March is here. For those of us up in the north country, that means there is hope for spring. Soon.
Parent/Teacher conferences are done. Winter sports are wrapping up. We are now about to enter the home stretch of the school year: fourth quarter, spring sports, prom, and soon graduation. How quickly it flies by.
I found an interesting blog post this week: “Surprise, Surprise . . . Teachers Have Personal Lives, We’ll Get Back to You During School Hours”. The author offers ten ways to avoid burnout. Now I’m all about avoiding burnout, but I have to be honest. Nearly every one of the things she puts on her list to avoid are what have made me the impactful teacher I am today.
Some of the suggestions I couldn’t disagree with more are –
· Make sure your social media settings are private. I totally disagree with this for two main reasons. First, students need digital role models; I’m not always perfect on social media (mainly guilty of retweeting things that agree with my political vantage point), but students are surrounding by people who act like fools on social media, if they choose to follow me, I want them to see how a rational, life-long learner acts online.
I want my students to see how awesome it is to be an adult. Like it or not, one of the best ways to get a window into our lives is through social media; therefore, students need to see how much I love being an adult so that they grow up to be one of those one day!
·
Commit to not working outside of school. I could never be an effective teacher and ever do this. I mean I’m doing work right now. If I didn’t do any school work outside of school, I’d only be able to get half of the stuff done in school that I do. I would never be part of the podcast club that meets weekly in the summer. I would never write my teaching thoughts, nor would I ever be putting out these newsletters. Plus, if I demand my students to do homework, why wouldn’t I do the same?
Commit to not working outside of school. I could never be an effective teacher and ever do this. I mean I’m doing work right now. If I didn’t do any school work outside of school, I’d only be able to get half of the stuff done in school that I do. I would never be part of the podcast club that meets weekly in the summer. I would never write my teaching thoughts, nor would I ever be putting out these newsletters. Plus, if I demand my students to do homework, why wouldn’t I do the same?
·
Do not accept friend or follow requests from parents or students on social media. Again, I can see how this might not work for some teachers, but if you care about the kids first and work hard to build strong relationships with them, why wouldn’t you want to do this? I just had a parent stop by for conferences. The odd thing was that I only had her daughter first semester; I didn’t have her in class now. The parent just wanted to tell me how much her daughter, who wants to be a teacher, enjoyed my classes and how often she talks about me at home! How is that bad? I only see friend requests as ways to build more relationships like that!
Do not accept friend or follow requests from parents or students on social media. Again, I can see how this might not work for some teachers, but if you care about the kids first and work hard to build strong relationships with them, why wouldn’t you want to do this? I just had a parent stop by for conferences. The odd thing was that I only had her daughter first semester; I didn’t have her in class now. The parent just wanted to tell me how much her daughter, who wants to be a teacher, enjoyed my classes and how often she talks about me at home! How is that bad? I only see friend requests as ways to build more relationships like that!
I’d be interested to hear about your thoughts about how you navigate these situations or what you think of the author’s suggestions?
Inside my teaching thoughts for week 26, you’ll find –
Book review – They Say/I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. This one came via a recommendation from Dr. Kim Donehower at UND. It is a great starter for getting kids to test out true academic writing.
Teaching Thoughts – I include an essay, “The Myth of the Teacher” that was published in What Teaching Means: Stories From America’s Classrooms about how much the old Greek figure of Sisyphus has in common with our daily struggles to teach.
What I Teach – I highlight an awesome assignment I found via Mrs. Semanko when I filled in for part of her last block Honors 10 class. I’m going to steal it and put it into use when we write our literary analysis later this semester. Thanks Lisa for the inspiration!
Podcast of the Week – The Most – This was recommended by another colleague, Jeff Loe. This podcast features everyday people sharing interesting stories from their lives. I think this has so much potential for nearly every class.
Video of the Week – Check out the TEDx Talk by Scott Mann, called “Rooftop Leadership.” I featured Mann the past two weeks for his amazing podcast called “The Generosity of Scars.” This time he recounts his time in Afghanistan and how he developed his unique theory no leadership.
Thoughts from Twitter – Check out Tweet from Entreleadership about the five things that will demotivate your team. Number five is clearly the most important, if you ask me!
Where are They Now? This week, I catch up with former Prowler Beth Tvedt who just joined in the Peer Learning Room at Franklin after several years out at NCTC. Franklin is blessed to have her!
Have a great week and keep smiling as March is finally here! Sooner rather than later, it’ll be shorts and t-shirt weather!
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