Advice to New Teachers

“Find colleagues that they they really jive with, who they can bounce ideas off of, or just go chat with, even if it's not about school (…) is, I think, really, really important. Making sure to not spend prep and lunch totally alone is really important. I think the isolation factor is really a big one."

“The year before last, when I came back from my maternity leave the first time, was a very difficult year for a whole slew of reasons, but one of them was that I didn't have my co-teacher that I was used to teaching with (…) I felt very alone. People in the school didn't have the same prep as me. I think that feeling alone was one of the most difficult parts of the year. Things started to get a lot better when I had a co-teacher again.”

“If it's not the people you work most directly with, finding somebody else in the school or looking for a school where the principal seems like somebody who is open to helping you is really important.”