My first year to teach was the same year that I student taught in 1982—student teaching mornings/my own classes in the afternoon with an emergency certification until I completed the requirements.  I was young, married, and a mother--four years out of college. In addition to the confusion of multiple roles, I was a traveling teacher in a large middle school moving each class period, borrowing classrooms from other teachers during their planning periods. Thank you, Annelle for giving me a shelf in the library office to keep my supplies and personal items and for giving me a place to eat lunch. Thanks to Vickie, Gay Lynn, and all of you who helped me along the way with classroom management advice, instruction for 16-mm and filmstrip projectors, for sharing your great ideas, and for the grace to overlook some of my rookie errors.  I probably wouldn’t be in this business today were it not for your kind support in my early years of teaching.

Why do I choose this time to reminisce?  We’re coming toward the end of another academic year, and it doesn’t hurt to take some time to consider our beginnings.  Who helped us along the way?  What did they do that made a difference in our careers?  In what ways can we prepare to help teachers new to teaching and new to our campus in the coming year? Think now about all of those things you wish someone would have told you, or ways you could have been helped.  And how could you have made things easier for yourself?

I have created a wiki site for our new teachers next year, sort of a bulletin board/chat area that is a safe place for them to write questions or make observations.  This will provide an excellent opportunity for you to share your expertise with more than one person and to let them know that we are a caring community.  Share some of the “hidden rules” if you dare.  We’ll expand to all areas of teaching and perhaps to some other areas as well.  Who knows, some of us with many years of experience might learn a thing or two as well!

Wikispaces requires a login, so I am going to register all of you myself  to get you one step closer to using this valuable tool.  I will let you know how to log in through an email.  Please use this resource; you’ll be helping our new teachers, teachers new to the campus, and maybe even yourself as well.

Click on this link to get to Coffee Talk, a Wikispace just for teachers.  Address:  http://coffeetalk.wikispaces.com/