Teaching is way harder than I ever thought. I just read another blog of a fellow classmate and she said that she was over tired, overworked, and under appreciated. Ain't it the truth!! Anyone who is or has been a teacher of anything has felt this way at one time or another. It's difficult to be inspiring to a class full of students when you don't feel inspired.
What inspires you to be a better teacher? Or inspires you to be a better person or friend or colleague?
Being a teacher of K and 1st graders, I feel a much more pressing responsibility now that I have taken this class to take the theory I have been learning and apply in into my classroom. This is where it all starts, when kids are 5 and 6 years old and they are beginning to form opinions about themselves and others. Where do I even start?
We have been learning about goals, goal-setting, and self-regulation in our class this week and it's given me much food for thought. It helps me process and understand the subject material when I can make personal connections with what I'm learning. I started thinking about goals I set for myself and how I go about reaching them. I do this in much the same way Alderman talks about, by getting the big picture (distal goal), then breaking it down into smaller or proximal goals.
Two examples illustrate this: The Will Smith video when his Dad knocked down a brick wall and told Will and his brother that they had to rebuild it. The end goal, completing (a big) brick wall was much too overwhelming, so they decided to break it down, focusing on one brick at a time. It took 1 1/2 years, but they did it. Another example is of myself and finishing up my MA. When my advisor emailed me my Comp questions, I started to sweat, get anxious, and let myself get totally overwhelmed in my own head. I had to do a lot of self-talk to get myself to a place where I could deal with this looming thing now hanging over my head. I told myself I would have 3 of my 6 questions done in the first two weeks and spend 1-2 hours a day working on the questions. My next goal is to have them done a week before they are actually due, which is next Friday the 9
th. I reached my 1st goal (which felt very good) and now I'm in the process of getting to the distal goal, completion of my MA.
So, goals are important why? For our students, goals let them know how they are doing and give chances to self-evaluate, which is an important aspect of self-regulation. We should never assume that students know how to goal set - they must be explicitly taught how to do this. I'm thinking about having a conversation with my principal to brainstorm how we might address goals with our entire staff and how this could be helpful in motivating students and increasing performance. If teachers are well supported (with administration and parents) and we make it a a school wide effort, would this help close the achievement gap, even just a little? Possibly, but it remains to be seen.
While perusing the readings for this week, I was struck by the idea of possible selves, something I never gave much thought to. I have many students whose futures are unclear, thus affecting their current behavior by what is happening at the moment. One of my goals for the upcoming year is to really work on helping my students to develop adaptive attributions and foster their sense of self-worth and efficacy. This in turn will hopefully reinforce a positive view for the future.
I feel like I did a pretty good job with this last year, but knowing what I know now, I think I'll be trying some different things in the fall to guide my students to a place where things are good at school and they feel good about their efforts in school. Will I be able to do this for all my students? Maybe, maybe not. I would like to close my eyes and wish that I could be that teacher that every one of my students never forgets. That is my goal. If I end the year having helped and touched the life of even one of my students, then I am helping, even if in a very small way, enhance and empower our future generations.
