Letter to Myself

Dear Scott,

Here is the deal, you are about to learn a lot over the next few months. The first thing you should know is that you are not nearly as prepared for all of this as you might think that you are. I strongly suggest that you take a good amount of time to really sit down with the books that you will be teaching and delve into them thoroughly. This isn’t to say that I didn’t read them or anything, but genuinely look at the stories and really develop where you want you units to go as you read.

Next, develop your lesson calendar as completely as possible as early as possible. I did so for our freshman and it made the semester go by much more smoothly, even though some things changed as the semester went forward (know that this is going to happen frequently and that it is ok when it does). For the seniors, however, I kind of developed the lesson a bit more on the fly. While this has worked out just fine, it has resulted in some very stressful evenings.

Another warning that I have for you is that your students are not going to ask you what homework they are missing or what their grades are until you near the end of the semester. This is crunch time for them and they’re ready to see what all they need to do to pass your class. Don’t wait for them to begin asking. Stay on top of your grading as best as possible and hand out progress reports whenever you get the chance to do so. I have been doing this more and more lately and it seems like most of my students are starting to be more cognizant of where they stand and are starting to buckle down and get a lot accomplished. While this is great, just make sure to do it all semester, as opposed to the last half of the semester. With that, make sure that when you do hand out progress reports, you are ready for the onslaught of students coming at you for make up assignments. Have handouts printed out and ready to go on these days (this has been my biggest problem all semester, don’t let it be yours).

Lastly, and related back to some of the first advice that I gave to you in this letter. Make sure that you have a point for each of the lessons that you teach. Allow your lessons to come together in a culminating activity, project, essay, test, whatever you decide for it to be, that genuinely makes sense when related back to the topics that you have discussed. These discussions that you do with your students are going to go great, but allow them to mean something for them. Allow those great discussions to be more than filler. There is a lot of great stuff there, I’m fairly pleased with where it is ending up right now, but let it happen for you.

Scott, just make sure that you enjoy yourself and are relaxed as possible out there. You are going to get along just fine with most of your students and, if you treat them with the respect that they deserve, they are going to love you. Don’t let that opportunity pass you by, as the more they like you, the harder they are going to work for you. Let it happen.

Sincerely,

Scott