The first day on the job anywhere is exciting. But as we continue through that first day and even complete the first year, the thrill becomes less and less until it’s just a job. Unless you’re in education. Then that first day experience seems to happen day after day after day. 

Beginning teachers get to experience many things that first year. First day of school, first teacher in-service, first faculty meeting, first parent/teacher conference, and the list continues all the way to the first last day of school. It is a magical time for sure.  And while we do not forget our first year, we often forget what it is like to experience it.

That’s why I’ve invited Aaron DeLay and Andrea Samayoa onto Anchored in Education today. Both have just wrapped up their first year of teaching. They bring unique perspectives from their first year as Aaron is a 6th grade ELA/Literacy teacher from Fort Morgan, CO and Andrea is a 2nd grade Dual teacher from a small suburb outside of Chicago.

About Andrea

Andrea Samayoa is a first year 2nd grade dual language teacher in South Berwyn District 100 in Illinois. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Education with endorsements in ESL and Bilingual Education from Dominican University, as well as an Associates in Early Childhood Education. While attending Dominican, Andrea was awarded the Sister Mary Ellen O’Hanlon Social Justice and Diversity award for an essay titled A Beginning to Diversity, where she discussed the difficulties of growing up a multilingual learner in a monolingual world. 
Andrea found her passion in education and language through her own experiences growing up and has vowed to advocate for her students needs. As a first year teacher, she has learned about the importance of embracing and engaging each child and the significance of these relationships in the classroom. She hopes next year will be filled with positivity and new learning experiences. 
She is supported by her dog, Bebe, her family, and her significant other, Art.  Follow her on Twitter: MsSamayoaEME

Aaron DeLay

Aaron DeLay is a first year teacher from Fort Morgan, a town of about 12,000 city, 24,000 county located 80 miles North East of Denver, Colorado. He teaches 6th grade literacy on the Stingray team.  He moved from Denver, where he had live since 1992, in July of 2018.  He loves to podcast, hopes to restart his own teacher podcast this summer and is piloting a teacher YouTube Channel as well.  In his spare time that he is mindful to have he writes, plays video games, reads, and rides his bike.  He graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver in Denver, CO in 2018.  This summer he taught a ‘Kids Kollege’ in which he did two classes.  One was a creative writing class where eight students created over 60 pages worth of short stories and future novels.  The other was a digital media creation class where podcasts, YouTube videos and even a short film or two were created. You can find him on his podcast here, his blog here, his vlog here, and his twitter account here—where he loves to encourage and future teachers into the greatest career there is—teaching.  

Resources from this episode: