Find Your Change

image from Case&Co

I write a lot about change, after all, in education how can you not?  Change does appear to be the constant every year and this year is no different.  However, the change I love to focus on is the personal change; the one where we know that something has to be different for us to keep on going.  The change that tells us that we will burn out in teaching if we don’t act now.  So the one question I seem to get the most is; how do you change?

The answer for me is; start where you are.  Take stock of what it is that makes you tick and what makes you stop.  What burns you out and what do you have power over?  There are many things that wear my soul down that I cannot control so I try to focus on those that I can; homework, grades, punishment, ways I present information, community, and so on.  And then I focus in on a few that I need to change right now.  I do not marry an idea, I date i,t and year after year it may get transformed – the change may change, and I am at peace with that.

I also don’t buy into a lot of programs.  I already have enough to memorize with the curriculum I have to teach so I look for natural changes; those that speak to me, that I know are authentic to me, nor purchased and packaged in a sleek form.  I have tried to implement many programs in my classroom, Tribes anyone, only to watch them disappear because I don’t remember what the main components are.  So my change is my program and therefore not prescriptive, it works for me in that moment, in that year, and I believe those are the best types of changes.

So this year, as I sit on maternity leave and wait for the calendar to show November 5th, I think of changes I may implement this year.  There are many I can think of but none that I know for sure, after all, how can I know what to change when I don’t know what will work with this amazing group of students?  And yet, the need for change is there, I can’t wait to blog about it.