302. New Teacher Training Series Part Nine: Building Your Confidence as a New Teacher

Hey there, this is your host, Dr. Laurie Friesen, and you're listening to Episode No. 302 of Beginning Teacher Talk. Just because you're a beginning elementary teacher, there is no need for you to struggle like one. I'm dedicated to being the mentor for you that I wish I had when I first started teaching. In this podcast, we talk about all of the behind-the-scenes stuff about teaching you really need to know, but didn't learn when you were in university. And we share the most amazing resources, tips, and strategies out there. So you can become the teacher you've always dreamed of being. Let's start the show. Well, hey there, my friend. Welcome to Summer. Oh my gosh, I love this time of the year. It's such a beautiful time of the year. Although I have to tell you, we are living right now in Chicago. For those of you who are new to the podcast, you don't know, but we've been in Chicago for this past year. My husband had a life-changing double lung transplant. He had lung cancer, and he was part of this incredible study where he got to be sixth in the world to get a double lung transplant for lung cancer. So we moved our whole lives to Chicago for the year. We sold our house in Lexington, Kentucky, and now actually we wrote a book about why I wrote a book about our experience doing that because we're not doing the move, but doing the whole double lung transplant. It was such an incredible feeling like otherworldly experience for us. And we can't wait to tell the world about what that was like and how much hope it's giving to people around the world who are struggling with all forms of stage 4 cancer. I mean, oh my gosh, you guys, I cannot wait to tell you that story. I know you're not here to talk about lung cancer or cancer, but cancer touches everybody's lives. I just wanted to kind of throw that out there. I'll be sharing more about that book as we get it out into the world and it's been an incredible year. So because we moved to Chicago, we're now getting ready to move away from Chicago again. So anyone else who's moving in the summer, I completely feel for you. It's a great time to move because it's the easiest time with the weather being great, but holy cow, like everything gets uprooted, right? So we have a little condo in Florida, and that's where we're going to move to, and that's where we're going to rest and rejuvenate and figure out next steps where we're going to be. So if you're in the throes of moving or if you're setting up a classroom and you're thinking about all the things, it feels like moving, right? You're setting up a whole new space. My heart is there with you. I'm in it with you and all the new teachers that I'm supporting inside our Academy Facebook group. I get it. It's a lot of work. It's a lot. But guess what? If it's your new classroom, if it's the first time you're doing this, you will only ever have to do this once, like create everything once, and then you will have the major pieces created. And even if you have to pack it up each year, you will have all of the major pieces created. So if you're doing a lot of work on that right now and you're setting up your classroom or you're planning to set it up, just know it does get easier. All right. So we are in part nine this week of our new teacher training series every spring and summer. I'd love to do this to support new teachers as they're getting ready for their first years of teaching. So today, we are going to talk about building your confidence as a new teacher because we all know Holy cow. That is one of the things that can be the most challenging when you feel like every day, everything's new and it's hard to feel confident. This has been such a fun series for new teachers. We're again, like in part nine today, but we've talked about so many great topics that I really do get asked about all the time by new teachers, including we've talked about setting up and reorganizing your classroom, how you can choose a beautiful and inclusive classroom theme. We've talked about class jobs, I recommend we've talked about how you can prevent challenging behavior. I mean, yes, kids have changed and this is another thing that comes up a lot. Of course, kids have changed, especially post COVID parenting styles have changed, but the foundation to a strong classroom management plan has not changed. You need the same foundation, how we apply that plan and the different nuances of it. The contours of it are going to be different because kids are coming to school with deficits that they didn't come to school with before, so we're going to talk about that too. We've talked about how to make the transition from student to teacher so you can have a long and sustainable career in teaching if that's what you really want. We talked about the most common questions I get asked when teachers are trying to decide if ready for school academy is a good fit for them. Last week, in part eight, we talked about six ways that you can get ready for school academy for free. If it has been something on your heart that you really do want to join the academy, but you haven't been able to afford it, go back and listen to that episode because we talk about different ways that you can get the academy paid for for you. We'll link to all of those episodes for you in the show notes in case you missed any of them and you want to catch up. Today, we're going to talk about another topic that I am asked about so many times and in different ways, right, how you can build up your confidence. As I've worked with and supported hundreds of new teachers inside the academy this summer, this is one of those topics that comes up again and again, which is, again, entirely natural because any time you're new at something, it's going to be challenging to feel confident in that new thing right away. We're going to talk all about it. Before we kick things off, have you entered our beginning Teacher Talk summer contest? I love contest. Okay, so every year, I love coming up with creative ways to gift ready for school academy and my membership to teachers. The classroom management club is my membership. This year, we're hosting a really fun contest that I hope you'll be a part of. Here's how it works. There are four simple steps to enter the contest. You just use a Google form, which we'll link to for you. Basically, you just follow me on Instagram, provide your IG handle so I can find you. You comment on the IG post that I'll link to for you on the Google form. You'll leave your raving review for my book if you've purchased it or for the podcast if you don't have my book, you don't have to buy it. And then you just submit a one or two minute video telling other teachers how my work has helped you. This is how we get the word out to other new teachers. So you can talk about or not just new teachers, but all teachers are on the world. You can talk about, I hope, full the podcast has been so you don't have to have bought anything from me. You don't have to be part of one of my programs. You've just not just. If you've been a podcast listener and that's the only thing that you know about in my world, you can talk about that. If you've purchased my book, you can talk about how helpful that has been for you. If you're a member of ready for school academy, you can talk about that and how the academy has been especially helpful for you or, and if you've been a member of the classroom management club, you can talk about how and why that has been helpful for you. But you, again, don't need to be part of any of my programs to enter to win. And we're going to be announcing one lucky winner on Friday, July 19th. And that winner will have their choice of either a ready for school academy scholarship or a one year membership to the classroom management club. And again, if you've already enrolled in either the academy or the club in your art winner, I will reimburse you for what you've paid for the academy or for the club. Well, link to where you can enter that contest in the show notes for this episode, episode number 302. And if you haven't already signed up for my free master class, it's there for you. How to get ready for the school year in five weeks or less. Be sure to reserve your seat now. It's at drloryfreezin.com/ready, dr-l-o-r-i-f-r-i-e-s-e-n dot com forward slash ready. And if you have any new teacher friends who you think would benefit from that class, go ahead and share that link with any other teachers in their first, second, or third, or tenth year of teaching, especially if they need to change schools or grades. If they need a more streamlined and organized way to prepare for the school year, that class is going to be perfect for them. So again, we'll post that link for you in the show notes for this episode, episode number 302, if you want to check it out and reserve your seat. All right, my friends, let's talk about it. How to build up your confidence as a new teacher. All right, hands up, any one of you who spend a lot of their time, if you're a new teacher, like you've been in student teaching, feeling like you had no idea what you're doing half of the time. My hand is raised. For my first year teaching, I literally felt like I have no idea what I'm doing. Like if they knew how incompetent I really felt in my own head, they'd be like, yeah, what should we really have hired her? And you're not alone if you're feeling that way. So if you're like fresh out of college or maybe you're transitioning from another career, feeling confident, especially in that first year, but honestly in the first few years can be really challenging. So if you're feeling that way, please know it's totally normal. You're not alone. If you're feeling like this, we're going to talk about and share very specific strategies and examples to help you start the year strong and feel more confident. So the first way to build your confidence is by developing a strong classroom management plan. I'm telling you, classroom management is foundational to feeling confident as a teacher. So let's break it down into some easy to follow steps. The first step is to establish your clear rules and expectations. If you're part of my academy, this is like, you've heard me say this under times. I want you to get clear about what your non-negotiables are before you begin the year. Then you can involve your students in the process of illustrating what those classroom rules look like and feel like to them throughout the day in your classroom. So that not only sets clear expectations, but it fosters a sense of community. So I really encourage teachers, even if you want it, I mean, of course you should involve your students in the process of talking about the rules and talking about what that looks like and feels like throughout the day. But I really encourage teachers to get clear before you start that first day about what your non-negotiables are. What do you need in your classroom space to ensure everybody stays safe? Then involve your students in what does that look like in our classroom? What does that feel like in our classroom? So start the year with a class meeting where you discuss the kind of classroom environment everybody wants, right? You can say let's brainstorm what this rule looks like in action throughout the day that will help us to create a respectful and fun learning space. Write their suggestions down on chart paper, let them brainstorm in small groups, and then narrow it down to make sure that you have four or five essential rules. And that approach usually ensures that students feel real ownership and that they're more likely to follow the rules because they've been part of it. You probably heard me say this so many times in the podcast, kids support what they help create. And so if you've got these rules already established and then you talk about how everyone is involved and important in clarifying what these rules will look like in our classroom, you're going to get a lot more buying with your students. Now, the second thing I encourage you to do is develop consistent routines. So as I always say, if you need to do something on a daily basis in your classroom, you need to routine for it. So you can start your day with a consistent routine that includes like a welcoming activity, maybe a quick journal entry, a fun question