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Teachers offer tips on being better at their profession.

The online community called We Are Teachers (weareteachers.com) put out a call, asking readers and followers to offer general pieces of teaching advice. Plenty of educators responded, and here’s a sampling of what they had to offer:

• Ask yourself daily, “Would you want to be a student in your classroom?”
• At the end of a tough day, email or call the parent of a student who had a good day, or who has been doing well. It’ll change your mindset and your mood before you go home.
• Be real, treat students with love and respect, be forgiving (bad days start will a clean slate the next day). Tell them that, because some kids don’t know! Be a cheerleader for their strengths. Tell them when they have an aptitude for something. Expect everyone to succeed. They will, in their own individual ways. Know something about their outside-of-school interests.
• For middle school: set your phone to chime one minute before the bell. It’s a signal that they should be working until they hear it, then they can pack.
• I end every class period by saying, “Have a good day. Be good to one another. Take care of the people around you. We are all doing our best.” I wasn’t sure students heard me until one day I overheard them saying it to each other in the hallway (and not in a sarcastic teenager way).
• Don’t compromise your mental health for your job.
• Your bottom left desk drawer is for your emergency chocolate stash. It is medicinal and therapeutic between classes.
• Genuinely care for each individual student. It changes everything. Look the student in the eye and tell them you care about them and then inspire them to do differently. Give them a reason to grow, push themselves, and care. Students are struggling with things we never dreamed about. They’re also not given the tools to handle the stress that they are placed in.
• Get to know the custodians, secretaries and school librarians: they’re the ones that really run the school.
• There’s no reward for being the last car in the parking lot.
• Be a cheerleader for their strengths. Tell them when they have an aptitude for something.
• Make your least favorite student your favorite student for a week. Get to know them. Be annoyingly friendly with them. You just might find things to like about them, especially if they finally feel “seen.”
• If you are correcting and grading papers at home, remember that red wine will stain, white wine will not.
• Don’t take a child’s negative behavior personally. They either haven’t been taught the right behavior or there are bigger issues in their life.
• If you teach littles, always keep a big towel in your classroom to quickly dry up spills! School paper towels don’t cut it! Never tie the wet laces!
• Let them see you laugh. Make jokes every now and then and let them know you care.
• You won’t get rich teaching. You won’t even get fairly compensated for the blood, sweat, and tears you put in. But you will get something no amount of money can buy: The deep sense of the lives you changed, the confidence you instilled, the hearts you lifted.
• Before you speak, ask yourself, “If I’m being recorded, will I regret my words?”
• Don’t tell a child “You’re OK.” Instead, try “You’ll be okay.”
• If you say, “I’ll take the phone away if you see it again,” you have to take the phone away when you see it again.
• Say what you mean and mean what you say. Be consistent and considerate.
• Whispering to the disruptive student is scarier than yelling at them.
• If it’s boring for you, it’s boring for them. You need to be into it, or the kids won’t be into it.
• If you’re lacking confidence in your teaching ability, never give up! Your efforts to press through the process even in the face of mistakes will improve your skills until you master it.
• Be authentic. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.”
• It was suggested when I began my career to keep a “Love Me” book. I’ve kept favorite notes, student art gifts, pictures, a list of my favorite kid quotes, etc. in this book. When days seem tough, I look at my book and it reminds me why I’ve been in the classroom 26+ years and still going.
• It’s a bad day, not a bad job.
• Relationships are the backbone of everything you do in teaching—managing student behavior, dealing with families, and working with colleagues.
• Be willing to pivot during a lesson and take it in a different direction in response to students’ questions and interests. You can always return to the original points of the lesson another time.
• Document everything. On paper, in a notebook or folder that you keep with you at all times; not on your work computer.
• Think. Ask: Would you say it if your grandmother was in the room?
• Every piece of homework you give, every worksheet or workbook page, is also work for you. Before you assign it, decide if it’s really necessary and how much time it will take you to mark all the pages.
• Never forget the positive praise and the reason for it: “Michael, I am so proud of the effort you put in on your homework!!” “Jane, you thought through all the possibilities and came up with a sound answer. Good job!”
• If your students use slang words you don’t like, start using them in conversation with the students. The kids will stop using them in front of you because you’ve “ruined” them.