As a first-year teacher, you are doing everything for the first time. The first time planning a lesson. The first time having to manage a classroom. The first time grading. The first time trying to make a seating chart. The list of firsts is endless.

All those new things can be incredibly overwhelming and overstimulating.

While your instincts may be good, when everything is new, you are bound to struggle. At least once you will make a mistake — possibly a few mistakes (or, in my case, many).

But what can you do when you don’t know what to do?

I was lucky enough to find the answer quickly into my first year. Well, I didn't exactly find the answer, but the answer found me as I was bawling my eyes out in the staff lounge. Face red, eyes puffy, snot and all. (The perfect impression you want to make as the new teacher in the building.)

My answer came to me not as a what or a how, but a who. Alyssa, a fellow teacher in my department, discovered me amid my puddle of tears. She came and sat with me as I broke down. She listened until I was all cried out. (And believe me, it took awhile.)

But Alyssa didn't stop there. From then on, she went out of her way to guide me in the right direction. She told me, “My door is always open,” and it was. She became someone I could turn to for judgment-free guidance and support. Even now as I write this piece as I enter my third year of teaching, I know her door is still open.

Then there was Alexandra, the teacher chosen to be my first-year mentor. The relationship I developed with Alexandra became essential to my growth and development. When I was not in my own classroom teaching my students, I was in her classroom and she was teaching me. I became a student again, eager to learn from all of her experience. As a first-year teacher, I never seemed to run out of questions to ask. My mentor never seemed to run out of answers (or patience, luckily).

Each new struggle — whether it was lesson planning, classroom management, grading or how to go about doing literally anything I had never done before — meant I needed more or different support. But I learned that if I asked for help, I would receive help. There was always someone willing to teach or guide me in the right direction.

Whether it was Alyssa, Alexandra or, later on, Kristina, Ginger, Jessica and Liz (or half the staff in my building if I’m being honest), my confusion was always met with kindness and a helping hand.

I couldn't have made it through without their endless supply of encouragement and guidance. And I wouldn't have made it through if I had kept my struggles to myself — if I hadn't asked for help.

The most important lesson I learned in my first year was this: It takes a village to raise a teacher.

These people I found, people who chose to rally behind and support a lost and struggling first-year teacher, became my village.

Ask for help and accept it when it is offered. Find your village, and you will be just fine.

In Good Company is a pseudonym for a third-year middle school teacher in the Bronx.