What advice would you give a first-year
high school teacher?
For people who are starting out to be high school teachers, the number one thing that I would suggest to them is that they be very patient. The first couple of years of teaching are difficult. You are not very good at classroom management; well most people are not very good at classroom management. You have to put together your lesson plans and it takes an unbelievable amount of hours and it will seem like you are not succeeding very well. But in the second year, it comes easier and you notice you are better and you start enjoying it more, and in the third year, even more so. After you’ve done it for a few years, you really enjoy the job. It becomes something that you ease into. That doesn’t mean you relax. You still work to produce and create new things but the amount of work is not staying up until midnight every single night and getting up at 7 every morning like you do when you first start. So it’s "Be patient" because it’s going to get better.
