Hi to all,
Now that Fall lead teaching is wrapping up for most of you, it is a good time for me to share some of the trends I observed over the last four weeks. It was obvious that everyone was working hard and learning lots!
Building Up Stamina
From talking with many of you, I know that one key learning was the amount of energy it takes to be an effective teacher day in and day out. Planning lessons, preparing for instruction, assessing student work, entering grades into Gradebook, communicating with families, and the list goes on of all the things a teacher must manage on any given day. The work we are asking you to engage in is intellectually demanding (the work that is critical to student learning and your own) and not necessarily fun or entertaining. Developing this stamina is not only crucial for your current work, but for the work you will do in the future as a teacher in a turnaround school. Most days, your principal, colleagues, students, and families will be asking you to give more. You need to be ready.
Urgency About the Details
One thing you may also have noticed are myriad details that a teacher needs to keep up with on a daily basis. Here is a small list of the many details I saw you juggling over the last several weeks:
- Getting the classroom prepared for the next day’s instruction
- Collecting permission slips and making sure they were submitted to the main office on time
- Entering grades into Gradebook
- Keeping track of student behavior points and hallway transition times
- Organizing student work for differentiation
Were there hiccups along the way? Of course and that is to be expected given that you are a novice and learning how to manage all of these details for the first time. What I hope you saw was that not only do the students and families rely on you to manage all these details efficiently, but so do your mentor and the other teachers on your grade level and cycle teams. Having a sense of urgency about the details is necessary. Please talk with your mentor or me if you need strategies for managing the details-we have many ideas to share!
Positive Framing and Joy Factor
Here is a well-known quote by Dr. Haim Ginott that impacted my thinking as a young teacher:
I have come to a frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis
will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized.
When I was starting out, I did not see the power I had as a teacher. In fact, I often thought the students had all the power and I tended to react to them, rather than be proactive. Positive Framing and J-Factor are very important tools to use to create a positive and proactive classroom climate that is attuned to the needs of students. Check yourself as you are teaching: Are you smiling? Are you teaching with high energy? Are you demonstrating enthusiasm for the content and student participation?
Thank you for reading! Any ideas for topics you would like to see addressed in the Feedback Loop? Please let me know!
Best,
Carrie
