New Teacher

I know you asked for advice from teachers but I was hoping to just add a little bit from the parents’ side.

• Communication, Communication, Communication. There can never be enough. Our resource teacher would only make return phone calls. So, if I called her, she would call me back, but that’s it. Then I would hear all of the issues she was struggling with in regards to my son at report card time.

I know, I know, he was not her only student. But the majority of complaints I received at report card time certainly could have been avoided with a quick call or an e-mail.

• Please do not be afraid to be honest with parents. Biting off more than you can chew at an IEP meeting will only cause friction with parents. If you realistically cannot check my son’s backpack every afternoon to make sure that he has everything, please do not tell me that you will. I understand the difference between reality and pleasing a parent. Also telling me that his disabilities are beyond your limits are perfectly acceptable to me. If you cannot help him, please tell me, don’t just let him suffer through the days; I will get him the help he needs.

• Just please know that my (mom) complaining, my insistance and sometimes my whining is not intended to make your life miserable. It is a cry for help from someone who was trained to know more than me about educating my child with disabilities, and many times pure desperation driven by fear and confusion. The children you inherit as you take over have been stuggling with this for quite a while now but it really is only the beginning and you have the power to be one of the most influencial people that touches their life and makes a real difference in how they function and survive in that big, bad world out there.

Best of luck to you. I wish you much success!

Thank you Very much. At this point, any advice I can get is helpful to me. I will make it a point to make communication with parents of my students a priority. I appreciate your statements about the IEP; of course these are quite intimidating to me and I want to make sure any of the items in the IEP are, indeed, attainable and within reason for everyone involved while still holding high expectations for the student.

Thanks again

There is so much to say and so much of it has been said before, often by me.

First, keep your confidence. Get the best information you can and do the best you can, and remember that the best way is generally not the easy way (The easy way is to give them ice cream in front of the video screen, and we all know that’s bad teaching, don’t we?) Hard work won’t kill either you or the kids — not to say you can’t have fun, but succeeding at something difficult IS fun, more fun than anything else. You will be criticized loud and long for doing your job; a lot of people just want the status quo. Do the best you can and fend off the complaints. Remember that learning means change, and you have to make the kids change their habits and do things that are new and not always comfortable and easy, and that is what teaching and learning are about. Be confident that you can make changes and do a good job.

As to what changes to make — spend a few hours reading the old posts on the Teaching Math and Teaching Reading boards here. These are worth far more than any teacher training book anywhere.

Good luck.