be taught, wasting time and energy. One more suggestion that Kriegel gives is that when you lesson plan, plan a few short activities because sometimes there is time in between activities that need to be filled.

Critique:

I personally found this book to be extremely helpful. This book covers many practical ideas that I could use in my practicum school and in my future classroom. The author provided real life connections and short notes that can be easily referenced when needed. This book was organized in a way that allows teachers to easily find a given topic. The table of contents is neatly organized, highlighting the main ideas in bold print with the subsections listed beneath. There are several pictures that helped me to better envision what the author was trying to explain and gives several examples of what new teachers could incorporate into their professional career.  One negative aspect of this book would be that it doesn’t contain much information on the end of the year closing weeks. Maybe how to wind down the school year may also be helpful for new year teachers. I believe that this book will be helpful for any new elementary teacher. I will most certainly be using this book as a guide. I think that pairing this book with some more academic books will be extremely useful.

Some of the connection to the course that I noticed in this book is several of the topics were discussed within our small groups. A lot of the worries and troubles that we discussed were covered in this book, such as parent teacher, setting up the classroom, and having children with behavior problems, to name a few. Another section of this book that was covered in the course was based on community building. Building a classroom that is safe and welcoming will enhance children and teachers learning greatly. The one thing that I noticed that somewhat contradicted the course was the section on reward systems. He talks about extrinsically rewarding the children for their good behaviors, such as reward charts. Although rewarding a child is important, I believe that this is an unhealthy way.

Overall, I would recommend for all my classmates to either buy, borrow, or take this book out. It has many practical ideas and suggestions that can be easily referenced and covers several ideas that I hadn’t even thought of that might pop up on you in the first year!

Resources used and some suggested books: