My Struggles in Elementary & How I am Overcoming

Welcome educators! Before we get started I want to share an amazing free tool I have available to you. It is “The Ultimate Guide to a Successful School Year”. 

In this guide, I walk you through how you can take those nervous jitters to have undeniable confidence throughout the school year. All because you started with these basic steps in the guide.  To download the guide go to myadventuresinesl.com/ultimateguide. 

We are going to start off today’s episode with your reflection question.  How well do you handle change? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer yourself honestly about where you stand. 

Last year in the middle of the school year, I made a huge decision and made a change. Three months after having a baby, I transferred to a different school district and started teaching elementary. You can imagine the shock of transferring in the middle of the school year. If you are like me and underestimated how much of a change this would be let me give a quick overview. 

I had to pack up and move (AGAIN), set up my room (AGAIN), remove the previous teacher items, meet and establish relationships with the students and teachers, and on top of all this I was trying to juggle being a new mother. 

It was also really difficult leaving my coworkers, friends, and the students. There were times during this transition where I felt very sad and even guilty for transferring schools. I genuinely loved working at my old school, but I knew the time had come for me to move on. 

When I arrived to teach elementary school, I encountered some unexpected road bumps. 

One of the struggles that I encountered was explicitly teaching phonics. In middle school, students struggled with how to read but never explicitly taught phonics. I immediately saw this was an area that I needed some support in, so I asked could I attend a reading training. The school let me attend, and I can say with certainty that my teaching has changed for the better.

A second struggle was more of an elementary culture shock. That culture shock is how chatty elementary students are during class. Coming from middle school I would have thought this is a dream, BUT it is off topic chatter. Initially, I just tried to ignore it and then embrace it. I then had a light bulb moment that I needed to address. Now when a student raises their hand and wants to talk, I ask them if this is about what we are learning. After a while, students started to keep their thoughts on topic. For next year, I am thinking I am going to have a lot clearer expectations about staying on topic. 
A third struggle that I am having transitioning to elementary is the amount of prep-work. This school year I have five different grade levels. This is one of those situations where I had to take my own advice. I am overcoming this struggle by teaching the same standard/skill across grade levels. A recent example of this is a compare and contrast lesson that I did with the students. In grades 2-5, I had them do a compare and contrast lesson. I differentiated the book and the steps depending on the grade level. 

Some of you all right now might be going through a transition or are thinking about transitioning. If so, I want to encourage you to give yourself grace. 

Have you ever had to transition into a new position? If so, how did you handle it?

You can download the transcript here.