I recently finished my first year of being a full fledged high school English teacher. I am sure that I learned just as much from these students as they learned from me. In fact, I am sure that I learned more. I remember when I assigned them their first essay, just three days into school. I thought I had made some real enemies for sure. I was known as being a tough teacher after that.

I had heard that so many brand new teachers had trouble assigning homework, for fear that the students would not like them. I think I actually went to the other extreme, in order to stay away from that stereotype. In fact, when it came time for parent conferences in November, it was brought to my attention that I had already assigned five research papers to one class.

I was taken aback. I didn’t realize that I had gotten that bad. When we got back to school after the thanksgiving break, I promised that class that they would only have two more term papers for the rest of the year. I think that helped and the students started warming up to me. I started to relax a little bit and I am ready to go back and have a really good year this time.