This is What You Should Do for Valentine’s Day (Pretty Please)
We’re a little more than midway through the 2015-16 academic year, and what a whirlwind it’s been! I bet many of you can hardly remember those first heady days of school – learning students’ personalities, finding your rhythm, making it all work. After years in the classroom, much of it seems to just come naturally. But I remember my own early days in Utah. I didn’t start off as the state’s Teacher of the Year. Some days when I went into the classroom, I felt more like this.
Each year, 200,000 new educators join us as newbies. Many of them have yet to find their groove. They are struggling to keep their heads above water and may even be thinking that this first year may well be their last.
Now’s a great time for you to check in with your newest colleagues. You’ve been in their shoes. Offer them support, show them love, and let them know they’re part of a union that wants them to have everything they need to thrive.
A National Center for Education Statistics study last year said that about 17 percent of new teachers leave the profession after only one year. Some estimates are upwards of 30 percent. As Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University points out, the challenge is not always recruiting new teachers, but retaining current teachers.
Many new educators wish they’d had more training in how to manage their classrooms and they yearn for meaningful, relevant professional development that will give them the confidence we all needed that first year.This is What You Should Do for Valentine's Day (Pretty Please) - Lily's Blackboard:
