Message to a first year kindergarten teacher

Kiley Finkbiner is not going to get much sleep tonight.

She probably needs it because she has a long day ahead of her tomorrow. She has to get up early, get dressed, get ready, and drive six miles to her new workplace.

That's the easy part.

After that, she has to deal with a group of (shudder) kindergarten students, as she begins her first year as a teacher at Granby Elementary School in the East Newton School District.

It is also the first day of school, of course, and no matter how many years you are in the profession, no matter how confident you are in your teaching skills, no matter how much preparation you have put into your lesson plans and the things you are going to tell your students, you will never have much luck getting sleep on the first night back.

So I am expecting Kiley will only be able to enjoy a few hours of fitful rest tonight.

I don't know what inspired Kiley to join the teaching profession (as far as I know the only teacher in her family is her uncle, the old grouch who is writing these words), but I admire her for having the courage to enter a profession that continues to be under attack, one which after November may no longer be able to give her tenure even if she is able to excel during her five probationary years.

A couple of years ago, I offered some advice to another beginning teacher, my former Diamond Middle School student Stephanie Taylor when she started her career at Carl Junction. Whether it did any good or not, I don't do, but the same advice holds true today:

-No matter how trying the day, make sure you get something positive out of it. Perhaps it is a child’s kind word, a conversation with a colleague, an assignment completed on time by a habitually tardy student, it doesn’t matter what it is, but on those bad days, and they will come, take home something positive.

-Don’t be a loner. That is the hardest thing for me to say, since like many people who love writing, I am used to doing things in a solitary fashion. I have been fortunate enough to have teachers who have reached out to me and helped drag me into being more of a social human being (though I was often screaming and kicking)

-Don’t be afraid to ask for advice- Teachers love to share, whether it is with their students or their colleagues. Any thing that you are going through, they have either gone through themselves or have seen how others dealt with the situations.

-If the children were acting up in your class, odds are they were acting up in every class that day. We all have had those days when the children seem wound up in every one of their classes. They don’t just turn it on when they enter your classroom and turn it off when they leave. In other words, you are not alone in the battle.

-If you make a mistake, admit it. Students always remember, and not in a good way, those teachers who would never admit when they were wrong, even when it was quite clear that was the case. If you scold a child in front of his peers and it turns out you were wrong, don’t take him out in the hallway the next day and apologize. The mistake was made in front of the class; therefore, the apology should be in front of the class. Teachers are not perfect and no matter how it seems sometimes, parents and students are not expecting perfection, just caring and professionalism.

-Don’t panic if your lesson plan doesn’t go exactly as scripted. Some of life’s greatest lessons are learned when the unexpected lends a hand. As long as you are in control, learning will take place.

-Love what you do, even when some of the bureaucratic nonsense drives you up the wall. Remember that not everyone goes to a job that offers the reward of knowing that you are making a difference in the world every day.