How To
Thrive
Survive
In Your First
Years of Teaching
by Braden Pilon
How to Thrive in Your First Years of Teaching — book cover by Braden Pilon
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The whole idea

Nobody should just have to survive in their first years of teaching. Your first year teaching should be an incredible, fulfilling experience.

This book is about the art of loving teaching from the start.

To thrive means something different than simply surviving or getting by. It means growing, flourishing, and moving well beyond just meeting expectations. Thriving teachers still have hard days, still make mistakes, and still have lessons that fall flat. The difference is not the absence of struggle. It is the presence of happiness in the work and meaning in the impact you create.

A thriving teacher genuinely loves their work, builds a classroom their students love, meets their professional responsibilities, and protects their own wellness. When those four things come together, teaching stops being just a job and becomes a source of real, lasting happiness.

Braden Pilon, author
Why I wrote this book

I actually LOVED my first years.

"Your first few years are pure survival." That is what I heard over and over throughout university and my practicums. My competitive side could not accept that. We tell our students anything is possible, so I decided the same had to be true for me. Challenge accepted.

By the end of my first year, I knew I had done it. I was not a perfect teacher, but I loved my work wholeheartedly, my students loved school, and I felt genuinely well. I finished that year in tears, not because it was hard, but because I knew I was closing out the most meaningful year of my career so far. This book is everything I learned getting there.

Where this book comes from

You don't just learn from one voice. You learn from three.

Experienced teachers and professors carry incredible wisdom, but there's something they lose over time: what it actually feels like to not know. Psychologists call it the curse of knowledge. The more someone knows, the harder it is for them to remember what it was like before they knew it. That is why the most effective growth comes from a trifecta of voices.

Professor

Foundational theory and research-backed practice.

Mentor Teacher

Real classroom wisdom, earned over years.

Fellow New Teacher

Someone who just stood exactly where you're standing, and still remembers every bit of it.

That's this book.

This book is that third voice, written the same year I lived it, not years after I'd forgotten what it felt like.

Inside the book

What you will walk away with

Joys of Teaching

Increase your gratitude for the profession, from summers off to relationships, colleagues, and the balance this career allows. You will walk away believing teaching is the best job in the world.

Play

See lesson planning as an art to be enjoyed and learn how to build lessons so fun you'll forget you're working and students don't realize how much they're learning.

Relationships

Relationships sit at the core of this profession. We are building human beings, not just delivering curriculum.

Efficiency

Work smarter, not harder. Learn how to leverage systems and technology so the job stops eating every hour you have.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards

Understand how both types of rewards shape motivation, for your students, and for yourself.

Teacher Wellness

Protect all eight aspects of your wellness, not just occupational, but physical, emotional, financial, and the rest.

The difference is not the absence of struggle. It's the presence of happiness in your work.

From Chapter One, Thriving

Launching in 2027

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