“The New Teacher Book” edited by Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Bob Peterson, and Moé Yonamine provides a compilation of stories written by diverse teachers from all over. There were five different chapters in this story and multiple topics were covered throughout the book. They provide small moment stories of what it is like to be a new teacher and all the incredible yet challenging moments that happen throughout the year.  These stories come from 40 early career teachers from several different states.

Summary

Summary Cont. 

More than two-thirds were women, more than two-thirds teachers of color, and some from the LGBTQ community. This book also provides helpful teaching tips to use to guide you through your first year as a teacher. Some of these examples include:  learning students' names, building classroom community, learning what it means to work with ELL or students of color, teaching and including social justice ideas, and also ideas about standardized testing. One common theme throughout the book was to be an advocate for students and to support the child as a whole.

Overview of themes

One common theme throughout the book was to constantly evaluate and reflect on one’s own biases, hidden power structures, and positionality in the classroom as a teacher. For example, one of the short stories within this book described the ways in which the arrangement of a classroom and its furniture can uncover the power struggles, hierarchies, and relationships that are shaped by physical and symbolic capital. This story is titled “Uncovering the Lessons of Classroom Furniture – You Are Where You Sit” by Tom Mckenna, allows for reflection on the different forms of “hidden curriculum” for material school settings. This story also provides knowledge on the concepts of “hidden lessons” which are imparted about power, equality, learning, and how students learn who they are based on material. 

Overview of themes

This theme continues in another short story by Chrysanthius Lathan titled, “Dear White Teacher”, in which a teacher who is Black describes the harmful environment that has been created in the school she teaches due to many of her white colleagues sending Black students to her classroom when they misbehave. The author emphasizes the difference that it would make if her white colleagues actively recognized their own fears or biases about teaching students of color in the classroom. Lathan describes how it is through the formation of meaningful relationships with students that will ensure they are being seen, heard, and valued without having to be sent to another teacher that looks like them.

Overview of Themes

Another story that embodies the theme of being active learners and reflectors as educators is the story titled, “Getting Your Classroom Together” by Bob Peterson. In this story, readers and educators think deeply about the messages that the bulletin boards are sending, if the classroom is accessible to all students, and organize “better ideas for next year” in a file. This story, along with the ones previously mentioned, made me think more in-depth about “smaller” characteristics of teaching that I had not given much thought to before.

     If there is one theme that I can likely derive from each short story within this book, it is that the reader actively thinks as they are reading while asking themselves personal questions and developing reflections of themselves. Many times as I read, I critically thought about what I had just read and wondered how it was that I had not noticed such characteristics of teaching before. No matter how experienced the teacher is, I believe that in this book there is something new that every teacher can learn about when they read.

Overview of Themes

“That, my son, is my hope for you. I hope your teachers will love you for who you are and the promise of what you’ll be” (Dyan Watson, 2019). 

This quote allows teachers to understand the change they can make in a student's life and the impact they have on today’s youth. As teachers, we must put in the work to learn about students’ backgrounds and understand others' stories in order to create a classroom community where all students feel safe and welcome. 

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