Today, let’s make our profession better by focusing on how we can encourage new teachers and each other. Edwin Thomas Minguela reflects upon his first two years of teaching. As you listen to what he has learned and his encouragement for teachers, reflect upon your early years of teaching and how you can help new teachers in the profession. www.coolcatteacher.com/e536  Along with this episode I’ve released a new blog post “8 Ways to Help New Teachers Thrive” – check the show notes and stay tuned at the end of the show for these research-based ideas. I've also included a PDF of this post as bonus material for this episode. Today’s challenge – adopt a colleague. But it has to be someone who is not already in your inner circle. If you’ve been teaching longer than three years, I challenge you to adopt someone who is a new teacher either at your school or to teaching altogether. If you’re new to teaching, reach out to someone who has been teaching longer.  Edwin Thomas Minguela - Bio As Submitted I am an upcoming third-year teacher in Philadelphia. All my 3 of years have been in 3rd grade. I love to bring joy for learning to all of my students. Being an urban student once myself and had spent the majority of my Prek-12 school years in Philadelphia, I know many of the hardships my students may come to my classroom. I want to them to know that our classroom is a safe place and that I will always care for them. During my educational career, I have had multiple rewarding opportunities to conduct research and present at a conference on different topics. A goal of mine is to not become an educator, but a researcher as well. One particular opportunity was conducting research on a Native American reservation for about 12 days. The research I conducted was an autoethnography dealing with my experiences as a Latino going into another minority's culture. I was able to present my research a year later at an undergraduate research conference held at Millersville University. I have also had a lesson publication and professional development session related to STEM education.