of the day. Some teachers like to start the school day with bins, like call it a soft start so they just let the kids do little centers around the classroom. Inside the Cluster Management Club, I give you social and emotional learning morning work that you can do with your students every single day as a way for your students to practice understanding what your class rules look like and feel like throughout the day and throughout the year. So I really love that way of starting the day because I think a lot of kids are coming to school with a deficit in social and emotional learning skills. And I think that's a way we can fill that gap and a way that we can give kids those skills without taking a lot of time during the day. So that's just one way that I recommend starting the day. Whatever you do, you need a routine, a consistent routine for starting the day. We always followed our morning work by a quick morning meeting where students can share something positive or interesting about their lives. If you're doing the SEL morning work, kids have a chance to talk about what they've just written about. And I love giving kids daily opportunities to think and talk about what they would do in regular classroom and life interactions, again, to build those skills up in the deficit that they currently have. So like maybe you just saw your friend cheating on the test. What would you do? And then just as importantly, talk about the consequences of their choices. The kids can begin to connect the choices they make to the consequences for their choices because I think that's a big, skilled gap that we're seeing in a lot of kids these days. Now whatever kind of morning routine you create, having a clear step by step routine that you've taught your students, help students settle in, know what to expect. That's a predictable environment, right? You want to create a calm and positive and predictable start to your day. And again, you'll need a clear routine for anything that your students need to do on a regular basis. And here's the thing nobody talks about. Clarity builds confidence. The clearer that you get about how you want to run your classroom, the more confident you're going to become, right? Confidence is a byproduct of taking action. Now one of the third pieces of a strong classroom management plan that I always talk about and there are more, but I think this is key I really want to talk about, positive reinforcement. I really encourage you to implement a whole class reward system to celebrate good behavior, to practice that habit of doing all of the good things that you're asking the kids to do. Using a caught you being good jar filled with marbles that students can earn for positive actions by helping a classmate or following directions promptly. When the jar is full, you can celebrate with a class party or extra recess time, something that the kids have voted on that they want to earn. You can say things like, I saw Jamie helping Sarah pick up her books today, Jamie Adam Harville to our jar. I'm so proud of you. Thank you so much for being such a great part of our classroom community, for being such a big helper in our classroom. So it just motivates students that also builds a culture of positivity. And when you see your students following all of those expectations that you've established, that's going to build your confidence, right? Again, you're building a beautiful classroom community. You can only feel good about what you're creating. Now the second way to build confidence is about building relationships. So building those strong relationships with your students and with your colleagues from the beginning of the year is essential for creating a supportive and confident teaching environment. Now I know you're getting tired of people telling you, build relationships, build relationships, but it really is the point of being in a classroom with children, right? It's about establishing connections with them. If you don't have a connection with the child in the first few weeks of school, if you don't establish that connection, if you don't establish that relationship, you're going to be fighting them all year long, right? And we don't often think about this when it comes to building confidence, but you'll become increasingly confident the more you feel connected to your students and to your colleagues, which you're going to talk about as well, because you'll have someone to talk to when you have a rough day. When you take the time to build up those relationships with your students, especially in the first few weeks of school, you're going to feel more confident and more connected to your kids. And you can help prevent challenging behavior as a result. As we talk about all the time inside the classroom management club, when you have built relationships with kids when they are calm, when they're regulated, when they feel a connection to you, it's much easier to connect with them when they become unregulated or upset because they know you care, right? Because you're not just asking them to do things because you want them to do things. They know you care about them. If they know it's not just because you want them to do stuff, they're going to be much more willing to listen because they know you care about them. If you think about anybody else in your life, you're going to listen much more carefully to people who you know care deeply about you. So the first way to start building confidence as a new teacher is to get to know your students. I want you to spend a few minutes each day talking to different students about their interests, about things outside of school, about their hobbies, but just make sure you use a first-name checklist to keep track of which children you've really been intentional about building connections with so you can make sure that you get to every student so you don't miss anybody. I give you a lot of examples and templates for ways to connect with your students inside the Ready for School Academy, and I love using literature to do this, by the way. But for example, you can create all about me posters at the beginning of the year where kids will share their favorite things, their