Help Me, I'm Drowning!

Help Me, I'm Drowning!

I know I'm not the only one that has felt like I was drowning in work and family obligations. While I would love to blame it on our long summer and just adjusting to being back to work after 8-9 weeks, I find that this happens every year. Yes, summers make it a little easier to manage, but even then I am working hard. I read educational books to get better for the next year. I am creating items for my classroom or the teachers I am working with, and I attend trainings. I think I had one week this past summer that I actually didn't work or worry about work, and it took me going to Ireland to make that happen. In other words, we can't blame it on adjusting back to working every day. 

So once I accept the fact that it must be me, I think about me as a teacher over these past 17 years. Have I always worked every night and weekend??? Embarrassingly enough, the answer is yes. This has been something I have struggled with my entire teaching career. In all honesty, it goes back even before that to when I was a student. I have always wanted to perform at my best. I guess, many would describe me as a Type A personality. I was never satisfied with a "B" in class so why would I be satisfied with not giving 110% of myself on a daily basis to my students and school? 

My guess is that most teachers have this same thinking. They want to do their best for these kids. We get 9 months with them to make them their best and get them to their full potential. That is a lot of pressure! To make it worse, teachers have the added pressure of having their evaluations tied to this student growth, along with spending hours and hours of their time finding evidence to support their professional practice as an educator. This is all in addition to planning, making formative assessments, finding engaging activities and tasks for kids, grading, communicating with families, attending school events, participating in their PLC's, and dealing with students in crisis. If you have a family you do all of these things, and then go straight to a volleyball or basketball game, clean up the house, run some errands, cook/eat dinner, and maybe work out of your lucky. By the time you sit down, you are so exhausted that it takes just second for you to pass out!

This past year, I realized that I wasn't any good to anyone at home. My husband got the worst of me. I was so crabby and on edge. I was working all day, going in early and staying late after school only to come home and do more work! I was checking emails every night and replying to parents at 10-11p.m. I was attending my son's games and not really watching because my head was spinning with all of the things I had to get done or could try differently the next day. I was drowning. I began looking for other types of jobs. Maybe I could work at a restaurant and get great tips? Maybe I could be a motivational coach? I could work at the office in town and be off at 3:30 every day and bring no work home. When I talked to my husband about this, he stopped me and asked me if I would feel fulfilled. He reminded me that I got into teaching for a reason. That was all it took to remind me of the passion I had for working with kids and adults. I needed to make some changes to be able to handle all of my responsibilities. 

So, that's exactly what I did. I made some changes that I am still working on today and I started seeing some changes in myself and in the way I taught my kids. When I was "present and in the moment" I enjoyed my time with family and they enjoyed their time with me. I soon found out that if I didn't get to that one item on my list, the world didn't come to an end the next day. I examined the assignments I was giving and whether they needed to be graded or if I could just quickly take data on them right there in the moment. I realized that when I took time to work out 30 minutes a day, I felt happier and had more patience with others. I started writing down each day what I was thankful for, and it made me a happier person.  

I knew there had to be other ideas, so I went out to my Facebook friends and asked what they do to have balance in life. I've created this chart for you to easily print off and keep handy. I hope this helps you to gain more family time and be a more effective teacher this year. It has definitely helped me! Click here for the link. I separated this chart into 8 sections. I suggest you choose one thing from one section to try. If you find success, then try to add another thing to try. If you don't find success, don't give up! Pick something else to try from a different section. Some people just aren't morning people or can't go in early or stay late because of daycare. You have to pick things that will work for you! I wanted to thank Catherine for reminding me of the "Oxygen Mask Mantra" and  my Facebook friends Becky, Paula, Stephanie, Amanda, Kandi, Patti, Brooke, Kelli, Mary Ann, Jen, and Carrie for their suggestions for this post. 

Achieve Balance Chart

If you have any questions about any items on the chart, or would like to add some suggestions for those reading, please comment in the section below! I'd love to hear from you. 

And for your viewing pleasure, one final video abut our role as a teacher.  

Oh, the Places You'll Go With a Great S.L.O.

