How to Love Teaching Again: Work Smarter, Beat Burnout, and Watch Your Students Thrive - Softcover

Sears, Jamie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593539737 ISBN 13: 9780593539736

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

A heartfelt, hands-on guide to setting boundaries, increasing productivity, and finding fulfillment for teachers who know that their classrooms won’t thrive unless they do.

Over time, teachers internalize myths about their success that cause them to fall out of love with teaching.
 
“I’ll never be one of the 'perfect' teachers’”
“My self-worth is defined by my students’ test scores”
“The only way to get it all done is to work on weekends”
 
How to Love Teaching Again kicks these myths to the curb and replaces them with practical tips to defeat burnout, overcome perfectionism, and restore the joy of teaching.
 
As the CEO of Not So Wimpy Teacher, one of the most popular teaching resource brands on the internet, Jamie Sears has spent years designing tools and inventing strategies that restore the joys of teaching. This book offers simple step-by-step strategies that have helped thousands of teachers around the country transform their relationship with work, including:

• Reinventing small groups and centers so that they’re easier to manage—and so you don’t feel like you’re spread thin
• A foolproof productivity system just for teachers, including a life-saving method for batching lesson plans
• Scripts for establishing boundaries that will drastically reduce the time you spend lesson planning, responding to emails, and planning extracurriculars 
  
  

Our education environment is often stacked against teachers—from insufficient funding and mandatory meetings to red tape and standardized testing. Drawing on real-life struggles from the teachers who have used Sears' strategies to overcome burnout and make the most of their time, How To Love Teaching Again will give you specific steps to stop drowning in to-dos and do the work that inspires you.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jamie Sears is a wife, mother of 6 children, a former 3rd grade teacher, and creator of “The Not So Wimpy Teacher”, an education blog that spans across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, email, and similarly named podcasts. With half a million teachers and administrators in her tribe, she teaches educators how to better help their students and themselves.

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Chapter one

The Standards for Being
a Great Teacher

When I was a student teacher, I taught twelfth-grade government. Or so I thought.

W

I had 150 students in total. Every time I gave an exam, one-fourth would fail. As a former lobbyist and always perfectionist, I was dumbfounded. I had given my students solid lessons, great notes, and a super resourceful study guide.

But thirty-seven kids still flunked every unit test I gave. As I made red mark after red mark, I beat myself up about what a terrible student teacher I was and how no school would ever hire me. Yup, I am pretty dramatic. The teacher who was mentoring me at the time-one of my favorite teachers from high school-told me to be patient with myself. He didn't seem worried in the least. And you know what? Every single one of those 150 students passed the course and graduated. Despite failing my unit tests. Many went to college and I hope all of them learned enough in my class to understand the importance of voting. (Please vote.)

But what I learned through that experience is that my classroom-and yours-isn't the last place your students will learn. About math, English, social studies, government, and life. Our educational journey is long. There are tough times for every student along the way. What I want you to realize and remember is that your classroom is not the final destination. You are just one stop on every student's educational journey. The kids in your class get to make other stops along the way. Each stop-from first grade to sixth grade to twelfth grade and beyond-is another opportunity for a new adventure and lessons learned.

So-deep breath here-it is perfectly okay if every student does not meet and exceed each testing standard while in your classroom. Yup, I said it. Every kid isn't the same. An entire class of kids can't all learn and grow at the same pace, and therefore, every student won't end at the same place at the end of this school year. Those who wrote the standards might not know this, but you and I are smart cookies. We know with certainty that every kid in our classroom, regardless of current grade-or reading!-level, will have a different experience with their education.

We're taught that students' overall education is the goal when we learn to teach, but in practice it's easy to forget and lose perspective. It can be so tempting to base our self-worth as teachers on student test scores. A few kids don't pass their math-facts test and suddenly you are spiraling in despair about what a terrible teacher you are.

If you are doing this right now, take a breath. You are not alone. I did it too. Teachers face so much pressure for their students to perform on tests when, really, standardized testing is just one data point and can be irrelevant to the quality of teaching that is actually happening in the classroom.

