Keep Going

The blog post this week was written by Ruth Ayres. She is a full-time writing coach for Wawasee School District in northern Indiana. She blogs at Ruth Ayres Writes and is the coauthor of Day by Day, available through Stenhouse Publishers.

Keep Going If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.                                                                                                                  Pat Riley What happens when your email is bulging and the paperwork is mounting and your conferring notes are sloppy? What happens when you’re overwhelmed and unsure of the next step? What happens when you feel like you’ll never catch up? If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.  You keep going. It is challenging to meet the diverse needs of a classroom of students, while at the same time attending to the demands of all the other things a teacher must do. The work load is heavy and the time commitment is significant. It is inevitable that at some point you will feel overwhelmed. Instead of giving up, you keep going. Make a List Quickly write down each of the tasks you need to complete. Make a fast list and chances are the most pressing needs will appear. When you have nothing else to add, go back and select three tasks to prioritize. Think Small Break big tasks into smaller chunks. By thinking small, we are able to accomplish big tasks. Set a Timer Often when feeling overwhelmed it is easy to believe there isn’t enough time to complete anything. I often avoid tasks when I’m stressed because the task seems so big and my time is limited. I’ve found by setting a timer for 15 minutes, I’m able to get started. Fifteen minutes isn’t overwhelming; it is possible. I work diligently and efficiently, knowing when the timer goes off, I can take a break. Surprisingly, I often complete a task in 15 minutes, while other times I get into the zone and will continue working after the timer rings. Getting started is the first step to catching up. Read It might seem counter intuitive to spend time reading when you are struggling to keep up with your work. However, I’ve found by reading an article or a blog post, I gain energy. It’s important to keep grounded in our core beliefs, and one way to do this is through reading. This is a great reward for working until the timer rings! Look for the Growth As teachers we are constantly pushing students to learn more and read harder texts and write with more sophistication. It is easy to become overwhelmed by everything students don’t know. When we take our focus off of what students aren’t able to do, we are able to gain energy. Instead of being bogged down by students’ needs, consider completing this statement: “My students used to need ______________, but now they know ______________. “ Find a Celebration When we look for the positive, our attitudes become more positive. If we are worried and stressed by everything we aren’t doing, then our attitudes can become more negative. Expecting to find something to celebrate is enough to change our focus and make catching up attainable. You are going to be overwhelmed, and when you are overwhelmed, you keep going. Being overwhelmed doesn’t make us failures. Rather, it is an opportunity for perseverance and determination. This how strength is built.

Happiness

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  -Abraham Lincoln

Over the past decades studies on happiness have concluded that people who are grateful are happy. 

How grateful do you feel?

It sounded crazy to me a few years ago when a good friend of mine started a gratitude journal. She wrote in it every night before going to bed. She was unhappy with many things in her life at the time. Slowly, as she wrote in the journal, she noticed an interesting thing. She felt happier. Her circumstances, and things that made her unhappy before had not changed. She had become more grateful.

Gratitude = Happiness.

Start by thinking of something or someone you feel grateful to have in your life. Think about why you are glad. Reflect on this for a moment, think about what this thing brings to your life, and let yourself feel grateful for it. Feel Happier?

We are the masters of our own happiness. When you are happy, you’ll feel clearer, more hopeful, more resilient, more collaborative, and more focused.

Try it today!

Building a Relationship with Your Students

Building relationships with students can be the key to maintaining a positive culture in your classroom. Teachers can start by setting clear expectations of all students and by enforcing classroom rules in positive ways.

There are many ways that teachers can further build relationships with students. Here are four suggestions:

Get To Know Your Students

Take advantage of opportunities to speak with your students about their lives outside of the classroom. One way might be to simply ask children about their weekends to help you connect with them. Talking to your students about their lives gives students the indication that their teacher actually cares about them as a person.

Individualize

Paula Denton, author of The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language that Helps Children Learn, believes building relationships creates a more learning-friendly environment. Understanding how the child operates allows the teacher to further individualize their curriculum and find creative ways to help the student successfully grasp the material.

"The more we know about the child the more we can build learning environments and curriculum that are going to work for them," Denton says.

Watch What You Say

Teachers can help students feel comfortable in their learning environment by being mindful of the words they are using with students. Sometimes teachers can make the mistake of using harsh language with students. This could be in the form of sarcasm when joking or unkind words when disciplining them. Being careful with your words will help to maintain positive relationship with students.

Keep Trying To Reach Your Students

Although teachers may feel a crunch to get things done, with all the material they are expected to cover, Paula Denton suggests taking the time to develop connection between the students and teachers , even incorporating it into the curriculum.

"In schools, relationships are treated as luxuries," she said. "Relationship is a necessity for learning. We can't afford not to do it."

These ideas are just a few ways you can build relationships with your students. Setting expectations, enforcing classroom rules positively, consistently making an effort to learn who they are outside of school, individualizing instruction, and using appropriate language in class will show how much you care. Relationships make a difference in the way students perform in school. They can also make the process of giving students what they need in the classroom a little easier.

Sears, Nina. "Building Relationships with Students." Rss. NEA, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2016.