Things I wish I had known before I started teaching

Some of the things that I will talk about here might seem frivolous, but they are the things that I wish I knew before starting work in August.


Simply put, I wish I knew how to correctly complete all of the personnel paperwork that I was bombarded with during New Teacher Orientation. To a certain extinct, some of the paperwork was confusing and I felt as if I were signing my life away. I was quite embarrassed when I confused the cafeteria plan as an actually plan that I could buy for lunch. All of the insurance information was lengthy and confusing. I wish someone had told me how much time it was going to take to decide on a vision plan or a dental plan.
I wish that someone had told me that just because I matriculated through the MS public school system, that schools were different. I wish someone had told me that 14 year old children do not consider themselves children at all. Some of them, in fact, are parents or taking care of younger siblings. I wish someone had told me that the ramifications of segregation has a strong hold on the community in which I teach. I wish I could have been  better prepared for the fact that the children I serve are so deeply entrenched in poverty; but are sadly unaware of the dire situations in which they live.  
I wish someone would have told me how to play the game of politics with my administration. I never realized how much of myself I would have to bury in order to please the people for whom I work. I did not realize that so much energy goes into pleasing and impressing adults. If I could focus all of that energy on my students, I would be a great teacher.
I wish that someone had told me that some parents will not come to the school to check on the children. Nothing has hurt my feelings more than when I call a parent for support and the parent says that they have given up on the child. I wish someone had told me that this is common and that I should get used to it.
I wish someone had told me how to better accommodate my IEP students. I often struggle with not being able to give them the service they deserve. It is unfair to those students that the school system is not equipped to give these students the education they deserve. The bureaucracy of the system makes accommodating them nearly impossible.
I wish someone would have told me that I would be so physically drained from this job. As the year goes on, the days seem to get longer. Meetings and after school sessions cause me to be at school well beyond the end of the day. Sometimes, I am the first person here and nearly the last to leave. I wish someone would have told me that overextending myself would not matter at all. I cannot see the difference that the extra time is making, but I continue to do it with hope that students will improve.
I wish someone had told me that I would care so much for people who care so little. That I would fight for students that have no one else fighting for them. I wish someone had told me that children lash out because they need someone to be a champion for them. I wish someone had told me that I could not save all of them, because I had convinced myself that I could. 

I wish could be professionally developed on...

At my current school, we have a Professional Learning Community meeting every Tuesday and Thursday. The topics of these PLCs have ranged from "Text Complexity" to "How to Deliver an effective Closure." I have been professionally developed on the topics of school improvement plans, differentiating instruction, blah, blah, blah. Many of the sessions are meetings in which my principal or other administrators tell the teachers everything they are doing wrong in an area. I never feel professionally developed at all.

I feel that my weakest area is assessing student progress. I am not consistent with testing them every week or two weeks. I have a hard time with making accommodations and remediating students. I am yet to receive professional development in the areas that I struggle most.

I think that I would better serve my students if I knew how to assess them properly. I also feel that I would be able to enhance my instruction if I had data to drive that instruction. Our district gives 9 weeks exams. I know that the students have struggled because I am failing them in using the data throughout the 9 weeks in order to better prepare them.

I wish I could be professionally developed on how to better serve my advanced and IEP students. They gave me the IEP which tells what the student's level is, but no real instruction on how to teach the child. I find it difficult to differentiate and keep up with all the paperwork and planning that goes into teaching the special needs children.