You love your students. You want them to succeed. But their success is not the definition of being a great teacher. Think back to your favorite teacher from school. Did you like them because you always got As on their tests? I doubt that's the reason you still fondly think of them as a great teacher. Instead, I bet you loved that teacher because of how they made you feel, how they spoke to you, what they believed or noticed about you that others didn't.

My mentor teacher when I was student teaching was actually my government teacher in high school. Mr. Craig was one of my all-time favorite teachers because he talked to me like I was brilliant. He treated me like an adult and believed I was capable of succeeding at hard things. That's why my definition of a great teacher is listening to, believing in, and pushing your students. It's not about having the best test scores in your district.

I wanted to be a great teacher. I knew that from the moment I made it Facebook official that I was going back to school to become a teacher. However, even though I knew in my heart that I could be a great teacher, I had my doubts. I kept hearing my cousin's words in my head. "You can't be a great teacher and a great mom. You'll suck at one of them." I just had to prove her wrong, even if I didn't know quite how to make it happen.

When teachers in the Not So Wimpy Teacher Facebook groups post about feeling like bad teachers, it reminds me of marshmallows. That seems weird, right? But I promise-it'll make sense after I share a story. Before I got married, my mom threw me a bridal shower and invited lots of her friends. None of my friends came because we were all broke college students at the time, and it was hard enough for us to scrounge up gas money, much less gravy boats and china. Driving to my mom's house on the day of the shower, I felt grateful for the generosity of my mom and her friends, and excited for the actual party. And it was fabulous. Except for the games.

There was one game in particular I will never forget. Prior to my bridal shower, my mom asked Scott some questions about himself. Then, at the bridal shower, she asked me the same questions. If I got the question right, we went on to the next question. But if I got it wrong, I had to put a giant marshmallow in my mouth. I wasn't allowed to chew it or swallow it. I just had to keep it in my mouth until the end of the game.

My mom started asking questions, and it became apparent very quickly that I had been set up. To this day I don't know if it was my mom, or Scott, or if they were in on it together . . . but I got every question wrong. Even the ones I knew for sure-like what size shoes Scott wore. I mean, I bought his shoes! I was sure I had the right answer. But another marshmallow was added to my mouth.

It went on and on like this. I knew all the answers. But every answer Scott had given was inaccurate. It didn't matter, though, because according to the rules of the game I had to keep adding marshmallows to my mouth while all her friends laughed hysterically. I ended up with a mouth full of massive marshmallows. It was awful. And it was hard for me to breathe. By the end of the game, I was gagging and couldn't even answer the questions because of the marshmallows.

To this day I can't even think about marshmallows without feeling nauseated.

Teaching is a lot like having a mouth full of marshmallows. When you first graduate from college, you have just one marshmallow. It's sweet and delicious. You love it so much. You are so excited about your career path and spend lots of time dreaming about the lives you will impact in your super-fun, totally cute classroom.

Then you get your first job and another marshmallow is added. You're excited, but also nervous. You have so many decisions to make. What should you buy? How should you set up your classroom? Should you have themes? Next, there are professional development and staff meetings on your schedule. Marshmallows are now being added two at a time. You have to learn standards, and a new curriculum is thrown at you. It's starting to get hard to breathe. Every day, more is added to your load.

And that analogy is true for all teachers. Seasoned teachers come to school with a mouth full of marshmallows but continue to try to squeeze in more than can comfortably fit. Teaching becomes like shoving more marshmallows into your mouth than you can hold without gagging. You're being asked to join committees and clubs and to volunteer to coach sports teams. As soon as you figure the curriculum out, a new one is introduced. The pressure is always on to come up with more engaging and differentiated ways to teach the lessons. And just when you think you can't fit one more marshmallow in, you are assigned a student teacher and asked to mentor them. Does that sound about right?

The truth is that there is a tremendous cost to letting those marshmallows pile up. One Not So Wimpy Teacher, Alyse, had a powerful wake-up...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593539737
• ISBN 13: 9780593539736
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland