Category: new year

Be the change, new year, reflection

What I Wish I had Known My First Year

Pernille Ripp
Another school year is about to start and I am bursting at the seam with new ideas for better learning in my room.  I look back on the two short years I have taught and think of how far I have come already, imagining what I will look back upon in 20 years.  I see success and I see failures and it leads me to think of what I would have done differently had I known what I know now.

  • I would have questioned grades sooner rather than working so hard on averages only to change my mind come report card time.
  • I would have learn to reach out faster to co-workers and particularly veteran teachers that could have steered me in the right direction many times.
  • I would have given up the notion that I must know what I am doing at all times.
  • I would have given up on the teacher lectures and let the students talk more.
  • I would have embraced the noise more rather than futively signaling for quiet – who learns in total silence anyway?
  • I would have pulled down the awesome board and declared all of my students to be awesome each and every day.
  • I would have realized that it is ok to feel overwhelmed and it is ok to not take a huge pile of work home with me once in a while.
  • I would have realized that great learning doesn’t always come from all worksheets or even written work.
  • I would have let students work on enrichment if they had mastered a concept, why beat them over the head with it?
  • I would have given myself a holiday from being perfect.
I would NOT have changed:
  • The incredible passion I feel for my job every day
  • The deep love of my students and their whole being
  • The way I connect with students through sharing our lives together
  • The ability to try new ideas and also know when they suck
  • The reflecting over my failures (but I would have let go of the useless beating up of myself over them)
  • The amazing feeling of responsibility and awe I have over being placed in charge of kids
  • The belief that i can change the world through these kids
  • The love, the love, the love
Happy first days to everyone
Be the change, expectations, new year, students

What I Won’t Do on the First Day of School

Pernille Ripp
Ahh, teachers in America are getting excited, nervous, anxious now that the first day of school is inching ever closer.  People are sharing classroom photos, ideas, as well as posts on what they intend to do on the first day of school.  These always give me such inspiration for change, such as this one by the fantastic Larry Ferlazzo, but I started to think, so what do I not want to do on the first day of school?

This year, I promise my students to not:

  • Sit behind my desk and wave at you, but instead be in the hallway, smiling.
  • Expect you to put everything away and stay organized, after all, learning can be kind of messy.
  • Hand you a folder with paperwork to fill out so that I can get to know you better.  Real community comes from conversation.
  • Give you a list of my rules; we will make expectations together.
  • Welcome you to “my room,” it is our room!
  • Talk about all of the homework you will have, instead I will share the great knowledge we will uncover.
  • Tell you how you can earn rewards; no stickers, stars or trinkets in here – knowledge is our reward.
  • Pretend that I know what you are going to say or only partially listen; you are my focus and will be the whole year.
  • Run to the teacher’s lounge and share stories about those kids that I have.  Instead I will share just how phenomenal this year will be.
  • Pretend that I have all of the answers or am the absolute authority in the room; this is a journey we take together and you get to teach me as well.
  • Hide that I am nervous.  I don’t know you either so, of course, I am nervous.
  • Tell you how to get an “A.”  Learning is not about grading, it is about learning, so grades will not be a main focus.
  • Second-guess everything I said or did; I will trust in myself and hope you do the same.
  • Be afraid to try something you suggested; after all, what is the harm in trying?
So ask yourself, what do you not want to do on the first day of school?  I am sure many more ideas will pop into my head.
Be the change, new year, reflection

Go Ahead; Lose Yourself

Pernille Ripp
This post is inspired by a comment left by Susan, a new teacher, on my post “Do You Dare to Look in the Mirror”

Dear Self,
This year, allow yourself to lose the pointless homework, lose the percents, lose the monologue and for sure, all of the packets.  Feel free to lose the dioramas (wow, I hate dioramas), the stilted book reports, math pages that are beside the point and insane expectations for kids that are trying so hard.  Lose the F’, the D’s and any other letter that comes to mind, and the averages.  Lose the raising of eyebrows over late work, the percent deduction, the phone call home, and the threats of failure if work isn’t turned in.  Lose the “my room” and let it be “our room.”  Let go of black and white and invite in some gray.  Lose the insane motivational posters that just clutter your walls.  Let go of a desk for every student, lose the need to organize them as you do your supplies.  Lose your inhibitions, your fears, your need for privacy.  Lose packaged lessons, and old ideas, or at least the ones that do not work.  But never lose your excitement, belief, warmth, or your heart.

building community, collaboration, new teacher, new year

If You Have One Hour with a New Teacher…

Pernille Ripp
We’ve all been there; arms full of papers, books falling out of our bags, and so many questions that we hardly know what to ask – ahh, the plight of being a new teacher.  Or at the very least, a teacher switching schools, or jobs, or grades.  So who do you turn to, where do you find those elusive answers that will make you sleep more easily at night before the big show?  And mostly, which answers do you really need?