family, their pets, their hobbies. And that way you have insight into who these kids are. Pay attention. Pay attention to what matters to them and start building connections around that and where you can incorporate their interests, their hobbies, whatever it is that's interesting to them into your lessons whenever possible. And I know you have a set curriculum. I did too. I know that you have a lot of things that you need to cover. I get that. But whenever we can make connections with kids in their personal lives in any way possible, it is going to make a big difference for you. Something we did in my classroom was on Fridays, we did special celebrations of every student. Again, I teach you how to do this inside the academy. But every Friday, not every Friday, but many Fridays throughout the year. It would be a special celebration just for one student. And it was so cool how much it bonded our class because we got to know about each other more than just what they share at school. We got to see more about their lives, what they like to do outside of school. We learned about their families, we learned about things that they loved, and it really helped to build that feeling of connectedness with our class. Now the other thing is just during quiet reading time. Make a practice of noticing what your students are reading, what they're interested in. You could just sit with a student again, just keep a check list of who you're connecting with. And ask things like, "I see you like dinosaurs," what's your favorite dinosaur? Why do you like that one so much? Just show your students that you care about them as individuals, and that will help to build trust. How does that build your confidence? Remember, the more connections you can make with your students while they're regulated, while they're calm, the more they're going to want to be able to, not want to. The more they'll be able to connect with you when they are unregulated when they're upset. Now the next thing I want to talk about when building your confidence is setting in place communication practices with parents. So there are so many ways that you can set yourself up for success with parents in advance, but doing this work is exactly how you build up your confidence, because once you're clear on how your classroom will run, communicating that to parents becomes so much easier. Right? You're going to feel much more confident communicating to parents when you've taken the time to understand how you're going to run everything in your classroom. And you can begin lots of patterns of positivity by letting parents know in advance that you're going to be sending home positive notes or emails home about each student within the first month if that's something that you've decided to do. Or use simple templates for quick notes, like today I noticed and then serve the students named Timmy, really focused on math and helped a friend understand a problem, ask me all about it. Like those kinds of little questions or little notes home to parents can really help to build those connections, or you might write, "I wanted to share that Emily has been a great helper in class this week. She's doing a fantastic job." Ask her all about it, right? That builds a strong support system and positive communication with parents. And the more that you can do that proactively, whenever there is a challenge, if they do come to school and they're like, "You know, they've got a problem with something," you've already built that relationship, you've already laid that foundation. So managing those conflicts becomes that much easier. Your confidence is going to soar, it's going to feel like you can manage things that much easier because you've done this pre-work. Now, the next thing that really helps you to build your confidence is collaborating with colleagues. I really encourage you to start taking action on this, be proactive, start looking for ways that you can get involved and contribute at your school. Don't wait for people to come to you, don't wait to get asked. You can join a teacher's group or committee at your school, volunteer, attend meetings, share ideas, get involved, you know, contribute. Look for ways to connect by just asking your colleagues to share their expertise. Like, I'm looking for new ways to engage my students in reading, does anyone have any suggestions? Or just pop into a colleague's classroom, I used to do this all the time, just as an excuse to connect with some of my new colleagues because I didn't know them very well, and I just let them know like how much I love their bulletin board or whatever. It doesn't have to be huge, you just need to be intentional about connecting, you need to take the risks yourself, you need to put yourself out there. If you're shy, I know it's hard, but I've been a new kid at a new school for years and years and years, I don't know if you know what my dad was in the Royal Canadian Mount of Police, we moved like every year or two, and so I had to be the new kid at school every single year or two. So I've learned that you cannot wait for other people to connect with you. The way that you're going to feel more confident about your interactions with colleagues, the way you're going to start feeling more connected and more a part of the fabric of your school is by you taking action, you doing the small things to make those connections. You could collaborate on a cross grade project where older students read with younger ones. I know we always had book buddies. That was, if you've heard me talk on the podcast many times about Lorraine, that's how we first connected. Lorraine became one of my amazing teacher mentors in my teaching career and we began as book buddies. She was teaching sixth grade, I was teaching second grade and we had our kids meet for half an hour every week and I had her, her kids helped my kids with reading, but her kids were learning great skills in empathy and compassion and helping younger students and also a lot of her struggling readers in sixth grade were getting valuable reading practice. But that built a connection. So for that half an hour every week, Lorraine and I had a chance to connect, which was so valuable