Hello, I'm Brooke
I'm an educator with over 24 years experience. I have worked within a range of school types, such as public, private, and charter schools and served in a various roles as classroom teacher, substitute teacher, grade level chair and mentor, subject matter expert, tutor, summer STEM camp director, exceptional children teacher assistant, and MTSS interventionist in grades kindergarten through 12th grade, with an emphasis on the middle and high school grades. I have a diverse skill set with experience teaching a variety of courses, such as middle school math, finance, science, bible, health, study skills, and high school science and life skills, as well as, general education at the elementary school level.
When I started my career, only 25 short years ago, the internet was just a baby, so I found that the information was very limited for a beginning teacher. Except for talking to other teachers, the only way to figure out the best practices was through trial and error.
Boy could I have used resources like, TpT or teacher blogs. For my first few years, I was assigned a mentor, but we never met and when we did it seemed like it was only to tell me what I was doing wrong.
The area I struggled in the most, like most beginning teachers, was classroom management. The advice I got from my mentor was, "Just be mean." Ok, but how. Being "mean" and aggressive just did not come naturally to me and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't do it. It went against every part of my being, so I continued to struggle with my classroom management for several more years.
It was probably about 15 years into my career before I finally started to get the hang of classroom management. It took me 15 years to figure out you don't have to be mean and aggressive, you just had to be assertive. I could do that. I could still be respectful and encouraging but be firm about my expectations of my students in my class.
I wonder how different my classroom would have been during those early years if only I had had some good advice. How much more I could have helped my students learn and grow and how much more successful they could have been...if only…
Thinking about "what might have been..." doesn't do anyone any good, so that's when I decided I wanted to use my experience and expertise to help other teachers, new or not, be a better teacher for their students. After almost a year of going back-and-forth, I have chosen to jump in feet first and try blogging. Hopefully, by sharing my experiences, strategies, and ideas, I can help my fellow teachers save their own sanity and help their students become the learners they were meant to be.