Six Pieces of Advice For New Teachers From Students

Being a new teacher can be a surreal experience.  Although the sights, sounds, and smells associated with the classroom are deeply rooted (after all, you’ve likely been a student for most of your life) this new role is vastly different.  Suddenly, the kids walking in that door are “your students”.

Being “the teacher” is just…strange.  Especially at first.

It’s OK to be overly focused on the experience from your perspective for a few months.  You’ll need some time to process the sudden and jarring transformation from student to teacher.

But as you’re wading through your first few weeks in the classroom, be sure to carve out some space to think about the experience of being in your class from your student’s perspective.  Here are six pieces of advice for new teachers from students.

Advice Your Students Want to Give You, But Probably Won’t

1. Learn my name in the first week.

Knowing and using my name will help me feel like a valued member of the class.  (This validation means a lot to me right now.)  I’ll be super understanding for the first 3-4 days if you don’t remember my name. After that, I feel like it is your job to know it.  

When teachers don’t know my name, I can tell.  Sure, they know the names of the disruptive students or the ones that always raise their hands to answer questions.  But I’m kind of quiet.  Not knowing or saying my name makes me feel less important and less motivated to do work for you.

One more thing: if you aren’t sure how to pronounce my name, please ask me privately.  The only thing worse than not knowing my name is saying it wrong all year.

2. We like teachers who can relate to us, but we don’t want to be friends with the teacher.

Students really like it when teachers are relatable.  Sometimes in a class, we’ll get off on a tangent when the teacher tells a funny story about their life.  And we want you to be interested in us as people and ask us questions about our lives.

But there is a line.

A lot of teachers will ask, for example, how the game went last night.  That’s fine to ask about – especially if you already know we won.  It’s great to ask how the school play is going or how my older sister likes college.  Those topics are…school-related.  

But not everything I talk about with my friends is something I want to share with my teachers.

And we depend on the adult (you) to know where that line is. 

 

3. Class discussions are harder than you think.

Sometimes teachers expect us to discuss a topic without really giving us the help or guidance we need to participate.  I usually have some good ideas to share, but I need the teacher to set up their class discussions the right way.  What do I mean by that?

• Make sure it isn’t chaotic.  Try not to let people just shout out.  I’m probably not going to share my thoughtful comment if I’m just going to be interrupted or talked over.

• Have a way to get everyone involved.  If the same three people are the only ones talking, the rest of us just tune out.

• Some teachers give us discussion questions the day before.  I like having some time to think about what I might say.  If you just surprise us with a discussion, I’m less likely to share.

• Depending on the topic or the day, I might not feel like talking.  I know it’s a “class discussion”, but I like the option of writing down my thoughts as a way of showing you that I’m paying attention.

• Sometimes it’s helpful if I can share ideas with a partner or with a group before sharing them with the entire class.  This lets me “test out” an idea beforehand.

 

4. Try to get assignments graded and returned to us in a reasonable timeframe.

I understand you might be swamped with grading, but try your best to get our work back to us.  When I submit an assignment, I’m genuinely curious how I did on it.  But that feeling fades it too much time goes by.  Sometimes teachers don’t grade an assignment for several weeks and at that point, everyone has forgotten about it.  It also makes us less motivated for the next assignment.

For smaller assignments, it’s ok to just quickly check it or occasionally not even grade it.  But for larger assignments (tests, projects, essays), your feedback loses importance to me the longer you take to grade it.  Those should be graded and returned in a few days.

 

5. Be in control of your classroom.

When a teacher loses control of the students, it might seem like the kids are having fun.  And maybe a few are.  But for most of us, a classroom that is out of control only makes us uncomfortable.

Some of us have chaotic lives at home.  When we come to school, it’s almost like a break from that. I can relax – as long as things are under control in class.  If the tone of your class is respectful and polite, I know I’m not going to be made fun of or bullied.  I know you’re going to uphold those expectations.  I feel like part of your job is to protect students when they’re in your class.

Of course, we want your class to be fun and sometimes let us play games and laugh.  But that stuff is only fun if you’ve first established that tone of respect and courtesy towards each other.

6. Have high expectations of me.

I’m not saying you should try to be a super hard teacher or have unreasonable rules.  But I also don’t want a teacher who gives out A’s for any little scribble I turn in.  The ideal teacher is somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes a teacher will say to me, “You’re capable of more” or “I think you’re better than this work.”   I know I’ve turned in work that isn’t my best.  The teacher will say this nicely but at the time, it’s not easy to hear.  However, I know that the teacher who said those things thinks highly of me and respects my intelligence.  When teachers expect a lot from me, it makes me want to work hard to meet those expectations.  

All I know is that the opposite of high expectations is when teachers expect us to be lazy or rude or not very smart.  It’s weird, but when teachers have low expectations, students tend to meet those expectations as well.

 

Bonus: What Your Students Want to Tell You, And Will 

7. I have a life outside of your class.

I wish that “life” outside of class was all socializing and fun.  But maybe I have a job.  Or I have to take care of younger siblings.  Or I have another two-hour practice.  Not many of us just go home and sit around.  Please consider this when assigning homework.  Also, when your assignment takes you 15 minutes to complete, it takes me 40.

Not only do I have a personal life, but I also have other classes to worry about.  Please talk to the other teachers about due dates for tests and projects.  I don’t understand why teachers can’t coordinate their tests so we don’t have four tests on the same day.  

Brad has taught history at the middle and high school levels for 19 years, almost exclusively in American public schools.  He holds a master’s in educational technology and is passionate about elevating the status of professional educators.