I Probably Wouldn’t Have Blogged During My First Year Of Teaching.

Note: This is the first email in the Disillusionment Power Pack series – a one-month series of emails that will come every three days or so to get you through this month. It’s only for people who are having really bad days right now, so you have to sign up to get it.

I probably wouldn’t have blogged during my first year of teaching. That year was defined by a constant sense that I was the weakest link, so I would never have had the courage to share my low points with the world.

I would have been too afraid that people would offer gently-phrased suggestions for improvement, like, “Why don’t you try setting high expectations and creating a positive, data-driven, student centered learning environment where all children can learn regardless of their background. That’s what I do and all my students come to school excited to learn! Also, my students respect me. Maybe we can be thought partners and deep dive into the issue of why you are the type of person that children don’t respect.”

Most of all, I was afraid that all of them would be right.

For better or for worse, there is no good way to “out” yourself as a bad teacher your first year. We hide behind expressions like “steep learning curve” that do not begin to capture what it feels like to feel like you are failing at the important job in the world.

If I were writing this my first year I would have ended up focusing on resume-like accomplishments, success stories, or at least taking great pains to show that no children were seriously harmed and I had learned an important lesson.

What I most needed to hear from during my first year was a future version of myself – someone who kept teaching in spite of these moments and became a great teacher – or at least a good teacher with moments of greatness. This was what eventually inspired me to write See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers, in which teachers from around the country share the lessons they learned the hard way.

But even in the book, most of the stories are anonymous.

The Disillusionment Power Pack is my small experiment in over-sharing for the first-year versions of myself. It includes records of my worst days as a new teacher, including pictures of journal pages from my first year so you know I’m not making anything up.

I don’t send these posts out to most of the people on my mailing list, nor is it one of the posts you’ll find when you scroll through my blog. It’s only for people who are having really, really bad days right now.

If that’s you, you can sign up here to receive the Disillusionment Power Pack – a one-month series of emails that will come every three days or so to get you through this month. And, as you’ll see in the next email, that might be all you need.

(c) Roxanna Elden