Proverbial Toolbox 🛠️
I began teaching in August 2007. I was 22 years old and fresh out of college. I had big hopes and dreams and a small (proverbial) toolbox. Dr. Harris, the assistant principal who hired me, informed me I would be teaching Algebra 1 and Liberal Arts Math. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant but was determined to figure it out. Two weeks later he accepted a principal position at another school and I never saw him again.
As I unlocked my new classroom and met my neighbor teachers, I met Mrs. Murphy, a veteran teacher of 35 years who would be a couple doors down. She greeted me, welcomed me, and handed me a flash drive with endless powerpoints, lessons, lesson plans, and activities. Boom. I was set for my first year.
While my peers shared horror stories of their first year teaching… late nights grading papers and creating lessons from scratch… I was leaving school by 2:45pm every day and not taking work home. My students were engaged and I was having fun. Sure, I had the usual first year challenges with behavior and never really knowing what to expect or what’s going on at school. But comparatively, I was crushing it. I received excellent feedback and evaluations from my new supervisor, who only came to my classroom twice, for my 2 observations. I got a high five and he then moved on to more pressing matters.
I took a little break from teaching after year 1 and when I returned for Fall 2009, I went to a different school. This school was on the other side of the tracks, the school where people ask if you’re going to wear a bulletproof vest. While those comments were certainly offensive, it speaks to the reputation of the school. People considered it to be a hard place to work.
I casually strolled in since I already had a year of teaching experience under my belt, and apparently crushed it. My assistant principal showed me to my classroom and informed me that I would be teaching Algebra 1 and Informal Geometry. I already taught Algebra 1 at my last school so knew I would crush that. I wasn’t too sure what Informal Geometry was but I’m a fairly informal guy, so figured I could make it work.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Algebra 1 lessons and activities I used from my previous school fell flat. There were no resources for my Informal Geometry class, and I was the only one at the school teaching it. I had nobody to turn to. There was a math coach at the school but anytime she helped me things went from bad to worse. My students were bored, unengaged, and frustrated, and I was frustrated. I blamed them, they blamed me. I was staying at school 3+ hours everyday creating lessons, grading, and creating my own quizzes from scratch.
I was extremely stressed out and feeling defeated. A far cry from the relative ease of my first year teaching. I walked into my assistant principal’s office in November to let her know I would be resigning. I committed to the rest of the school year, but was pretty sure I would hate every minute of it.
Why the stark difference? Sure, I needed to be more relevant to my students. But I didn’t have time to find creative ways to do that when I had to make everything from scratch. If only there had been a resource, a website, a repository of tools that I could have turned to. That flash drive Mrs. Murphy handed my first year was a game changer. What if there were a 2023 version of that available for all teachers of all subjects?
Few would disagree that the vast majority of teachers are overworked and under-resourced. To make matters worse, many teachers across the country feel like they’re on an island. They are the only ones teaching their subject and they have no one to reach out to for help.
This is where we come in. At EduThemes, we aim to provide content, resources, and tools for your classroom so teachers can focus on doing what they do best… teaching! And hopefully helping them go home to their family when the bell rings instead of spending multiple extra hours creating their own lessons.
