Ask a Teacher: How Long Does it Take to Get Good at Your Job?

Q: How long does it take to get good at your job?

A: “One more year than you’ve been doing it.”

Teaching is easily the hardest thing I have ever done. Allow me to elaborate. Theoretically, it is easy. Find a subject you love. Learn a lot about said subject. Become good enough at said subject to obtain a bachelor’s degree in that subject. Decide for some reason that life will be incomplete if you cannot share this subject with young people. Return to school to obtain masters degree in education of said subject. Impart knowledge and wisdom to the bright young minds of the youth of today. Be adored by generations of students.

Somehow, it doesn’t actually go like that. People go into teaching for all different reasons and in all different types of ways. They work in big schools and small schools, urban settings and small towns, almost-college-aged students to little toddlers who confuse their teacher for their mommy. Each of these things presents its own set of difficulties that you just are not equipeed to deal with until you do.

I often equate teaching to driving. You can practice with your parents, you can read all the books issued by your state’s department of motor vehicles, you can watch other people do it, you can take driver’s ed, but you won’t even begin to be good at it until you start doing it on a regular basis by yourself.

I went into teaching through a nontraditional certification program. The city I work in needed science teachers, I needed a job. With my month old bachelor’s degree and a belief that I could do just about anything, I took a crash course in the summer on “how to be a teacher.” And when I finished this summer program, I thought I had it all figured out. The people in the program were experienced educators, they showed us how to make lesson plans and various management techniques, I’d practiced and modeled and student taught. I was ready.

Yeah, right.

Armed with a plan for the first day of school, I faced my eighth graders. I had a great day. My college roommate picked me up from my first day of teaching, and asked me all about it. I was excited and enthusiastic about how great it was going to be. She then asked, “So what are you going to do tomorrow?” Holy hotcakes. You mean I had to do this again tomorrow?

That first year of teaching was ripe with discord everywhere. I theoretically knew how to handle things, but I had no idea how to actually implement these techniques. I understood all the science, but trying to teaching hysterical 13-year-olds about rocks eluded me. I was 22 years old standing in front of 14-year-olds wondering why I was at the front of the classroom instead of behind a student desk. To say it was the worst year of my life is not an understatement. It is a difficult situation to go from being a type-A college student to being a hot mess in front of preteens.

My second year of teaching was simultaneously better and worse. Better, because I could predict what was going to go wrong, but worse because I still did not have the know how to fix the problems. I could look at a lesson I was writing and predict which children were going to throw clay, or try to swallow antacid tablets, but I had no idea how to actually STOP them from doing such things. I could pinpoint where in the worksheet or lesson the students would start acting out and get upset, but I had no idea how to circumvent this. It was like living a constant deja vu or being stuck in the film Groundhog’s Day. I knew what was going to happen, but I felt powerless to stop it.

My third year was better. I had better strategies, I knew my content better, I wasn’t a hysterical blubbering mess in front of the classroom. This confidence bolstered it’s way to my fourth year, where I realized that, if at first you don’t succeed, just teach it again. Flash forward to my fifth year, where my workload was significantly lightened. I could reuse lesson plans. I could quiet a room with a glance. I had learned to circumvent the children throwing clay or talking over me. Theoretically, I had made it.

But not quite. The thing about teaching is, much like your English teacher will tell you about writing, it can always be better. There is always a more interesting way to teach a lesson, a more constructive way to adjust your grades. Especially in the field of science, there are new developments every day. (Right before I became a teacher, Pluto lost its status as a planet. Imagine if I hadn’t adjusted for that?) There are new technologies available that just didn’t exist a year ago. The lessons I taught five years ago could now be adapted to group with with an iPad?

Despite the fact that you gain confidence, build skills, and grow as an educator, the work is never completely done. There is always something that could be better, something that could use more attention. Someone who wants to be a good teacher has to continually change and grown throughout their career to stay on their A-game.

In short, you’re always going to need at least one more year.

Wow, anyone feel sorry for their teachers now?

Related post: Ask a Teacher: Did You Have a Life Before You Were a Teacher?