for me. That built my confidence up as feeling like I was part of the school and that not just helps with reading skills like I mentioned for kids, but it builds a sense of community within the school. It helps you build your confidence because you're creating that network of support for yourself to help you through those challenging spots when you need it because when you've had that weekly connection with another colleague, it makes it that much easier to go to them when you have a problem or when you need advice on something. Now the third way to build confidence especially as a newer teacher is to invest in your professional development. So however you can do that, ask for, you know, especially if you're at a new school, ask your admin what types of money is available or funding is available for workshops and conferences and then look for local or online workshops that are related to classroom management or new teaching strategies. When you need a way to connect and get support for example in classroom management, that's exactly why I created the Ready for School Academy and the Classroom Management Club. I'm always hosting free classes online to introduce you to my areas of expertise, but you can sign up for webinars on all different types of topics like differentiated instruction or integrating technology in the classroom and you'll often be able to get PD hours for attending those. And then the second thing I encourage you to do to help build your confidence is to not be afraid to ask for feedback. So ask a colleague you trust or your mentor if you have one to observe your class and to provide constructive feedback. This was invaluable for me when I was a new teacher. You could get very specific though in what you want to ask for advice or support in. So you might say, "I'm working on improving my transitions between activities. Can you watch my class and just give me some tips?" And then after the observation, don't be afraid to bring up like specific moments where you're feeling insecure, like, "I notice the students are restless during my transition from math to reading. What can I do to make that smoother?" As I always say inside the classroom management club, small daily changes over time is exactly how we make huge improvements in our classroom. Because those small daily changes, weekly changes, add up, right? If you consider over 30 weeks of school in your classroom, if you made one small change every week, that can be astronomical in the impact. And we make these improvements in our classrooms our confidence source. Students is a byproduct of continually taking action towards what you want. And then I really encourage you to continually reflect on your practice. I know this is something we hear a lot about as student teachers and then we're like, "Who has time for that, right?" But it doesn't need to be complicated. Even just taking a minute at the end of each day, just scan your lessons, jot down what went well and what you want to improve on. Because you won't remember later, right? But just doing that will help you make big changes in your classroom over the period of a couple of months. So right about specific situations like today, my lesson on fractions didn't go as planned. Next time I'll try using more visual aids, right? Like just put a note in there for what you want to try or what you want to add in. And at the end of each week, just review what you wrote, look for patterns, and go, "Okay, this is an area of growth," or, for instance, "I've noticed students are more engaged when I include more hands-on activities, I'm going to try and incorporate more of those next week," right? But here's a thing, building confidence as a new teacher takes time. It takes effort, so please be patient with yourself. These are small things that you can do to start giving yourself that confidence, to help build that confidence week after week. When you do this, if you stay committed to it, you're going to start feeling a little more confident every week, because you'll start to realize that you actually have more control over the positive changes you want to make in your classroom than you might have thought at first. Just keep taking action, keep refining your practice, and most importantly, don't give up. It's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to learn from them, just like you retell our kids all the time. That is how we learn. Teaching is a journey, everything is new to you this year, you're not alone. Reach out and ask for the help that you need from a colleague, from someone at your school, and if you can't find that support there, join our classroom management club, or if it's still summer when you're listening to this, join the Ready for School Academy. Don't try to figure this out alone and don't suffer in silence. Alright my friends, if you found today's episode helpful, please subscribe. Please share it with your teacher besties. It's how we get the word out to other teachers around the world, it's how we help to grow this podcast and keep it going. And then join us next week, because next week is part 10, the last and maybe most important part of this series, how to manage your mindset as a new teacher. We touched on some of this today, in terms of building our confidence, but this is going to be such a good one. So until then, be sure to participate in my beginning teacher talk, summer contest, we're going to link to the Google form where you can enter that contest. I'll be announcing one lucky winner on Friday, July 19th, so you still have time to enter. That winner will have a choice of either the Ready for School Academy scholarship or a one-year membership to the classroom management club. And again, if you've already enrolled in either the Academy or the club and you're our winner, I will reimburse you for what you've paid for the Academy or for the club. So we will link to where you can enter that contest in the show notes for this episode, episode number 302. Alright my friends, I hope you have a wonderful week and as always remember, just because you're a beginning elementary teacher, there is no need for you to struggle like one. Bye for now. (upbeat music)