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with a great friend from college who just landed her dream job in a 5th grade classroom.  Previously she has taught as an ELL teacher but had the opportunity to switch jobs and switch schools.  Prior to our meeting, I asked my PLN what I should share with her and had some fantastic responses.  So here is what I thought was important.

  1. Sign up for Twitter!  If you need to know why, read this post or read the Innovative Educator’s fantastic blog on how to use Twitter.
  2. Start a classroom blog; Tumblr or Blogspot are just fine – my classroom blog is is well visited by parents and they love how everything is accessible to them.
  3. Start a professional blog for your own reflections, this can even be tied in with your PDP and you will be amazed at the thinking you end up doing.
  4. Meet with teammates, ask questions but don’t forget yourself, after all, you will be teaching your own class and must be able to stand behind what you teach.
  5. Think about a morning and afternoon routine, or coming and going routine if you are non-elementary.  I explain and establish this on the 1st day of school and it sets the tone for the rest of the year’s expectations.
  6. Reflect on your hidden rules of your classroom.  We all have pet peeves, figure your out and then share them with your students!
  7. Come up with community building projects.  Although curriculum will need to get started quickly, make sure you have opportunities where the kids are engaged in something creative to establish trust and excitement in your room.
  8. Send home an introduction letter to students and parents.  Give them insight into you and your classroom.
  9. Don’t waste too much time on your hallway bulletin boards.  Spend the time in your classroom instead, setting it up for great learning and collaboration.  Cybraryman has a wonderful webpage with great resources for how to set up your room to boost learning. 
  10. Laugh, joke, smile, and most importantly be yourself!  You were hired because you were a great candidate, so go in there and show it.  Curriculum will be taken care of but those first few days set the tone for the year so have fun with it!
I know there are many more important ideas to add, so what would you tell a new teacher they should focus on?  What did I miss?
Be the change, classroom expectations, new year, reflecting

A Promise to Me

Pernille Ripp
Yes, summer has just started and yet I am already thinking ahead to the coming year, perhaps because I am unable to enter my classroom at the moment due to its newly waxed floors. So I plan and prep from home and meanwhile get more and more anxious/excited about the new year. This year is my 3rd year teaching and I am ready to shake things up so these are my promises to me.

I promise to not be bored. The last 2 years I have stuck to what my team members have taught and developed and it honestly made me complacent. The lessons are solid but not my style, so this year, I am doing it on my own; out with the old and in with the new. After all, if I am not excited about the lesson, how can I expect the students to be?

I promise to not be scared. I have many ideas screaming for attention and every year I take a cautious step with one or two of them. This year because of my PLN and its support I have 100’s of ideas that all want to be tried. So I am going to try as many as I can without freaking out about the loss of control. So what if the lesson fails, at least I tried it.

I promise to be true to myself and reveal the techy geek I am. Sure, my students know that I like technology but not just how deep that love runs. So this year, we will make technology work for us. No more using computers just to type on, I am ready to get them sucked into the world of innovation just as I have been.

I promise to be quiet and listen, well sometimes anyway. When you have a lot of ideas like I do it can be hard to not want to share them.In fact, I can be like that annoying lapdog that barks and barks until you pet it. I have learned the hard way that sometimes people don’t want to hear about new ideas, and although confounding to me, I have to accept it. So I am not going to throw my ideas in someone’s face but try to entice them to come to me instead.

I promise to have more fun. Being a new mom and a new teacher can feel like you are carrying the weight of the world. But you’re not, you just feel like it. So I promise to loosen up a bit, not get so freaked out by deadlines, and continue to joke around with my students. After all, it is your personality that might just make them listen to you.

I promise to embrace the year no matter what it brings. I love to control everything; maybe that is why I am a teacher. So this will be the year that I learn to trust my students more and let them take some of the control. This is supposed to be a learning journey that we embark on, not a down-to-the-minute planned march.