You’re a Teacher Now: What’s Next?
By Tom Hierck and Alex Kajitani
(Solution Tree Press, 2024 – Learn more)
Reviewed by Michelle Schwartze
As an associate teaching professor who helps prepare elementary and middle level teachers, I am always looking for books that will help my preservice teachers in their early years of teaching. This book by Tom Hierck and Alex Kajitani is an easy read that shares a wide range of knowledge for new teachers (and more experienced teachers as well) in an organized and honest way.
The chapters are short, ranging from 10 to 15 pages in length. When I first noticed that, I worried that maybe they would be too vague, but I soon found this to not be true. It seems as though the authors purposefully made each chapter about a very specific idea so that they could share examples and ideas in a more succinct manner. For example, there is a chapter titled “How should I manage my classroom?” and then the next chapter is “How do I get students to behave?”
Upon first glance one might think these are too similar, but the authors clearly define the differences and explain how managing the classroom needs to include specific procedures and routines, whereas getting students to behave is about being consistent with those classroom expectations and correcting misbehaviors.
I appreciate a section of this chapter where Hierck described his early teaching career and how he thought that a perfect learning environment meant a silent classroom. He goes on to explain that it wasn’t about being silent, but rather about connecting a desired behavior to an expectation. This involves the teacher modeling what they want to see.
This example brought me back to my first couple of years teaching where I had the same thought about how my classroom needed to be silent, but I soon realized that I didn’t want it to be silent and learning could happen with noise; it just had to be managed noise. This is something very important for new teachers to recognize.
Research based and reader friendly
The authors address a variety of topics for first year teachers from setting up the classroom to managing the classroom to planning engaging lessons to working with families. All of the information they provide for these topics are research based and shared in narrative type formats to provide context for the reader.
Many chapters also include sample worksheets or activities that were available as free reproducibles through go.SolutionTree.com. I see this as a very positive addition because it makes it easier for the reader to implement some of the strategies shared.
The final chapter of this helpful book is about taking care of yourself. With the current mental health crisis that is impacting the world, I feel like this chapter was definitely needed. I really appreciate how the authors take time to share ideas for managing stress as well as recognizing and controlling emotions.
They also discuss secondary traumatic stress, which I have not seen discussed in many education texts in as much detail as it is here. They share symptoms of secondary traumatic stress and show signs to look for. Reading through these signs, I recognized that at some points throughout my educational career I had been experiencing some of them but did not have a name for them. Reading this might have helped me as an educator to manage that stress at times and not take on so much of my students’ trauma.
I would definitely recommend this text to new and current teachers. As I mentioned, it is an easy read, and you can skip to chapters with information you find more relevant if you want. Since it is a short text, you may need to find other resources to supplement specific information you need, but this is a great starting point for any teacher!
(Editor’s note: To see a complete list of the topics covered in You’re a Teacher Now, go to the publisher’s page and click the Look Inside button below the cover image.)
Michelle Schwartze is an Associate Teaching Professor at Missouri S&T in the Education department. Prior to that she taught for 13 years in grades ranging from 3rd to 8th. Her research interests are active learning and STEM education. Currently she is a faculty fellow with the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence on the Missouri S&T campus and shares active learning strategies with faculty. You can find more information about her at https://sites.mst.edu/mschwartze/.
