Are you a first year teacher? Maybe you have just come back from a leave and are facing a classroom teacher position for the first time in a long time. Are you looking at other classrooms and other teachers and thinking, ‘Wow! I don’t know if I can do that!”
Let me set your mind at rest. You can.
However, your classroom and routines may not look like this for a little while until you settle in and sort out your own ‘teacher personality’ and ways of doing things. Just think about serving up plain steamed veggies and leave the cheese sauce until next semester or next year. The students will receive their nourishment and will be exposed to the curriculum. Your lessons will be basic yet interesting. You will have engaged students but just without the pizazz of the other classrooms – for now. Your pizazz is on its way!
As you work your way through your first day, first week, first Staff Meeting, first Parent/Teacher Meetings… as you tuck the first Assembly and first Science experiment under your belt… as you journey through the first unit in each subject and find your way through the day to day routines, just remember you are doing great because you are serving the students a good education, it’s just that you are serving the right content with a little less ‘Wow!’ – just for now. Your Masterchef days are ahead of you. Just give yourself some grace and get the basics right. Later your cheese sauce will enhance the excellence of your solid foundation.
‘What does this look like?’ you ask. Well let’s say you are introducing grid co-ordinates. You imagine a beautiful large co-ordinates grid made out of cloth. You sit the whole class around it with their fruit snack. Each student chooses a box to place their snack and you proceed to teach about the letters across the bottom and numbers up the side as a way to locate each snack. So, you need some material.
You can go to Spotlight and take a lot of time to create a calico grid board 1 metre by 1 metre. You can sew up the edges and use puff paints to carefully draw the grid lines, label the sides and even make a cute bag for it to be stored in. You could do that. It would be a great resource, colourful, durable and reusable from year to year. Such creativity and talent. Your ‘cloth co-ordinate grid’ would be the attraction of your teaching block. Definitely the cheese sauce to your steamed veggies co-ordinates unit, right!?
Your homemade grid may be the star attraction, but it will have taken a lot of time, effort and energy to create. Time you could have been using to look over the next week and collect the books from the library that relate to your HASS unit. Or you could have been looking ahead at the lessons you will be teaching in the Science unit and really getting a deeper understanding of what they will look like when you deliver the introduction next week.
So, here’s the steamed veggie alternative without the cheese sauce. A good quality, basic lesson. You take a piece of chalk and draw the co-ordinates grid on your carpeted floor (don’t worry it comes off very easily). Remember to check out the students’ faces when you do this, priceless! They won’t believe you’ve just drawn on the carpet. Usually, I show them how it rubs out effortlessly and it puts everyone at ease. If you don’t have carpet, take the class and the chalk to the undercover area or basketball court or large concrete area and draw your grid there.
It takes five minutes and you can teach the same lesson. All you really need is just a large grid. You can have the steamed veggies with cheese sauce lesson or you can opt for the plain steamed veggies lesson. Either way the lesson is taught, with a large grid. But when you opt for the basic, excellent plain steamed veggies lesson you are left with precious time in your time bank for something else on your priority list.
Now, I am not saying that you have to go without cheese sauce all year. Just pick and choose. If you have the time, go for it. Usually, first year teachers are focussed on the basics and could do without any frills for now. They will come. Just down the track.
The next time you are concerned and ask yourself, ‘Where’s the cheese sauce?’ Just remember it’s coming. Right now you are focussed on excellent basic foundations. You will have a solid place to put your cheese sauce soon. Give yourself some grace, space and take the pressure off. As long as your lessons develop the concept and engage the students you are well on your way to becoming a cheese sauce teacher.
So, repeat after me… “Steamed veggies are nutritionally valuable and are just as worthy as steamed veggies with cheese sauce. My excellent basic lessons are just as worthy as the steamed veggies with cheese sauce lessons that are on their way.”
Breathe. Relax into your new calling. Believe you are meant to be here. And get the basics right for now. You’ll be so glad you did. And so will your new Masterchef self next semester or next year!
