My Teacher Life

My Teacher Life

Why make your own mistakes when you can learn from mine?

FOREWORD

If you are a new teacher entering the profession or if you are one who just needs some motivation and encouragement, then this could be the book for you! After researching countless books written for teachers, I have found that there are some amazing resource books filled to the brim with useable charts and lists, sporting colorful cartoons and photographs, and providing countless theme units and lesson plans. I could not provide you with a more beneficial or accurate resource book than what I have seen on the shelves already. This book is not about that!

There are "helpful hints" books, providing "step by step" instructions on "how to teach" reading, mathematics, science, geography etc. This book is not about that, either. There are scientifically researched books dedicated to the various techniques used to teach to the different learning styles of boys and girls. Nope, not this one. Finally, there are books of all shapes and great thicknesses, coordinated in vivid color and bound with beautiful coils. Again, nothing fancy here. My book is meant to be quite different!

For lack of a better description, this book is written as a non-fiction, educational self help book that gets "up close and personal". It should cause you to pause and reflect and take a good look at yourself and the career that you have chosen. It is meant to provide you with some enlightening, yet light-hearted reading. My hope is that it will inspire you with the desire to become the best you can be and then to pass that on to children, more explicitly, those whom you teach. It does not provide a lot of well-laid out charts or samples of lesson plans, but it does present useful teaching strategies and the reasons for their success. It expresses a candid view of life’s experiences, both good and bad, allowing you to feel "normal" and "okay" when things go wrong. Please accept my sincerest desires for you to be GREAT and allow me into your life for but a brief time in order that I may convince you of how truly great you are and to point out some of the life-changing experiences you can provide for those children who are anxiously waiting for you.

Had anyone ever decided to plan an Oscar night for teachers, it would have eventually proven an effort in futility. The "categories" rubric would have been pages long requiring a team of experts to document sufficient criteria and headings. The list of categories would have been endless because it is common knowledge among educators and children that those who teach are generally super heroes who can perform almost any task effortlessly and endlessly. The list of candidates would have become astronomical because...how many good teachers are there? Had winners actually been chosen, their acceptance speeches would have been so eloquent and informative that it would be difficult to curb their "time" and begin the music.

The solution, of course, is to let you in on a well-kept secret. "Teachers; you are all worthy of an Oscar." Even though there is no special night and no fancy statue, there is the knowledge that you, the teacher, are doing something wonderful and miraculous in the lives of children by guiding them through a year or two of their journey.

With this in mind, I would like you to sit back and relax as you catch a glimpse into the life of a "born" teacher, one who has always loved children and who has always had a true desire to make a positive difference in their lives.

Let it be understood that I am certainly not the "world expert" on the subject of teaching. In trying to provide positive direction for approximately three thousand students, I have learned a great deal about myself and the art of teaching over the past 30 years.

I continue to love it and would like to share some of my more important learning experiences with you who have also chosen this profession.

I would very much have appreciated the candid written voice of a more experienced teacher when I began my journey into the field of education. I believe that the pupils of my early years would have been spared some of the negative learning experiences that I imposed upon them by virtue of my ignorance.

"Regrets? I’ve had a few - but then again, too few to mention."

This line from Dean Martin’s song has always been one of my favorites. We can’t progress if we dwell upon regrets; we must move forward. By sharing my insights, I hope to help you move forward with perhaps less regrets than I have had.

Have I made mistakes? Too many to remember - but certainly enough of them to know that I have gained a great deal of knowledge and experience from them. That, I have learned, is one of the keys to achieving success.

The secret here is to always realize and accept your mistakes. Be willing to learn from them. Always be humble enough to realize that you are capable of making mistakes just as every human who is in the learning flux does. If you can grasp this, you are in the company of many great philosophers, inventors, world leaders, and the like.

It is a well known fact that we, as humans, learn from mistakes, whether they be our own or those made by others. (Obviously, the latter is a much better way to go.) I will therefore willingly share some of my mistakes in order for you to learn from them and perhaps avoid having to experience them firsthand.

Not only should you understand the "learning from mistakes" fact, but children need to learn and know this! It should be one of the main topics at the beginning of each school year.

This book was written for YOU. It is a compilation of valuable insights derived from many people over the course of my lifetime. It will give you direction, allow you freedom from much of your self-inflicted guilt and shed some insights with true life examples. I share Napoleon Hill’s Plan for Success and how easily it relates to the teaching profession.

I have made every effort to create a multi-faceted book; a reference book at times, a comfort when things are not going as well as planned and a bit of light-hearted entertainment along that wonderful path to becoming the best teacher you can be.

This book is dedicated to the most important people in my life: my husband Dan, who has been my greatest advocate and supporter and who has been influential in providing me with much of the material in this book, my children Ashlie, Jeremy and Rebecca who have taught me about true love, patience and understanding and who have lived through many of my challenges (even creating a few of their own "to help me stretch and grow"), to my good friends and family members who have significantly promoted and supported my profession and encouraged me to compile my experiences in a book, and to my mom who has been my most faithful lifetime friend and often believes in me even more than I do.

Together, they have been the reliable force in supporting my fulfilling, precious career - that of being a teacher.