Episode 2: First Year Mistakes

First year of teaching and mistakes go together like peanut butter and jelly. They can be separated, but more often, we think of them together. We all make a lot of mistakes our first year (or two or three) of teaching. In this episode of the podcast, we take a trip down memory lane and recall some of our first year mistakes. This is a job that no amount of preparation in school can truly ready you for (and we were good students, promise).

If you’re in your first years of teaching, fret not, you will make it through this (as will your students). If you’re a more seasoned teacher, we hope you enjoy listening to a few of our mistakes and are reminded a few of your own (and that they make you laugh, or cringe, or cringe-laugh).

If you’re mistake-averse, and let’s be honest, a lot of us Type-A teacher personalities are, you might need more than a few funny stories about our first year mistakes to remind you your mistakes are not the end of the world (and we say that not in a judging way, but a we’ve-been-there-too, way). If so, check out this blog post.

You might also want to check out our reflections on a mistake that could have been career-ending, but that we were so grateful to have the opportunity to learn from and which ultimately made us, we believe, more empathetic teachers. It wasn’t even close to being one of our first year mistakes, but we learned valuable lessons all the same.