Your classroom should be a place where students can learn, and you can teach. That’s it. End of sentence. The Myth of the Perfect Classroom When I was a beginning teacher, my impression was that the perfect classroom should include: The quiet room. The benevolent dictator. (me, of course) The perfect decor. The perfect students. This was reinforced by what I learned in college, what I saw in the rooms where I was sent to observe, and in training videos I watched. Why New Te

For new or struggling teachers: Begin with a reward system. How this works: Evaluate the situation you will be in. Are students going to need a lot of behavior modification or just positive reinforcement? If you don’t know, talk to a teacher who has been there to see if they know what to expect. If no one knows what you're talking about, begin with positive reinforcement and add more supports if the students arrive acting like feral monkeys. Remember that you are rewardin

If you're a new teacher, you probably took a class or two where you learned to write multi-step lesson plans for every activity. If you're an elementary teacher, you may have been expected to write enough of those plans to fill a small novel every week. One reason many new teachers burn out and leave the profession is that they spend hours and hours working, only to get up the next morning and do it all over again. According to research from the Center for American Progress,

One of the biggest reasons new teachers burn themselves out is that they plan from the bottom up. They look at a standard, create a detailed lesson for that standard, then repeat the process hundreds of times throughout the year. Before long they are spending hours every night creating elaborate lesson plans and still feeling like they are falling behind. Most veteran teachers do the opposite. Instead of writing a number of pages describing your philosophy of education before

Here you will see the previous tips from weeks' past. We are launching this website in June 2026. June 1, 2026: "You're not going to be perfect. I think of it like this: I'm a middle school English teacher, not Jesus. If I was Jesus, I'd sit at home all day turning water into wine. - Karen"

If you spend enough time in teacher spaces, you will hear spectacular parent horror stories. The kind involving accusations, bizarre demands, midnight emails, and enough drama to fuel an entire Netflix miniseries. Those stories exist. They are not the norm. One of the biggest mistakes beginning teachers make is assuming every parent interaction is going to be a battle. Most parents are simply trying to advocate for a child they love, sometimes skillfully, sometimes awkwardly,

This is a continuation of the earlier Part 1 post. This is a common issue that can absolutely drive teachers up the wall. You scan the room. Everyone else is ready. One student is clearly not paying attention. You ask them to take out their book, already frustrated because you’ve said it twice and written it on the board. Instead of reaching into their bag and taking out the book, the student remains completely immobile and announces, “I was taking it out,” in a tone the teac

Not everything we say is interpreted the same way by every person. The same is true for students. Often, there’s a big gap between what a student believes they are communicating and what the teacher actually “hears.” That gap can be influenced by age, culture, communication style, or neurodiversity. Students aren’t always trying to be rude, defiant, or disruptive. The key is figuring out where the communication broke down. Let’s look at a few examples. The “I’m not late!” con

It's all about the attitude This set of pictures is more for subs, and is a bit over the top, but it does illustrate how easy it is for a teacher to think everything is great because they don't have anything to compare it to. Understand Your Students Build Relationships, Not Walls Attitude is key A quick review of how to and how not to interact with kids from ages 4-18 Take aways: 1. Your attitude is more important than the student's attitude 2. It's not personal Specifics