Is student growth tied to your evaluations? Are you feeling like you are in a state of compliance with paperwork, rather than a state of reflection to help you become a better teacher with more student impact?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, please keep reading because I may have some solutions to your problems. 

As a coach, one of my roles is to support teachers with their S.L.O. (Student learning Objectives) for their evaluations. If you aren't from Illinois or maybe your district calls this something else, it is basically how we teachers in Illinois show that our students are making growth on a common assessment or teacher created assessment. This is our Type 3 assessment which uses our classroom data and it is tied to our evaluations each year. This is the reason why so many teachers get anxiety and stress just thinking about them. 

For many teachers this process of recording everything for the sake of an evaluation causes anger and frustration. Let's face it, teachers plan learning objectives, success criteria, set goals for students, plan strategies for achieving those goals, and re-assess on a weekly basis with students! So they are not frustrated with what the state is asking them to do, rather their frustration comes from the feeling of being required to record this process and have it included as part of their evaluation. Many people who see themselves as good teachers are feeling that they are having to "prove they are capable" because of failing teachers in the state who weren't doing their jobs. They sit and plan these S.L.O's, in frustration because they are being told they ave to do them and they have a deadline for when they are due. 

So, as a coach who is sitting along side them cheering them on, and also as a person who has to do this myself, I have been struggling with how to support their valid worries and complaints. Here we have capable teachers who are moving students in the right direction, and are seeing growth. They are goal setting, looking at assessments, and planning lessons based on students' needs. So I've been wondering what I can do to help teachers, and you my readers, to feel better about the process and put a positive spin on it. 

So here is what I came up with, knowing it has helped me in the past. It has also helped while I am working with teachers and supporting them through this process. Hopefully, it will help you too! 

1. We hear from our students all of the time, "Why do I need to do this?" As a teacher, we always have a reason to give our students that is tied to how they will potentially use this skill in their future and how this will help them grow as a learner.  So, I am putting a spin on that same idea for us. When we are thinking, "Why do I have to do this? It is a waste of my time,"  we also need to put that same spin on it. Think of the positive outcomes from going through this written process. Yes, you may be doing this already with your kids in your head or quick lesson planning, but do you truly sit down and cluster your kids giving them that specific of a growth goal with specific strategies in mind for each of those groups to help them reach that goal? Most elementary teachers are not sitting and writing out cluster goals for students for every unit, every subject. Heck, I don't know anyone who would have time for that. So, at least by going through this process you are so hyper focused on those students and their needs and moving them in the right direction, that in the end, you know that you have made an impact on their learning. You know what worked, what didn't work, and what you would do differently in the future and you have data to prove it. Maybe by going through this process, you will find that some students or clusters of students far surpassed your expectations of them and you can give yourself a well needed pat on the back!

I found that after I had finished my S.L.O.in math for my evaluation last year, I wanted to continue doing this for every unit in math. I also found that for each unit I increased my student growth goals for clusters as I saw how they performed from the pretest to the post- test. This was great information for me as a teacher, and helped me to reflect and grow in my teaching practices. 

2. Change your mindset. We teach our students to change their mindset and look at things differently, but it is often much harder to do as adults. I try to put a positive spin on everything to make it meaningful to me. Yes, it is a compliance piece of our job that we have to do in order to stay employed. But, like I said in my first suggestion, if we own the process and we use it to reflect and improve student learning, it will be worth it in the end. To me, anything that helps students grow as learners in the end is worth it. If we change our mindset from a compliance "I have to do this" mindset to a meaningful "I am doing this to improve my instruction and student learning" mindset, then the process will be more meaningful. 

So, back to the title. You've gone or are going through the process of writing your S.L.O. You and your students will both grow through the process. Your great S.L.O is going to show you and your students how far they have come. Your administrators will see the amazing work you are doing with students. It's a win win for everyone. :)

I hope that you can take even a tiny bit of this and use it to help you when you are feeling like you are doing a task that you've been told to do and don't see meaningful. This time it is S.L.O' s but next time it may be lesson plan reporting, turning in paperwork, or an assignment from a supervisor. Please comment below  if you have any other ideas or suggestions for teachers!

