ABSTRACT
As I begin my 26th year in education, I reflect back on my first year of teaching. I was hired at an elementary school after the school year had started in September. My interview was on a Wednesday, I was hired on Thursday, and I had three short days to get my classroom ready for my new group of third graders, all who were coming out of other overcrowded classes. Parents were either going to be happy their children got moved or mad they got moved. It turned out to be a good year. I didn’t get fired. I learned a ton, both about teaching students and about teaching parents. I stayed too late, too often, but mostly, I learned that a teacher’s job is never done. After three years, I began teaching Reading Recovery, an intensive training that has, thus far, taught me the most about teaching reading of any training or schooling I’ve done since. In the last 25 years, I have taught in California, Florida, and North Carolina. Teaching at PK Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida prepared me for having teacher visitors from around North Central Florida observe in my classroom almost every week. This became a regular practice that kept my teaching top notch and quickly built my confidence. When you and your students are doing great things in the classroom, you welcome visitors because you don’t have anything to hide.
