One Month of Teaching's Reflections Ten Lessons

10) You cannot overplan.  You may think you have overplanned.  You have not.  Trust me.  You have not. 

9) Kindness never fails.   More teaching happens in those moments of connection than in all the discussions pre and post. 

8) Grade the papers.  Grade the papers.  Grade the papers. 

7) Have a back up plan.  Why?  Because you can't overplan.

6) Break it up.  Smaller bites, tapa lessons work better than full courses. 

5) Challenge them. 

4) If you're bored, they're tripple bored by comparison. 

3) Admit your errors. 

2) Revise inbetween classes for the next class. 

1) Learn their names fast, say them often. 

Not funny, just observations, but in fairness, that's what I've gathered from one month in of this grand experiment, teaching ninth graders.