Building Relationships in the Classroom

Whether you have been teaching for a long time or you are a first year teacher, I am sure you have heard or realized by now that the key to a successful school year is building relationships with your students. John Hattie's Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning book shows that forming teacher-student relationships has an effect size of .72. His research has shown that teaching practices with an effect size of .4 or above improve student learning.

Other research I have read shows that we cannot just have simple surface relationships with students and we need to push ourselves to really get to know our students, building trust so we can forge high-performance relationships. This would be the level we would want to aim for a classroom teacher. Our students at this level will feel cared for and also know that we will be challenging them to excel in their learning. 

So how do we do this? 

• The first step is to check our own belief system. If we truly believe that our students can be successful then we need to push them to get to that level of success. If we do not believe that a specific child or children can be successful, we have completely halted the ability to form a true relationship with that student. 
• The second step is to get to know all of our students. This can be done in so many ways. Many teachers use beginning of the year surveys to get to know a student's likes, dislikes, passions, and struggles. I admit, this is a tool I have always used. I even do an additional first week of school survey for parents to see how the student sees himself or herself compared to how the parent sees their child. Another way to learn about your students is to have lunch with them. I would schedule lunches with small groups of students in my classroom. They loved this special treatment and I also got to know more about what they do on the weekends, their families, and their friends. There are tons of resources on TPT for students sharing information about themselves. Some of my favorites are the All About Me Bags and the Math About Me. 
• The third step is keeping a record of that information! I have always had a binder where I kept student surveys and information I had learned about them, but honestly sometimes flipping back and forth in those binders to get to their student page made things a bit difficult. A few weeks back, I read an article from Mind/shift that suggested collecting student data all year round. I used their example and created a spreadsheet of my own. Feel free to use it for your class! Click HERE for the 360 Spreadsheet. As a coach this year, I have actually taken this same type of form and have a spreadsheet on my teachers. I am using it to remember and track new things I am learning about them so I can make connections with them in future conversations. 
• The fourth step is being available and making sure that students know you not only want to connect with them, but that as a classroom you want all students to connect and learn about one another. I was so happy to find out about The First Six Weeks Of School by Responsive Classroom. Check out their website HERE. I heard about this book last year and was so excited when I found out my administrators had bought a copy for every teacher to read over the summer. Morning Meeting is the key to a successful school year. I can honestly say that after these first few weeks I have seen so many student-student and teacher-student connections being made. So many students have said that Morning Meeting is their favorite part of the school day, and to top it off, they are upset if they are late to school because they do not want to miss out on it with their classmates. The thing I love most about this book and Responsive Classroom is that it gives a structured, guided approach to doing morning meetings. Complete honesty: I have done morning meetings in the past and have had a huge success, but I would just throw in topics that we were struggling with as a group. I would also do most of the getting to know you activities at the start of the year and then we would just discuss goals or reflect on our day. I always knew something was missing, and I believe the structure and activities were that missing piece. With this format there is a Greeting where students greet each other in a different way each day. Next, you have a sharing time where students share with one person  or the whole group. Third, you guide students in a group activity which is a chant, song, or game. Finally, you read the morning message together. There are tons of resources in the book that guide a teacher through the first 6 weeks of school and beyond. Morning meeting continues throughout the school year. 
• Finally, throughout the year, but especially at the beginning of the year, share your hopes and dreams (goals) with students and have them share their hopes and dreams (goals) with you. 

As an instructional coach, I have also been getting to know students and trying to build relationships with them. I have signed up for morning and after school duty. During this time I am able to get to know students and talk to them about their lives in and out of school. I also have been joining in on Morning Meeting every day in a different classroom. If I will be in a classroom for the first time that day, I make sure to go to that classes Morning Meeting. I have also been in the cafeteria if it works into my schedule. I try to talk to students on an informal level while they eat lunch or in the hallways. While I know I will not be able to have close relationships with students as a classroom teacher could, my goal for the year is to at least get to know something about each student that I encounter.