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Teaching Secrets: Take Charge of Your Classroom

By Gail Tillery

“If he were my teacher, I’d make him cry,” remarked a sophomore at my high school after a teacher we’d just hired did a “shadow day.” Although I didn’t share that specific comment, I did reiterate to our new colleague that classroom management would be his biggest challenge. And so it was.

As mentoring coordinator at our large suburban high school, I’m in charge of inducting about 25 teachers a year. The teachers of most concern, of course, are the ones I affectionately dub the “baby teachers” (though not to their faces). Usually, these novice educators are very young—most have just graduated from college—and they are still feeling their way in life, much less in the classroom. Suddenly they may find themselves standing in front of a room filled with 35 seniors, some of whom are only three years younger than they are. In many cases, the disaster...