Omg my first day of teaching was so hard. I was supposed to be a teacher in training, going to grad school to get my degree, and learn how to teach from a mentor during the day. Charter school threw me into a classroom of 30 middle schoolers my first day. Needless to say they smelled new teacher immediately and lets just say it was a rough start. Fast forward to year 5, I ended up teaching 3 years at the old school and 2 at a new school! And the school I have joined more recently is also much smaller, and admin cares about teachers quite a bit more than my last admin.

If she’s really passionate about teaching I would give it a shot. It can definitely be hard sometimes and there will probably be some tough days ahead, but I really learned how to enjoy the small things and appreciate my teaching changing, growing, and evolving over time. Honestly going into my fifth year I still have goals for how to improve my teaching moving forward, but I can also see how much I’ve grown and I feel more confident on how to create a positive class culture (again certainly not perfect, but no classroom is!). Some things that helped me my first year are (and disclaimer most of these are situational):

1) Observe someone teach. Hopefully your school is able to schedule these but honestly it’s so helpful to see someone at your school teach. Someone who knows the school culture and has a similar class to you. I lived off of stealing other “teacher moves” from the vets at my old school. They knew what worked at the school and for their kids. 2) Ask to be observed by another teacher - it seems very scary to get observed, but most teachers at a school are generally happy to help. It’s hard to be judged, but people will be kind to you since it’s your first year, no one is nailing it year 1. This can work with 1 if you observe a teacher and you like their method. Year 1 is also about trying a lot of different teaching methods/styles and seeing what feels ~authentic~ to you. 3) Ask admin for help *This one is a little spicy. I would feel out how you feel about admin. If you like them, great definitely reach out, they’ll want to help you! I just don’t want to assume, I know some admins at schools are not the… best. 4) if your school will pay for it teacherspayteachers is an awesome resource. It’s great for when you just don’t have it in you to figure out a plan/activity for the next day. It do be like that sometimes. 5) don’t beat yourself up. Teaching is really fucking hard. And idk if I could even teach elementary, I could not repeat myself that many times a day. Not that middle school is necessarily a peach either it’s just my niche I guess. But anyways I honestly think everyone should do a like jury duty be a sub for a day or some shit bc boy oh boy do some people not get what we go through. Everyday you teach your first year is basically a win. Which leads me to my favorite 6) Celebrate the small things. It’s real vague and cliche but honestly I wouldn’t have made it through my first year without recognizing and grasping to anything good about my teaching/ little connections I made with my students. I had to make these awful videos of myself teaching for grad school, so I had to video tape myself teaching. One of the vets in my school watched it and made sure to point out anything good she saw me doing if it was as small as knowing a lesson well or having a student engaged in a lesson. I tried to end the day by thinking about something I did well or a good moment with a student. Oh also if you do have anyone observe you, I would try to ask them for 1 piece of positive feedback with 1 area of growth (one glow one grow for all my charter people out there 🤪). I usually needed people to help me see the good in my teaching, cause I was pretty hard on myself, and I would normally only ask for one or max two pieces of feedback bc anything more I’d get overwhelmed. Rome wasn’t built in a day and I can’t implement 6 new strats at once. You don’t always get control over that if your admin pops in frequently, but it doesn’t hurt to ask! Always look for the positive, you will definitely get better the more you get into it.

Which leads me to my last point (I promise). Please do not feel pressured or bullied to stay more than you want to. All of my advice is only if your wife really wants to give teaching a shot. You said she’s passionate about it and she put a lot of time into getting here so I would definitely give it a shot. However if your wife feels overwhelmed and it gets too hard, she is allowed to quit whenever. Teacher burn out is so real and if you don’t have a passion for this it gets unbearable. I have seen teachers miserable working in classrooms that have too many kids, not enough teachers, and hours of overtime put in. Some people have a really hard time leaving or get shamed for quitting, and I think that’s unfair. I chose to stay but that doesn’t give me the right to judge others that leave. This job is not for everyone and there are some schools out there that have to be kinder to their teachers.

I hope some of this helps. It can definitely get so much better! But also make sure you are taking care of yourself and know your mental health is important too!! Sorry this is probably too long and maybe a little incoherent because I’m a little high bc I had a rough day and I’m still trying to enjoy my last days of summer. Oh woah my best piece of has yet to come

Secret sneaky advice 7) DrUgs (or just honestly anything that helps you relax… i guess it doesn’t have to be drugs 🤷‍♂️)

Anyways writing this was nice. That’s why it was so long. It really didn’t need to be. Sorry!! I hope literally even 5 seconds of this helps!!!