I received two terrible pieces of advice during my student teaching and first years in the classroom that I've found are very common. They may be the two most prominent pieces of advice given in Teacher Education Programs. Once I was distanced from both of these schools of thought, my ability to teach and conduct a class improved considerably. Avoid both of the following:
1a. Be Yourself- Terrible advice. Be the most noble, inspirational, principled, organized, strong minded, confident, and creative version of yourself you can concoct. Eventually, your real self will catch up to your teacher self, but do not simply be yourself. A young new teacher being them self will probably come off as unsure, a little overwhelmed, and doubting their career move, and an older new teacher will probably come off as unsure, a little overwhelmed, and doubting their career move, but in a completely different way. Identify your audience, determine what it will take to hook them, and get yourself there. Stand tall, act like you own the place, and nobody will doubt you. Being yourself is not advisable.
1b. Find What Works and Stick With It- More terrible advice. Complacency leads to mediocrity, and you don't want to get boring. Find what works, make it better, and then find other things that work too. You want an arsenal of effective strategies an methods at your disposal. Always have a new project going. Whether its tech integration, or picking out your weakest area of the content and making it your strongest, a great teacher is always working on making something better. It's the only way to stay fresh and current.
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