Blogs on Teaching Practice

We often instruct teachers to create a persona that is authentic to them, one that both holds high expectations for students and sees the fullness of their humanity. This is often easier said than done. The advice we sometimes forget to give, which makes the task of creating your teacher persona infinitely easier, is to know yourself.

Know who you are as an individual and an educator. Why are you here? What do you value? What makes you happy, sad, proud, scared? What energizes you? What is distracting for you? Taking the time to answer these questions helps you to ground yourself in what needs to be true for your classroom. It can inform everything from the physical space, to your management plan and the content you teach.

In our first regional workshop you viewed a video clip from my classroom. You may have noticed the superhero posters on the wall. They were part of our class decoration because our theme for the year was “becoming our own superheroes”. They were also there as a visual reminder for me that I saw teaching as a way of fighting for justice. 

In my classroom I carried a clipboard full of encouraging notes other teaches and students had left me over the years. They were a reminder on the tough days that I had successful days and years before and would have more. On the easel where I kept my behavior slips, I had some painters tape with the word “goosefraba” written on it, a reference to the movie “Anger Management” and my reminder to take a breath before I wrote any referral. To think about what the core of the behavior issue was beyond my being frustrated or embarrassed as a teacher.

The systems I used in my classroom were as much a part of my identity as the physical space. On my instructional slides, I put systems into place that helped keep me organized and accountable. I had to think about my physical, mental, and emotional capacity when thinking about things like pacing for assignments, class rewards systems, and consistent parent communications. When I was feeling overwhelmed or extremely frustrated I took a day off to sit and figure out why. 

I imagine that this calendar year has changed a lot of you. You may find your capacity has shifted in different ways as you try to find balance in a chaotic year. You may find that your values have shifted; maybe what mattered when you were planning your curriculum last year doesn’t seem to matter so much now. You may find your locus of control looks different as schools work to figure out new systems, technology, and structures.

You won’t be able to fine tune everything to your preference. You will, however, be able to better engage with that which you can’t control when you are more aware of yourself and your needs. I’m encouraging you to take a moment today and reflect on what has felt good/productive/energizing recently and what has felt hard/unhelpful/depressing. Pull out trends and patterns. Find what you can replicate for more good days

I’m out of the classroom and working from home at the moment, but what this has looked like for me is planning for flexibility. I try as best I can to plan meetings during my children’s “rest time” when I should be most free and flexible. I make self-paced Nearpod versions of my PD sessions so that fellows who miss the workshop can get caught up. These are minor adjustments in my control when it feels like so much of what is affecting my work is out of my control.

My hope is that each of you is able to find the little things that may make a big difference in your day to day. Maybe you find them through conversation with each other and your coach. Maybe through some quiet reflection.But definitely do the work and share what you find! You’ll be surprised how helpful the idea may be to others. 

It goes without saying that teaching K-12 is hard. It is one of the most important and also most stressful careers a person can pursue. During your first few years in the classroom it may feel like those good days, when you and the students are engaged in a meaningful exchange of ideas that you know will follow them outside the classroom, are just sprinkled unevenly across weeks and weeks of the tough days, when you wonder if a single one of your students got any learning from the hours of work and energy you put in to plan and facilitate your lesson.

Our students are the ultimate accountability buddies. They will let us know what they see as on point in our lessons, outfits, and personal lives as well as, and often more emphatically, what they feel is missing the mark.

Still, it remains true that when a teacher does the work of showing up each day and loving our kids where they are, they respond with appreciation in their own way, in their own time. It can be so difficult to see when we are lost in the stressing of report cards, 504 meetings, professional development, and work-life balance.

I wanted to make a point to share with you a few ways I’ve seen students show love in my own classroom as well as some of yours, ways you may not have thought about as student appreciation but that will probably seem familiar to you. I hope that these examples can frame a new way of seeing and receiving appreciation from your kiddos that energizes you to tackle those tough days and makes the great days that much sweeter:

• A student that is excited to share about something outside of the classroom they’ve related to their learning. Granted, these offerings can come at the wrong time and be frustrating and disruptive, but once the misbehavior is identified, take pride and joy in the fact that your student did the work to read every label on the back of cans and bottles in their homes to find the words from science class.
• Students willing to go to bat for you: their rantings and proposed solutions may be less than helpful, but student outrage at the fact that your smartboard still isn’t fixed even though that lady down the hall got a new computer or that your department chair spoke to you in a condescending tone is their way of demonstrating care you may not see otherwise.
• Listen for a shift in student questions in your classroom. Have they stopped asking “can we all have the same answer” and started asking “Do we have to have the same answer”? That means they are taking pride and ownership over their own thoughts and ideas in a way they weren’t before. They’re more bought in! Another shift like this I love is the shift from “did I miss anything yesterday” to “what did we do yesterday/what did i miss”. Students are showing you that they expect and accept work in your classroom.
• Students stepping in to redirect each other before you have to as the teacher. No, not in the obnoxious they keep yelling “you shut up” across the classroom but in a genuine and appropriate way: “Dude, can’t you see she’s tired? Just do your work”. “Y’all, we’re trying to focus on this work”. “We’ve been doing so well on class points. Don’t mess it up”.
• Are your kids excited to see you outside of class? Do they invite you to watch them sing at church? Do they make a note to look for you at the soccer game? Do they get excited to see you in the hallway or ask if you can please be the chaperone for the field trip? Guess what- they love you.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and perhaps none of these resonate, but when you stop to consider moments in your classroom that felt unexpected or made you smile, I bet those moments are representative of student joy and love.

What you do matters. Your student may not have the words or maturity to express how much, but you should feel it in every fist bump as they enter class.

“This student doesn’t need xyz; they genuinely need counseling and therapy.” 

How many times in our work as educators have we thought or shared out loud something along these lines. It is often both an extension of empathy to the students we serve and a recognition of our own limitations as a professional. Sometimes, the guidance students need must come from someone better trained, more experienced, and fully licensed.

This seems obvious to us when we reflect on our students, but what about ourselves? Why do we often struggle to admit when we could use guidance, counseling, and therapy?

Teaching is a difficult job and teachers often believe the path to becoming a “better teacher” is a path that is unlocked if they just work a little harder, if they stay a few more hours, or try a different subject, or earn a different degree. I’ve learned from experience that often the path forward is unlocked by taking a step back, by asking for help, by evaluating and utilizing your capacity well.

I’ve learned that in all areas of my life, I need guidance counselors. Some of those counselors have been in my life forever, like my mom; others are more recent friends with children slightly older than my own who assure me my best is good enough; some are former supervisors–educators I still admire and respect; and yes, some are clinical professionals that help me along the past to be my healthiest and most productive self.

There are some counselors I’ve had to let go, like the therapist whose office I found myself in during my first year of teaching that was confused about why I was so burnt out from work if “school ends at 3pm”. It was clear that he did not understand my reality or the context of my job and my being there was a waste of both of our time. 

I want to use this brief blast intro today, the last one in our March Wellness Series, to encourage you to ask for help and seek out guidance, from you peers, from our staff, and from professionals. I have drafted a list of mental health professionals and resources across the state of Arkansas that I hope you save to use as a resource and guide that can help you continue the practice of wellness through the end of the school year.

Mrs. R was a mother to a student in my 10th grade pre-AP English class my first year. Her student was a brilliant and hilarious child, a starter on the football team, and a leader in student council.

Around campus, Mrs. R was known as a helicopter parent but really, I think she was an informed parent. She was informed about the systems both inside and outside of the school that would influence her child. She was informed about the non-traditional licensing program I was a part of and the fact that I did not have formal teacher training. She was informed about the pathways that being a star athlete could open up for her sun.

And it was those things she considered when she came into my classroom during my first ever parent conferences, told me I was completely out of line for giving her child a B- in my class so far, that my grading system was inconsistent and unreasonable, and that I didn’t have an understanding of the other important commitment in students lives. She called me out on being young and ignorant of my role and on being an outsider to the community.

Those words hurt. They enraged me. They made me feel vulnerable and defensive.

After taking time to pause and sit with those words for a bit, I realized some of them were true. While I do not think I was out of line for daring to give my student a B-, my grading system was inconsistent and poorly communicated.

I cared deeply about the success of my students both in my classroom and in their community but I wasn’t setting them up for success for either one. I was moved to ask myself some critical questions:

• What systems could I put in place to help students better manage pacing themselves in their work?
• How could I communicate to parents why the work load I was proposing was both rigorous and fair?
• What trends was I missing in my classroom that could show me loopholes in my grading system?
• How could I show to students and parents that I cared about them holistically? 

My conversation with Mrs. R inspired me to buckle down on my planning and start each week with a student-facing agenda of tasks and deadlines. Kids knew Monday what was due Friday, and we had built in days for make up work. It also influenced me to utilize the resource of the copy center in our district office to make class sets of readings to send home on days I knew there were student events. I made a commitment to attending at least two student events a month, and I kept a teacher notebook with completed exemplars of all assignments given to students so that when parents asked questions I could show them where exactly their student lost points on their grade.

