This guide prepares you for the elementary classroom. It is a realistic approach to identify and manage everyday teaching situations. This is one teacher's opinion on what student and beginning teachers should know.

Staff refrigerator - always put your lunch on the top shelf. When the eventual lunch bag leaks, it is better to give wet-sandwich sympathy than to receive it.

Letter of recommendation (LOR) - this is your receipt for a completed job and proclaims your reputation. Do not leave student teaching without one. University courses tell others what you learned, but the LOR tells what you know.

Class clock - set it three minutes slow. That way you will not be disturbed by Big Ben, the class chronographer, interrupting your lesson every day, letting you know that it is recess time.

Everyone failed my test! That is part of the learning experience. You have to learn how to adjust and prevent it from happening again. Break the results down, and learn from your mistakes. What went well? What were they not doing correctly? You can throw out the results and start over, but that will affect your credibility and likely cause a backlog of other lessons. A good solution is to consider this one of those easy grades: "Take the test home tonight, and fill in the correct answers for more credit." Regrade their tests, giving more points based on the new answers. Now your failed test just became a take-home test, making both you and the students happier.

Pencils - for the student losing pencils all day every day, keep a pink crayon ready at all times on the chalk tray. Nothing makes a student find a pencil faster than a pink crayon.