EDUCATING ESMÉ: DIARY OF A TEACHER'S FIRST YEAR

by Esmé Raji Codell (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2001)

Madame Esmé, as she asks to be called, greets her fifth-graders at the start of each school day holding a big green "trouble basket." She invites her 31 children to unburden themselves of their home worries so they can concentrate on learning. But as this first-year teacher quickly learns, real-life woes aren't so easily dismissed. Some children have parents who beat them on a predictable schedule. Others ache to have someone even notice them. One girl starts each day curled in a fetal position under her desk. A boy who has recently been homeless and hungry eats himself sick on cafeteria leftovers.

Into this harsh world comes Madame Esmé, the product of inner-city schools not unlike the one her students attend. She brings a 24-year-old's hope and a fierce determination that can be mistaken for pig-headedness. The diary of her rookie year reads like a daring adventure story. She must steer clear of the mean-spirited principal and sidestep bureaucratic red tape; maintain classroom decorum while nurturing joy and laughter; bring literature to life for children who struggle to read; teach kindness to those who seldom witness it. Throughout the chronicle, one question looms large: Will our heroine abandon her gifted, joyful, creative approach to teaching before the journey's end?

Codell pulls no punches in this fast-paced book that has proved popular with both novices and more experienced educators. Her frustrations and fears help explain why new teachers flee the field in such startling numbers. She notices bullet holes in her classroom window and begins to worry that her tough-love discipline style might get her shot. She pours her soul into creative lesson plans only to have a curriculum specialist tell her, "You can't possibly teach all you say you can teach." She butts heads with the administration over an issue she considers important only to have her fellow teachers accuse her of being confrontational. In a mid-year entry she confesses: "I've been up in the middle of the night, wondering, Why do I care? Am I crazy? A little, maybe."

But her classroom victories keep her passion burning bright. Readers will feel like celebrating with Esmé when her students get excited about the cardboard "time machine," in which history comes alive. Or when she teaches the cha-cha to make sense of multiplication. Or on the January day when she watches her students concentrate on their reading "so intently, I could hear my own breathing." She writes: "I've worked so hard to get them to this place, harder than I've ever worked in my life, and now it seems they have arrived.... It's that I try and they're trying, that's the bottom line."

SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR NEW TEACHERS and WHAT TO EXPECT YOUR FIRST YEAR OF TEACHING

both by Amy DePaul for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement

These two popular books bring new teachers advice from those who have walked in their shoes — and recently, too. Both books feature comments from award-winning rookie teachers, winners of the Sallie Mae First Class Teacher Award recognizing the nation's outstanding new educators. As author Amy DePaul explains, she lets "teachers speak for themselves" because "no one can match the clarity and veracity of their voices."

Survival Guide for New Teachers, published in 2000, acknowledges that many first-year teachers continue to draw the most challenging assignments. Many new teachers launch into their careers with little more than a quick orientation on school policies and procedures, which DePaul calls a "sink-or-swim approach to induction."

Survival Guide highlights promising initiatives, such as online discussion groups for new teachers facilitated by education professors from the University of North Carolina; school district programs that include mentoring, peer assistance, and other forms of support; and regular staff meetings — for newcomers as well as veterans — with discussions focused on best teaching practices. DePaul organizes new teachers' observations to help other novices gain ideas for working with veterans, parents, principals, and college and university professors.

What to Expect Your First Year of Teaching (1998) is loaded with more tips and strategies for novices. Among the suggestions DePaul has gathered:

• Be consistent — do what you say you are going to do
• Model a love for learning
• Maintain a sense of humor
• Keep an open door to parents
• Maintain respect
• Plan relentlessly
• Set high expectations
• Be flexible and ready for surprises
• Take care of yourself physically and spiritually
• Use innovations in teaching, technology, and rewards

Principals and other administrators can help new teachers overcome the isolation that can break even an enthusiastic rookie's spirit. Among the strategies for administrators: assigning new teachers mentors; making sure they have regular opportunities to talk with other first-year teachers; encouraging first-year teachers to team teach with veterans, or at least work together on planning teams; fostering a collaborative atmosphere within the building.

