When you’re the young new teacher lady, certain things are easy and certain things are hard. Easy because you’re fresh and excited, and no one has thrown one of your pencils on the floor. 

You haven’t heard phrases like “This b**** thinks I’ma do this worksheet,” yet.

Or had kids leave little love notes on your calculators like this. Circa 2015 AHS, Classroom A23

You have ideas and the energy to do them! Or you think you do at first. That’s where the hard parts come in. 

Being an old-, yet new again teacher has been quite the experience so far. It’s always weird to be the new guy at work per say, but weirder when it feels like you just moved classrooms. 

MY TEACHERLY BACKGROUND 

I started teaching in the 2012-2013 school year as an intern with co-teach Algebra classes as well as a few resource rooms. Ironically writing now I’m realizing this was actually my first “AHS” and there would be two more to come. 

Back then, everything was new and scary. Trying to get things done, trying to fit in, not rock the boat, not upset admin, not upset my mentor, and also not upset the union. There wasn’t a lot of balance in my life at that point. 

There were a LOT of tears. A lot of late nights. A lot of well planned, poorly executed lessons. 

I felt new every single day. 

AND THEN SHE WAS A REAL TEACHER LADY 

Certified. 

This is a very expensive piece of paper.

I went on to substitute teach for a bit, loving this life more and more. I fit in well enough at each school to thrive and learn, but it was at my new job where I would find a long term home. 

DREAM JOB 

Walking into my interview and mock lesson, I would never have known that this was it. I honestly thought I bombed my interview, and my lesson felt too plain to win. 

I think they knew from the sparkle in my eye– she’s it. This will be her home base, and she’ll shine here. And it was, and I did. 

I found my second “AHS” and committed to my first long term, full time teacher lady job in the 2014-2015 school year.

Solo. My classroom. The fate of the actual world in my hands. 

At that job, I still needed my mentor teacher so badly, yet I was too young and nervous to know how to use that resource and ask for help. Anytime I was asked how I was doing, I would snap right back, “I’m great!” And what does everyone say at work? Come on– “living the dream.”

While it was the dream, it was not easy at first. I treaded water. I stayed afloat. I made it through the week. Then made it through the weeks. I graded all of Sunday. I came in at 6:00. First one in the building. Last one to leave.

I cried AT my new teacher friends on lunch. I cried WITH my (also brand new teacher) work wife at my apartment after school, I cried on top of lesson plans we needed to reprint. 

Man, some days as a brand new teacher were hard. Some days were years. 

Your first years as a teacher are so hard and having my first solo classroom was a trip. 

Again on one hand it was the absolute most wonderful experience and accomplishment to date, but damn what a difficult journey I was starting. 

Don’t get me wrong– I loved every minute of my classes, and I still know all those kids’ names… your first few classes are just different. Special. They stick with you. 

They leave you messages after being SO annoying all day.

I run into a lot of those students as adults when I am in town on Delaware Avenue and I’m not sure if they remember their Algebra packets, but there’s so much love there. “My teacheerrrrrrrrrrr!” a once was student and kiddo of mine (now an adult) who still yells that same phrase down the road when I see her.

This one may be my favorite message I have found over the years “Ms. Williamson knows everything about being awesome.”

Starting over, a lot is new but a lot is the same. 

SAME SAME 

The love for my classes, how I feel in the classroom, and all of those pieces of me that scream TEACHER LADY! Those are there the same and they’ve never changed.

My current classroom: I still love creating a classroom that feels comfortable and tidy, conducive for learning. I work to keep it like this because it’s a happier space if it’s organized and we aren’t constantly in chaos looking for things.

I’m damn good at making something fun-ish because “Guys, it’s still Algebra and we have a Regents.”

In fact, starting over this part of me has come back harder and in full force. I was blessed with a few months off between coming back to the classroom and I think that part of me was deep down, hiding and hibernating from the stress. 

Now I am putting the FUN back in FUNCTION. 

“Lights! Camera! ALGEBRA!” as I used to say.


Come on– you wish we were your teachers.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT  

Balance. 

I had no balance as a new teacher. I gave up on a lot of things I love to do my work and to keep up. I wasn’t giving to myself as much as I really needed to. 

I was a BURN OUT MAGNET! 

Every single week long break from school was spent partially catching up on work, and the rest just melting like wax. I needed that because it felt like I didn’t have the space to breathe during the week. It felt like I was drowning so how could I possibly feel okay putting time into myself? 

Now, I know that putting time into myself, in fact, makes me a BETTER educator. It means I come to work my best self. I come in excited and happy. I share that joy with my students. I tell them about my work life balance because they are young people, who need to learn that, too.

