Twenty-three years ago, I packed all my belongings into a U-Haul trailer and made the move from Steel City to Charm City. I settled into a tiny apartment in Baltimore with my books and my cat. I was ready to begin my teaching career.

Or so I thought.

I remember when my department chair checked my room before Open House. The horrified look on her face said it all. “This…this…is just chaos, Lisa!”

I didn’t think it was that bad. True, the desks were not in what could be called an arrangement. To get to the front of the room, I had to scoot against the side of the wall and push a couple of desks out of the way. Precarious stacks of paperback novels and piles of papers lined the counters. But I did have a really cute kitty poster urging students to read.

Muttering something about disasters, she pulled some desks together, creating groups of four. I had to admit, the room already looked better. And I could definitely make it to the chalkboard without having to move furniture.

Next, she examined my bulletin board. “And what is this supposed to be?”

Proudly, I described my incentive program called Ladder to Success! A big ladder, cut rather crookedly from brown construction paper, covered the entire length of the board. At the bottom of the ladder, I handwrote my students’ names (all 143 of them) on tiny pieces of torn notebook paper and pinned them to the bottom of the ladder. As each student progressed, he or she would move up the ladder rungs until reaching the top. I had written SUCCESS! at the top of the ladder with a ball-point pen and drawn little stars around it. I just knew this motivational idea would have all of my students earning A’s in no time.

I did not know exactly what students should do to move up a rung or how I planned to manage moving 143 names or what would happen when the student reached the top. But wasn’t it obvious? They would have SUCCESS!

My department chair was speechless.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked, eager for praise. She didn’t answer because she had already moved on to a table in the back of the room. The table held a big pile of clothing.

She was pawing through the material. “Are these cleaning rags or something that you haven’t put away yet?”

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “These are costumes. You know, for acting out stories.” She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

And these were the least of my problems. My first year of teaching was filled with mistakes, large and small. But I did have two things going for me: I was eager to learn and I was not afraid to ask questions.

I asked teachers to let me read their plan books and show me how they planned. My department members shared graded student essays with me and discussed how to grade student writing. Whenever I had the opportunity, I visited other teacher’s classrooms and watched them teach.

During my first two years as a teacher, I had eight formal observations each year, with many informal observations in between. My first observation was a catastrophe. The transparency on the overhead could only be read by the first row, I was short on handouts, and I got less than halfway through the lesson plan. When the evaluators left the room and I was alone, I burst into tears, embarrassed and ashamed, wondering if I would ever be able to teach a proper lesson.

Back in those days, we had Helping Teachers who worked with the most desperate cases, for which I surely qualified. My Helping Teacher planned a mini-unit with me, teaching all my classes for two weeks while I watched, taking notes, learning more from her than I had ever learned in college.

Just as our students need support in the classroom when they are struggling, teachers need support, too. Without the support I received, I would not be the teacher I am today. I might have left the profession, as so many teachers do within the first five years. Or I might have been found unsatisfactory and denied tenure.

As I start my 23^rd year of teaching, I am still learning about the art of teaching. Each year, I learn something new from my students about how to teach and work with young people. I rely on the advice of veteran teachers who have “been there, done that.” I appreciate working with new teachers who offer a fresh perspective.

Best wishes for a successful school year to my colleagues and the students and parents of Harford County. And should you find yourself in room 211 this year, don’t worry. I have finally mastered the fine art of desk arrangement.