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The Dreaded Teacher Observation
EPISODE 13 - first aired on 2/25/25
The Dreaded Teacher Observation
Surprise! Your principal drops in for an unannounced classroom observation.
In this episode, Miss MacNulty shares what it’s really like to have someone watching your every move as a first-year teacher. From the nerves of trying to “get it right” to the relief of getting through it, she gives us a peek into the principal observation and evaluation process.
We also hear from veteran principal Nishira, who sheds light on what principals are really looking for during these visits. Spoiler alert: it’s not about perfection.
Listen to hear how Jenna's handling the pressure of being observed, the surprises that come with teaching, and the lessons she’s learning along the way.
CLASSROOM RESOURCE
A Teacher’s Guide To Understanding
Observation Feedback
In episode 13 of the Year One podcast, Miss Jenna MacNulty had an emotionally raw conversation with her administrator about her struggles with classroom management. Often, though, teachers get more formulaic observation feedback that uses verbiage from standards—which can make deciphering the comments tricky for new and veteran teachers alike.
With Year One, we’re bringing teachers’ real experiences to the surface. We keep the real talk going with this resource, which will help you read between the lines of your observation comments and provide insider tips to make the most of your evaluation season!
Episode Transcript
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:00:00]:
Last time on Year One, we talked about what it's like living on a teacher's salary.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:00:05]:
It's just, it's very tight and it can be very stressful. Like, I'll have probably a breakdown about it once a month when I'm actually paying my credit card bill or paying my rent, where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I have no money.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:00:17]:
On this episode, Jenna has her first debrief with her school's principal after a surprise classroom observation. This is Year One from Carnegie Learning, a podcast that chronicles all the ups and downs of one teacher's first year in the classroom. I'm your host, Kanika Chadda Gupta. Throughout the school year, principals will schedule surprise visits to classrooms to observe how teachers and their students are doing. These observations focus on everything from classroom management to student engagement, and are typically part of an end of the year performance evaluation.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:00:56]:
Our observations, we have like five or so short 15 minutes observations, and then we have one long observation, and they're all surprises. We don't know when. We don't know when they're coming to watch us. You know, you gotta be prepared. I think just as a first year teacher, anytime someone is in your classroom, it's just like, oh, my, there's another adult. Like, what if I mess up? Like, someone's watching me, they're probably judging me. But that's just not the truth. Like, it's a learning curve to have someone else in there.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:01:21]:
There's just kind of that added, like, oh, I really got to figure out what I'm doing. Someone else is watching me.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:01:27]:
Though Jenna has had a few surprise observations already, she has yet to have a proper sit down with her principal.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:01:35]:
Really, the only time she's been in my class, for the most part, has been during my observations that she's done for me. Like, she'll peek in and out of the rooms every now and then just to say good morning or whatever. Obviously, she has bigger fish to fry when it comes to running a whole school than just supporting her new teachers. Like, I would feel a lot of pressure if my principal was, like, in my room all the time. You know what I mean? Like, it's nice to have that time to just figure it out on my own, but also have that support when I need it.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:02:06]:
Wanting a principal's perspective on this, we asked Nashira, a veteran principal from Florida, to help explain everything that contributes to evaluations from their side of things.
NISHIRA MITCHELL [00:02:18]:
What would contribute to a strong eval is happening throughout the year. And it doesn't matter what kind of school you work in. If you're serving high needs students in terms of academics or you're serving students with low needs academically, it's about, are they growing? That's concretely what makes up the eval. So if I go into a teacher's classroom, so they might be reading a text, and then they have discussion points, right. Say Nashira starts talking about what she did last weekend. The teacher isn't marked poorly because the kids started talking about it. It's what did the teacher do to get that kid back on task? So that could rate very well, because the teacher saw misbehavior or the teacher saw off task behavior. But they didn't go over screaming to get back on.
