See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers

This is the book that will save rookies’ souls when they lose the strength to save their classrooms. With tales from more than one hundred veterans from across the country, teachers everywhere will find themselves laughing, maybe crying, and definitely taking notes. Readers at the toughest schools will be relieved to find a resource that deals specifically with their struggles instead of insisting that all teaching situations are the same. This is the book that will keep the great teachers of the future from quitting before they become great.

Many new teachers have been waiting for someone to break the “stay positive!” code and talk about the parts of the job that make teachers question their career choices. While other books cover the eyes of readers to keep from scaring them, this one asks teachers to be brutally honest about how tough teaching truly is and whether the rewards are still worth it. The answer is yes.

From the author:

I have never understood why so many books for the new teacher show apples and paper airplanes on their covers. In six years of teaching, no one has ever given me an apple. Any snacks students have offered me have come from vending machines, and teachers are not allowed to accept unwrapped food anyway. I have never seen a paper airplane, either. This generation of students knows that crumpled-up-paper balls are faster to make and easier to aim. Some unlucky teachers have had books thrown at them. In at least one case, a teacher was hit in the back with chunks of plaster from her crumbling classroom wall.

Even without serious discipline problems, new teachers often feel like failures. Not only do they take on all the issues plaguing the school system, they cause many of their own problems because of their inexperience. As a beginner, I sat through countless workshops listening to the heartwarming success stories of others. Then, carrying home piles of un-graded papers the night before report card day, all I could think was, “How did these poor students get stuck with a teacher like me?”

I also remember some generous, experienced coworkers who shared their own first-year horror stories. One described a parent who threatened to “f___ (her) up” during class time. Another talked about a hard-working student who was tormented every time he turned in an assignment, and a third confided that she was so overwhelmed she repeatedly turned in the same lesson plan. These stories were not inspirational, but during my first year they kept me sane. These were people who had become top-notch professionals. If their start had been so rocky, maybe there was hope for me.

Roxanna Elden has taught adult education, elementary school, middle school, high school, day school, night school, Saturday school, and summer school. She has stood in front of classrooms in big cities from Chicago to Houston. In short, she has seen it all – including how many good teachers give up too soon and for the wrong reasons.

Ms. Elden currently teaches in the Miami-Dade County Public School system and develops presentations for new teachers in the Miami area.