Stories From Novice Teachers

Stories of Beginning Teachers offers insight into the challenges and triumphs of beginning teachers, presenting both research findings and case studies on the challenges faced by new teachers. More than twenty categories and five hundred specific examples of potential problems and issues are cited in Part 1 of this book. Armed with such useful information about the most frequent, serious, and persistent challenges, Roehrig, Pressley, and Talotta assert, a young educator will be better prepared to teach and more likely to succeed. Part 2 contains stories of the teaching experience of participants in the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education. Included are nine vivid stories of the struggles and successes of new teachers reflecting on their first year, as well as sixteen shorter summaries of the daily lives of beginning teachers. Reading this book, a novice teacher will better understand student motivation, student learning, human development, classroom organization, classroom management, assessment techniques, and the administration of schools.

"...authors Lisa Scherff and Mike Dana provide tremendous insight for administrators and mentor teachers in understanding the needs of new teachers from real-life experiences. What comes across clearly is that a 'one-size-fits-all' approach will not work; new teachers need differentiated, individualized support and attention. Stories from Novice Teachers: This Is Induction will provide schools and districts with thoughtful guidance to review and revise their concept of induction programs for new teachers."-Vicki Stockman, director, staff development. The School District of Lee County Florida --

Teaching is a lifelong challenge, but the first few years in the classroom are typically a teacher's hardest. This expanded collection of writings and reflections offers practical guidance on how to navigate the school system, form rewarding relationships with colleagues, and connect in meaningful ways with students and families from all cultures and backgrounds.

A critical resource for pre-service and practicing teachers, this book addresses what happens when new teachers try to enact inquiry-based and dialogical pedagogy within standardized schools. Exploring the narratives from beginning ELA and humanities teachers when they encounter challenges and obstructions, this book explores moments of wobble—key events that called attention to practice in the context of inflexible schooling systems—that the teachers shared with their peers via an oral inquiry process (OIP) to help them unpack and understand their experiences. This book advocates for the continued use and enhancement of mentoring and induction initiatives, particularly those that recognize the expressed concerns of novice teachers, no matter what their pedagogical stance might be. By sharing novice teachers’ "wobble stories" and their outcomes, this book provides a pathway for teachers’ continued self-reflection and growth for the duration of their careers. The authors offer a reflective, adaptable, and easy-to-use process that places teachers in control of their own professional learning. The beliefs and structures examined in this text support the intentions of all teachers who work from a learning-centered perspective and wish to take some ownership of their professional development.

The experiences of the first years of new teachers’ professional lives are critical to their decisions about embracing or leaving the teaching profession. Writ large, these experiences have the potential to either underpin or undermine the growth and development of the teaching profession. This book offers a research-based account of beginning teachers’ experiences, told from their own perspectives and often in their own words. Beginning Teaching: Stories from the Classroom provides valuable source material to inform teacher education practices. The authors draw on more than 20 years of research on the professional learning, retention and attrition of beginning teachers to provide evocative illustrations of the challenges and successes that occur in the early years of teaching. The compelling and coherent narratives will appeal not only to student and graduate teachers but also to program designers, coaches and senior managers in schools. Above all, the book speaks to teacher educators in the hope that the experiences discussed here will suggest ways of supporting student teachers to grow and flourish once they launch their careers in the profession. These evocative stories express beginning teachers’ anguish and elation and also provide testimony to their resilience and perseverance in an altruistic profession. The analysis and interpretation of their stories will challenge and uplift; inspire and shame; give cause for celebration and melancholy; generate empathy and provoke introspection. Above all else, these stories call for change.

Inspiring to teachers of all experience levels, this guide uses humor and insight to show how to teach with daring, while growing through risk, reflection, and revision.

“Whether you are new to the profession or in need of a reminder why you entered it in the first place, Stories is a collection of vivid, heartfelt, eye-opening recollections” -Tamera Cruz, educator “This book is a gift ... not just for educators, but for everyone!” -Kenyon and Taccara Martin, co-authors (Soul-Ties Personal Growth Collection) After 23 years as a teacher, coach and counselor, California educator John Smeby offers us Stories from the Classroom. Set in a city emerging from bankruptcy and still recovering from a 2015 terrorist attack. John uncovers a more human, compassionate side of San Bernardino that many might miss. In this down-to-earth, sometimes heartbreaking and often humorous collection of stories, he recounts both the struggles and victories he found inside the classrooms and hallways of Cajon High School and beyond. Whether you are (or have ever been) an educator, student or parent, Smeby’s journey will resonate with unflinching honesty. The anecdotes and stories he shares offer a unique look inside our educational system, both public and private. A teacher will often see a student seated at a desk. In Stories, John challenges us to look beyond the student, and recognize the human being within. “I would like to thank you not as a student to a teacher but as a friend to a friend. I will forget little by little my high school experience, but I promise I will never forget what you have taught me “–Juan Andrade, former student

"Weird Al" Yankovic's new tale of Billy, the irrepressible star of the New York Times bestselling When I Grow Up, is an uproarious back-to-school delight. Dazzling wordplay and sparkling rhyme combine in a unique appreciation of the rewards of unabashed originality and the special joy of viewing the world gently askew.

Invested Stayers: How Teachers Thrive in Challenging Times features chapters co-authored by PK-12 teachers and postsecondary teacher educators from across the U.S. that reflect how they persist, remain, and thrive in the teaching profession. Premised on the idea that co-authors are colleagues and mentors to each other, this book conceptualizes contributors as invested stayers in the education profession. Chapters feature how particular catalysts, or landmark changes in education, have been productive sites for growth, agency, and even resistance across the arc of contributors’ professional lives. The book recognizes that teacher educators and teachers persist because of multiple and overlapping factors between our professional and personal lives, including the relationships we develop with each other as colleagues and mentors in our professional learning. In the public sphere, PK-12 educators increasingly face challenges that limit their ability to initiate their own professional learning. In this book, we considered what might occur if educators had space and time to write together and reflect on how they’ve persisted. These authors narrate themselves as invested stayers who invite personal and professional growth through inquiry, creativity, and innovation.