NISHIRA MITCHELL [00:03:13]:
They started asking Nashira a question about what actually did you see in the story that shows me a well trained, a well planned teacher that really focused on the behavior that they want to see. So that's an example of something that would contribute very positively towards feedback with the teacher, and then I could use that teacher for other people to learn.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:03:40]:
One challenge for principals like Nishira is that the classroom they see during quick visits might not always show what the class is really like day to day. This phenomenon, known as the observation effect, is something Jenna noticed right away during her principal's most recent surprise visit.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:03:58]:
The observation effect is real. My kids, most of them, were perfect little angels, and I was like, you've gotta be kidding me. I was like, you've gotta be kidding me. I want her to see what you guys are actually like. But also, it made me feel better, because then she was, you know, seeing a well run classroom. But in my mind, I was like, you little stinkers. You absolute stinkers. But the actual lesson itself went pretty well.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:04:23]:
After my principal left the room, things got chaotic again, and I was like, you, you guys. But then the next. It was the following week, actually, I had my debrief with my principal, and it was just during my preponderance in my own classroom, and we were just talking about mostly the behavior problems in my room, because she was talking about, like, what didn't I see that you would have liked me to see? And I was like, honestly, the behavior issues in my room, you know, they were on their best behavior because you were in there. But I feel like there's, you know, a lot happening that, you know, needs support or needs answers or needs actionable steps of how to. How to figure it out. And we kind of spent almost the whole entire time talking about that. And at the very end of the conversation, she was like, and, you know, you're a first year teacher. You got to set your boundaries.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:05:12]:
You're going to look back on this year. You're going to think of those students that are giving you the hardest time. You're going to be thankful for them because you're going to think about how much they taught you and how to be an educator and how to be a teacher, how to be a mentor and all this stuff. She's being very inspirational. But then at the end of it, she was like, and I can tell that all of these behavior problems are taking a toll on you. Like, the way you're talking about it, I can see. See that it's, like, weighing you down. And I was so.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:05:38]:
I'm so embarrassed. But I started to cry in front of my principal. I had, like, four tears streaming down my face, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm so embarrassed because I thought I was putting on a brave face about it when I was talking about it. Like, I thought I was doing it in a professional manner, and I was obviously. But, you know, she knows me. She knows that I was having a hard time. And that's another thing. As a first year teacher, you want to be prideful, and you want to figure it out, and you want to do it without anybody's help, but that's just not how it works.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:06:08]:
So then she was like, it's okay. Like, she was helping me out, being that support system for me for a second. But it was just unfortunate timing, because by the time I started to get emotional, I was like, I have to go pick up my kids from music class. So, like, as I was walking through the hallway, I was like, here I go. All right, let's go. Let's start our reading lesson. And then I was kind of like, you know, in my emotions the rest of the day. And during lunch, the counselor walked in the room, and she was like, hey, jenna, I'm going to take your recess duty today so you can take another prep, because I didn't get a prep because of that meeting.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:06:44]:
And I was like, that was really sweet. Thank you so much. But then, you know, my little. My little anxiety brain was like, oh, that means that the principal talked to the counselor about me crying during our debrief, and she knows I was having a hard time. So then I just spent all of the whole recess while I was, you know, supposed to have my prep just sitting at my desk, being, like, in my head about it all.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:07:07]:
The role of a principal, ideally, is to provide ongoing support and professional development for their teachers. Sometimes this means having difficult conversations or being witness to heightened emotions. But the goal is always to foster a positive and collaborative culture where teachers feel valued and motivated to improve their practice. For a principal like Nishira, she feels strongly that talks like these are important to do throughout the year, not just at the end.
NISHIRA MITCHELL [00:07:36]:
I've never had a teacher evaluation not go well. And what I mean by when I'm clarifying that language of not well, I always believe in as a leader, it is our job and our responsibility to serve and treat people with dignity along the way. And I could tell any principal and any teacher, you need to stand up for yourself because somebody should never learn about their performance being amazing and highly effective as an objective language or their performance being terrible or in the rubric language requiring action at the end of the year, you've done kids a disservice as a leader and you've done that person a disservice as a leader. If they learned about that at the end of the year, there should have been feedback along the way and you should have been supporting that teacher along the way in that process.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:08:30]:
And while Jenna feels humbled by the process, she understands it's all part of her journey to becoming a better teacher overall.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:08:39]:
Nothing bad happened in the debrief, but it was just a moment for me where I was like, dang, like, I just have to let my guard down a little bit more because, like, people are figuring me out. But that was one moment where I was like, if my principal can, can see that it was taking a toll on me, then it has to be true. And it's not that I'm doing a bad job. And I know that it's not that I'm doing a bad job, but like, you just have to ask for support and you have to ask for help. And I just want to do it all by myself. I want to prove it to myself, but I gotta fix it.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:09:14]:
This is Year One, an exploration of one teacher's first year in the classroom, brought to you by Carnegie Learning. Join us for the rest of the series as we follow Jenna through every moment. And be sure to follow Miss MacNulty on Instagram and TikTok. For additional exclusive content, free teaching resources and more, visit yearonepodcast.com. next time on year one, Jenna takes her students through state testing for the first time.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:09:43]:
I'm feeling scared because if I, if my whole class struggles or doesn't score as well as the other third grade classes, then, like, that's on me as a teacher, and I think that's what's starting to stress me out. It's not just how are your kids going to do individually, it's how is your class going to do and how is that going to compare to the other classes, not only in this elementary school, but also with all of the other third graders in the state? So I think it's just a game of comparison that I'm going to try not to play.