My classroom now is filled with balance, for myself, and also my students. I am a model for caring for yourself and being your best self. That is pretty damn cool if you ask me. 

I use a lot of the tools in my classroom for social emotional learning because if you’re aware you’re burned out, or tired or whatever you are feeling, you are more equipped to know you need to make a change towards more balance.

Priorities

When I first started, I truly didn’t know what to do first. There were SO many things that needed to get done and knowing that, I often just froze on my prep periods. I whittled away my time on my phone, scrolling, and mentally disconnecting from work for a few minutes between classes. I was tired because ironically, I was taking my work home. I was SO tired from working that I couldn’t work. 

My classroom was suffering in energy because I was spreading myself too thin. I was working all day in a way, and not working enough in other ways. 

I didn’t know what really needed to NEEDED TO get done immediately. I didn’t know what I could hold off on. 

I did what admin wanted, not what my kids needed! I helped coworkers with things that were not prudent, instead of busting ass during the work day, so I didn’t have to work late hours at home. 

Certain things felt whatever to me, but THEY WERE THE IMPORTANT THINGS. Attendance for one– that’s important. I mean, of course it is, but it didn’t feel as important as other things we were being asked to do at the time. Now attendance seems easy, like it’s a no brainer to do it… but you forget and that’s a huge deal. A safety issue! 

I would leave it until the end, and you think a young twenty something had a decent memory, but you try getting home wiped out at 6PM and trying to remember all the tiny (and sometimes larger than you already in 9th grade) humans you’ve seen that day. It’s hard! 

So I would mess up on priorities. I would get the “bad email” which contained all the names of the people who didn’t do the thing they were supposed to do, whatever that was. Then I would have to sit in the horror of the entire teaching body noticing my name on the bad list. 

Y’all even adults don’t want to be on the bad list. 

Now I know what to focus on. 

I balance my priorities. Because you have to know in education, and at any job really, that you need to shut it down and have some time to yourself. You need to leave work at work, like you leave the game on the field. It can’t consume your every waking second, even if you do love it and want to do the best while you’re there. 

Now I know my priorities to focus on at work. I get done what I need to. My class is awesome and I’m not on the bad email lists. And if I do end up on the bad email list, I simply fix it. I do the thing. Then I go home proud because I’m a great teacher and that’s just not always the focus of the paperwork.  

Boundaries 

As a young teacher, I had the most trouble with boundaries. I didn’t know when to say no, even though I was running out of hours in the day to get things done. 

That didn’t matter. I said ‘yes’ to every single thing. When you’re new, you want to show that you’re excited and you want to show that you have all these other things to offer besides just your teaching.

The thing with schools is there’s a lot of moving parts. There’s always work to be done if you want it. In my first couple of years, I took on a lot. The thing about taking something on one time is that you don’t realize you’re actually taking it on forever. That’s how work is. All jobs. 

When you are the person to step up and do something, often, you’re the one who’s going to do it next year, too (unless you sucked at it, and even sometimes then).

In my first couple of years, I set so many precedents for things that I would do outside of my normal responsibilities that it became hard to get my normal responsibilities done.

CHOOSE THE EXTRA MILE YOU WANT TO GO 


Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t sign up to do anything extra. The thing is to just be mindful about what you actually want to do long-term. For example, progress monitoring systems is my thing. I did research on it in graduate school and now I’m just very good at it. When it comes to the extra thing, for me, I put a lot of work into what I choose now, what my heart is truly into. 

The thing is by saying no to other things, I’m giving myself the space to be great at what I’m doing instead of being mediocre at a lot of stuff, and spreading myself too thin.

NEW OLD TEACHER LADY

I have found my home in my third and last “AHS,” a new old teacher lady, making better choices but still going in every day with my heart wide open, a forever learner willing to work hard. 

New Kid New Kid! This is me on my first day at AHS.2

A NOTE TO THE NEWBIES

New teachers, 

My little brothers and sisters ❤ 

Good luck on the best journey of your entire goddamn life. Seriously. 

Enjoy the journey, you’ll get better if you work hard, I promise. 

Try not to be a burnout magnet. 

Love your kids and classroom first. 

Admin come and go, but your teacher friends are your life line. Choose wisely. 

Your kids are always your priority, not the newest initiative and paperwork.

But also if you can manage, try to do the newest initiative and paperwork. 

You have to work somewhere within the lines to make change, too. 

Above all else: Balance. You can only give the love out you give yourself. 

Love,

The New Old Teacher Lady