(Life) Lessons Learned in the Classroom

Susie Garrison, a retired educator who now lives in Portland, Oregon, learned a lot during her 30 years in the classroom. She taught in a small rural school district in Eastern Oregon, wearing many different hats as a classroom teacher, talented and gifted specialist, diagnostician, and Title I teacher—lending her talents “wherever there was a need,” she says.

Her words of wisdom are excellent tips for life in the classroom and beyond.

• Be responsible and accountable, and expect the same of your students.
• Showcase student work and have the kids tell the class how they did it.
• Have something ready for those awkward fi ve minutes between activities. Rap the times tables, stretch to an appropriate popular song, listen to part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
• Every class is different. What works with one group might not work with the next.
• Be the adult in the room, but have fun and smile.
• The support staff  is just as important as licensed teachers in providing education—custodians, cafeteria workers, office staff, classroom assistants, bus drivers, all of them.
• Brainstorming and collaboration are great learning tools.
• Don’t use bad language outside of school. It makes it easier for something to slip out in the class.
• TeacherTube.com is a great resource.
• Time is precious. When you fi nd a lesson or technique that works with little prep time, keep it and reuse it. The same goes for the rest of your life! 
• Move around the room. A lot.
• Active participation should always be your goal to improve learning.
• Try to instill a love of learning and be a role model for lifelong learning.
• Speak to every student every day. Remember that students learn in different ways so when explaining something, show them, tell them, show and tell in a different way, then check for understanding. This is not always necessary with your spouse, however.
• “Because we’ve always done it this way” is not a good reason.
• When deciding best practices always include practitioners in decision making. No one knows the profession better than education professionals.
• Every student is unique, not a widget. Get to know their specialness.
• Read to your students every day, even if it’s only 10 minutes. It’s important even if they already know how to read. Modeling a love of reading and learning  is always appropriate.