Advice I Wish Someone had Given Me

This past school year was my first year as a teacher. I taught 9th and 10th grade English at a high school downtown in a city in the southern end of California's Central Valley. I have a Bachelor's degree in English Education, and I had just completed student teaching and the credential program at a CSU with my teaching credential in English and Health Science. I thought I was ready.

I wasn't ready. Oh, I knew plenty about literacy, language acquisition, learning styles, special populations, instructional strategies and lesson planning. But there are a few other things which I wish someone had told me before I got started.

Well, now I know. If you are also a new teacher or plan to be one, I'm sure you could figure these things out the way I did. But I'm a teacher; my goal in life has been to inform and educate others. So allow me to inform you of the most valuable lessons I've learned over the past year.

1. Learn how to use the copy machines. Ask your support provider or department chair or other veteran teacher who likes you to show you how to use the Rizo and Xerox machines. And not just how to make copies. Find out how to turn the machine on and off. Find out where to put the paper and where to get it and if certain kinds go in certain drawers. Learn how to print transparencies and double-sided pages. Learn how to replace the ink or toner and master roll and which direction to insert them. This is stuff you need to know, and you will figure it out eventually, but you don't want to be figuring it out at eight o'clock in the morning when you need to make two hundred copies by 8:15. Besides, an older teacher can probably show you how to do it all without getting ink on your clothes.

2. Now that you know how to make copies, get it done. Early. Do not wait until the morning that you're going to need the papers to do the copying. In fact, don't even do it the day before. If you need handout for Friday, copy them on Wednesday. Run off Wednesday's homework on Monday. Because if you wait, every machine in the staff workroom will be out of order when you need it. Or there will be five other teachers, who got there before you, all waiting to use the one working machine. Even if all the machines work when you plan to use them, you won't be able to because a parent will call. I know it won't last. You'll be getting everything ready early for the first few weeks, but by the middle of the fourth week, you'll be permanently behind schedule. But the longer you can stay ahead of the game, the less depressing it will be when you fall.

More advice to follow...