The conversation with Mrs. R made me more intentional in my planning, grading, and organization. When I sent home parent communication, I would call her to follow up and make sure it was clear. She volunteered to help in my classroom with student make up work days a few times. By the end of the year, she and I had a great relationship. By the start of year two, she was recommending other parents to register their kids in my class. By the end of my third year, when her son was graduating, I was honored with an invite and the opportunity to write a recommendation letter.

Mrs. R taught me that the “over-involved” parent often does so because they know how many parents want to be there and cannot. When they demanded something of me, it was for their child and all the other children they knew and cared about. When they gave me a criticism it came from a real and valid experience that it was my task to understand, and that inviting them in cost me nothing and but a little humility.

I hope that my daughter’s teachers will have that same outlook in the future, because I may or may not be helicoptering already. 

But I also hope they invite me in to be a part, because like Mrs. R I am willing to donate, chaperone, petition, and fund raise to support the education of my girls and their peers in any way a can. A teacher that can show me their intention and dedication is a teacher I can work with toward impact and I hope that is the teacher you can live into for your student families. 

Ms. F is a difficult parent for me to write about because her children are so dear to my heart and because she is one of the parents I never actually met. Though I taught both her son (the older sibling) and her daughter, I never met Ms. F.

I taught her son two years in a row. I tutored both her children after school. I sponsored them and traveled with them on trips for the school drama club. I spent the week before her son’s graduation date in the counselor’s office with him making sure everything was in order and all credits made up so that he could walk across the stage. I cheered and cried myself hoarse at his graduation. And, I never met Ms. F. 

I know she existed: Her children often talked about her. She signed referrals, permission slips, and grade reports when they went home. She occasionally responded to my text messages, and she met with other teachers on campus once or twice. I knew at least one teacher who she communicated with almost weekly about her children. I don’t know why Ms. F chose not to prioritize her relationship with me in the same way.

I spent the same energy and effort in reaching out to her as I did all parents. On the rare occasion I wrote one of her children up, I followed up with contact. I made myself available as best I could, and yet she never came. I’d like to think she didn’t prioritize our relationship because she felt she didn’t have to. Maybe her children communicated to her my classroom was one where they felt safe and supported and she could cross stopping by off the long and exhausting list of things to do that single parents carry around with them. I’ll never know.

What I do know is that Ms. F was not an “absent” parent even though I never met her.

Her children, though they were both behind in reading, both struggled with a variety of health problems, both often lacked materials, and both were frequently bullied by other students were some of the kindest and most respectful I knew. That I’m sure was due in part to their mother’s presence.

They were creative and imaginative and excellent musicians, an interest they shared because of their mother’s guidance and presence. Both children were proud of their school and proud of the larger community in a way I rarely saw mirrored in their peers and I know it was connected to their mother’s influence and presence.

Both children worked hard and urgently IF and WHEN they were given the proper tools to do so and despite the huge opportunity gap they personally experienced. Lastly, both children grew into responsible adults with stable jobs (even though her daughter did not get to walk on her graduation day) and heavy community involvement. I had other students in the same classroom as Ms. F’s children who experienced a much smaller opportunity gap and yet lacked any strong evidence that I could see of the same level of love and purpose.

It was just so apparent to me that Ms. F taught her children the importance of trust and responsibility, and though she will never know it she taught the same to me. 

She taught me about the weight of the responsibility parents are trusting us with when they give us the privilege of teaching and influencing their children when parents have done all in their ability. I valued that trust. I meditated on it. I did not want to fail her, and I certainly did not want to fail her children.

When I was tempted to plan a week of lazy lessons without real scaffolding or purpose, I thought about Ms. F and her trust.

When I made the decision to keep extra supplies for students in a classroom “student center” area, I was thinking about Ms. F.

When I implemented systems like Remind in my classroom, it was to make it accessible to parents like Ms. F.

I do not know anything about Ms. F, not where she worked or if she worked, except that her children loved her, and that was enough for me. She loved them and trusted me to do the same and it was that charge that allowed me to create a classroom space where children like hers, that other teachers considered burdens, were classroom leaders and influencers.

Ms. F helped me to reshape my idea of an effective parent-teacher relationship, de-center myself in that context, and become a teacher that parents and students didn’t have to stress about.