Both books are available online and can be downloaded at no cost. For a copy of What to Expect Your First Year of Teaching, go to www.ed.gov/pubs/FirstYear/. For Survival Guide for New Teachers, go to www.ed.gov/pubs/survivalguide/.

THE COURAGE TO TEACH: EXPLORING THE INNER LANDSCAPE OF A TEACHER'S LIFE

by Parker J. Palmer (Jossey-Bass, 1998)

When Parker Palmer conducts workshops on teaching and learning, he often invites participants to examine their classroom practice through what he calls "the lens of paradox." As he explains in The Courage to Teach: "I ask each teacher to write brief descriptions of two recent moments in teaching: a moment when things were going so well that you knew you were born to teach, and a moment when things were going so poorly that you wished you had never been born."

Novice teachers as well as classroom veterans can gain insights from the exercise. As Palmer points out, "Remembering such moments is the first step in exploring one of the true paradoxes of teaching: The same person who teaches brilliantly one day can be an utter flop the next!"

The Courage to Teach encourages an ongoing examination of the inner life of the teacher. It's a valuable activity, Palmer argues, because "knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject." Teaching, he asserts, is about making connections. Good teachers "are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves."

Parker offers no quick answers for improving teaching — only deep thinking. The author doesn't hesitate to put himself through the self-examination he asks of his readers. For example, he explores why he gets uneasy if a classroom discussion happens to stall:

"As the seconds tick by and the silence deepens, my belief in the value of silence goes on trial. ... Like most people I am conditioned to interpret silence as a symptom of something gone wrong... I am duty-bound to supply conversational CPR." But then Parker examines other possibilities. He writes: "Suppose my students are neither dumbfounded nor dismissive, but digging deep; suppose that they are not ignorant or cynical but wise enough to know that this moment calls for thought; suppose that they are not wasting time but doing a more reflective form of learning."

Teachers will improve their craft, Parker suggests, when they have opportunities to engage in honest dialogue about the moments that puzzle or challenge them — what he calls "good talk about good teaching."

For teachers prepared to enter into such dialogues, Parker suggests three elements essential to informed, productive conversations:

• Topics that take us beyond technique and into the fundamental issues of teaching
• Ground rules that keep us from defeating ourselves before the talk can go very deep
• Leaders who expect and invite us to join the conversation

THE FIRST DAYS OF SCHOOL: HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER

by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong (Harry K. Wong Publishers, 1998)

This practical guide to classroom management weaves research with practical wisdom to guide new teachers through the first days of school. It's a critical period that "can make or break you" for the rest of the year, the authors assert. Yet most teachers enter the profession with "no training and no experience in what to do on the first day of school."

Written in the style of an owner's manual, this popular paperback aims to troubleshoot the problems that plague rookies and help struggling teachers regain their footing. The First Days of School offers the kind of common-sense help teachers need to enhance their performance and devote more of their school day to enhancing student learning. The authors cover everything from arranging the desks to introducing a discipline plan to structuring assignments in order to "teach for accomplishment."

Wong and Wong, both experienced teachers, are strong advocates of formal training programs for new teachers — so much so that they discourage teachers from joining districts that do not offer induction programs. They also encourage the more informal learning that happens when teachers work in a collegial manner; learn from positive mentors; join professional organizations; and continue to learn through workshops, classes, inservice training sessions, reading, and other forms of research.

If there's an agenda that goes deeper than these important basics, it's to develop a new generation of effective teachers who have positive expectations for student success, are good classroom managers, and know how to design lessons for student mastery. Anticipated turnover in the ranks of today's teachers offers an opportunity, the authors suggest, "to change the culture of a new generation of teachers."

—Suzie Boss