Sometimes I smile at how lucky I am to be a teacher. To help in any small way shaping hearts and minds is a true gift. Other days, I could curl under a blanket and never emerge. Hide, watch Netflix or bury my head in a book for enjoyment. If anyone tells you they love every day and every moment of teaching, I would say lucky you! I love my job 99 percent of the time. It brings me joy to help with creating “wow” or “ah ha” moments. Those little one percenters however challenge me. So what pushes my buttons as an educator? Is it the same as yours?
Meetings that run over: a given. I have yet to meet a teacher who says no I love it when a meeting goes over. Or please, ask a few more questions with one minute until home time. Now the obvious one is out of the way let’s continue.
Inefficiency: productivity and effectiveness are two things that I value immensely. Teachers have so little time to spare that what time we do have is precious. Sometimes however, my idea of efficient isn’t always the same as others. There are certain things that need to be covered, I understand that. However, being as productive as possible is what every one of our kids deserves.
Too many night events: I miss my life, I miss my husband and I wish that I had more time with people at nights. I highly value work / life balance. It is something that I firmly believe in. After all, our students don’t deserve tired, run down teachers drowning themselves in coffee to survive. In the ideal world they deserve the best of us and eliminating as many night events as possible would support this. It would allow educators more rest and recovery time.
Too much talk and not enough planning: discussion is valuable. Discussion is great for sharing ideas, clarifying understandings and proposing scenarios. At the end of the day, discussion needs to happen in order to led to a best fit action, decision or outcome. I am more than happy to chat about educational content but our students need us to be prepared and ready. They need us to provide rich, targeted and engaging content. Information can often be summarised in emails and if I had to pick what was more valuable for kids, planned experiences wins every time. All of us become frustrated at times with the amount of time spent chatting as opposed to planning.
Round and round we go: it gets to a stage, as I get older, that some things have been said in the industry for years. It even gets to a point where what is said gets reinvented or renamed. The core business of educating the whole person still is the goal. Often, I find myself thinking how similar ideas, concepts and strategies are and that I have heard them all before.
A lack of decision: there is nothing more frustrating than sitting through meetings and professional development with no action or decision. We have all been there. Time and energy has been invested and there is no end result. Nothing changes despite all of the time and resources invested.
I often wonder if I am alone in my one percenters. Are they common or do different things push people’s buttons?
#education #teaching #twocreativeteachers
Meetings that run over: a given. I have yet to meet a teacher who says no I love it when a meeting goes over. Or please, ask a few more questions with one minute until home time. Now the obvious one is out of the way let’s continue.
Inefficiency: productivity and effectiveness are two things that I value immensely. Teachers have so little time to spare that what time we do have is precious. Sometimes however, my idea of efficient isn’t always the same as others. There are certain things that need to be covered, I understand that. However, being as productive as possible is what every one of our kids deserves.
Too many night events: I miss my life, I miss my husband and I wish that I had more time with people at nights. I highly value work / life balance. It is something that I firmly believe in. After all, our students don’t deserve tired, run down teachers drowning themselves in coffee to survive. In the ideal world they deserve the best of us and eliminating as many night events as possible would support this. It would allow educators more rest and recovery time.
Too much talk and not enough planning: discussion is valuable. Discussion is great for sharing ideas, clarifying understandings and proposing scenarios. At the end of the day, discussion needs to happen in order to led to a best fit action, decision or outcome. I am more than happy to chat about educational content but our students need us to be prepared and ready. They need us to provide rich, targeted and engaging content. Information can often be summarised in emails and if I had to pick what was more valuable for kids, planned experiences wins every time. All of us become frustrated at times with the amount of time spent chatting as opposed to planning.
Round and round we go: it gets to a stage, as I get older, that some things have been said in the industry for years. It even gets to a point where what is said gets reinvented or renamed. The core business of educating the whole person still is the goal. Often, I find myself thinking how similar ideas, concepts and strategies are and that I have heard them all before.
A lack of decision: there is nothing more frustrating than sitting through meetings and professional development with no action or decision. We have all been there. Time and energy has been invested and there is no end result. Nothing changes despite all of the time and resources invested.
I often wonder if I am alone in my one percenters. Are they common or do different things push people’s buttons?
#education #teaching #twocreativeteachers
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