Attitude of Gratitude #20: Relearning Life Lessons

According to Colbert, I must be young! 

Today's TeachThought's  Attitude of Gratitude blog challenge prompt makes me cringe. It's one of those questions that force me to be look inward, pushing me to be "mindful." Touch-feely questions raise  my cynicism-hackles. 

The cringe-causing query?  What is one life lesson that you are thankful for having learned? Eeeew. 

My strategy? Read what reflective teachers have to say, hoping their words shake loose ideas hidden in the cobwebby wrinkles of my brain. 

The blogger behind  Eat the Yolk  reminds me that teaching is like a roller coaster, full of uncertainty she can't control. The author of  Middle Management - A Teaching Journey  amplifies the theme, noting she can't manage everything or anyone. 

Attitude of Gratitude #19: Grateful for Mentors

Today's post responds to the Attitude of Gratitude Challenge prompt: "Tell someone you know how grateful you are for the work they do. Share your story here."

Last night, our college premiered our first monologue program featuring students reading their stories (think This American Life or Story Corps on NPR). Students performed at a local library, packed with students, family, friends, professors, and counselors from school. 

I played a role in the program, and I felt particular pride seeing students from our school shine. I also enjoyed working with a great bunch of faculty who served as writing coaches. [Side note: The program was sponsored by So Say We All, a San Diego creative arts non-profit agency devoted to helping people craft and tell their stories. Amazing stuff.] 

In the audience, I saw two former colleagues from the college where I used to work. They were the prime movers on their campus, the ones who promoted and organized the storytelling project. I participated, in a small way, and enjoyed the process immensely. I saw how the project invigorated my classroom and helped develop writers and their voices. 

Attitude of Gratitude #18: Colleagues Keep Me Afloat

My colleague wrote eloquently about the seasonal "Eeyore Days" that happen in November. I, too, experience the malaise she describes, right after Spring Break, too. 

I haven't quite got to the point where I'm so behind that all I want to do is weep, a typical feature of every semester. It's during those time of the year I particularly lean on my peers for support. 

Which brings me to the question for today's attitude of gratitude blog challenge question: What do you appreciate about your colleagues? In a word: Lots!

Knowing I'm not the only one struggling, falling behind on grading, or feeling frustrated with a particular teaching issue reassures me, reduces the social isolation. While I love the autonomy of my own classroom, camaraderie helps to know what I experiencing isn't unique. This collegiality, at least for me, is therapeutic.

My peers' intellectual generosity also energizes me, makes me a better teacher. Not a week goes by when I don't "steal" or hack a lesson plan from a colleague. And the feedback I get on how to solve teaching problems is invaluable. 

Yesterday, three of us ventilated about the ongoing process of balancing our role as gatekeepers (determining if students are ready for the next level of English) and cheerleaders (nurturing and encouraging student voices).  But instead of wallowing or complaining, they came up with the idea to meeting over the break to chat about what we can say in our syllabi and do in our classes to help make that balance more transparent. 

Our goal isn't to devise a rigid, official statement of expectations but to help make clear our role to students. Each group, students and teachers, have different sets assumptions about learning and our respective roles in the learning process. (Sidebar: Yes, I'm cribbing my notes from Rebecca Cox's  The College Fear Factor.)

I'm happy my peers are the kind of folks who'd like to spend time together to solve shared problems. I feel like part of a team. Feels the best times I had in graduate school. 

I'm also grateful for my morning commute with with a colleague/friend, a counselor and professor who teachers personal development. Sharing about learning objectives and what goes on in our classroom with him helps me see with a new set of eyes what I experience. As we spend time sipping coffee and maneuvering traffic, we informally discuss navigating the pitfalls of being educators from our respective departments. I get to take advantage of the lenses his discipline uses to approach teaching and learning. The caffeine and discussion equally invigorate.

How wonderful to know I'm on the same journey with folks in my own departments and those in other divisions. More importantly, how wonderful that we can, if we are willing, depend on each other to become more effective designers of educational experiences.

Intellectual generosity. Therapeutic goodies. Gotta ask the folks at human resources if my insurance covers my peers' billable hours - for services rendered!

Post-Game Wrap Up: Reflective Teacher Blog Challenge

Every major writing project in my classes includes a reflect-on-your-writing component where I ask writers to consider their writing process, explain their approach, and discuss what they've gained. These meta-commentaries are like a "chalk-talk" after a football game or notes after a play's dress-rehearsal. 

It's that reflection after publishing when writers ask themselves, "What were the intentions behind the choices, implicit and explicit, I made?" "What were the consequences, positive and negative, that followed from those decisions?" "What strategies can I revise and build upon next time around?" "Which strategies should I jettison?" 

I used to dread reading notes after high-school drama rehearsals, afraid the voice captain would announce I wasn't cutting it or director would cut me from the cast. 

But no. The best post-rehearsal sessions had to do with reflective revision, about building from our strengths and minimizing weaknesses. I've striven to make the the "post-rehearsal" self-evaluations in my class keep with that spirit, celebrating effort well spent and resolving problems. 

I finished TeachThought's Reflective Teaching 30 Day Blog Challenge a few weeks ago, I figure I need to reflect on my own blogging process, on what I took -away and what I've discovered or rediscovered about myself as teacher. After all, the theme of my blog is to "feel the burn" I expect student writers to experience in my classroom, Here goes. 

I. Got. So. Much. Too much to fit into a single post. 

I agree with my friend and colleague, the blogger behind Eat the Yolk, who talks about the boost, purpose, and inspiration she gains from blogging about teaching. I also concur with what Refranz Davis has to say about blogging in her post on Edutopia, "Reflecting for Change, From Journaling to Blogging."

The most surprising lesson I gleaned from the experience is that I can't look to students to validate me.  I can't expect their reactions to me and my assignments to fill me up. I can't depend on their affection or gratitude. Students don't have to like me. Indeed, if I do my job correctly, students may not. And for sure, students can't appreciate how hard I work or how much energy it takes to prepare lessons and assess their learning.  I can't put too much stock in their opinions about me, at least as far as my own worth is concerned. That's not their charge. 


As the saying goes, "What other people think of me is none of my business." 

I thought I understood that concept. And I did, intellectually.  But it wasn't until I started blogging regularly that I understood on an experiential basis how much I had invested in my students' opinion of me. As I began blogging and reading my peers' posts, I found myself looking to teachers for validation. My colleagues are the only ones who fully appreciate the ups and downs of teaching. They are the only ones who "get it." Placing the burden of "getting it" on my students is close to a boundary violation, expecting more out our relationship than is ethically responsible. 

Reading my colleagues posts, peers from across the nation and around the world, I found richer, more meaningful affirmation than I ever felt from students. I felt a quality of connected to my profession that I hadn't felt before or had only experienced as momentary flashes at staff development programs. At the risk of sounding too much like Sally Field, I began to feel heard, understood. In retrospect, I see how my stress level gradually reduced; I no longer feel on the verge of burning out. 

Nurturing community with teachers, even virtually, mitigates my tendency to depend on my relationships with students for my self-worth.. And without that unspoken expectation of appreciation haunting my interactions with students, classes became relaxed, easier, less taxing.  I didn't need students to like me (at least not as much as I did before). 

Had anyone suggested that I'd make that discovery by blogging, I would have felt insulted, defensive even. I know about boundaries. I know about appropriate relationships. I have a degree in counseling, dammit!

But I've been pleasantly surprised to make this discovery, which is probably less about a single event than it is an unfolding, a gradual learning process. Participating in the San Diego Area Writing Project and getting a full-time position are the two other influential moments that likely spurred this revelation. 

Without the regular, formal  written reflection of blogging, I doubt I'd recognize at an experiential level how much I need a community of peers. I'm not some lone wolf out there on my own. I'm a member of a dedicated, loving, community of professionals with whom I can celebrate my successes and lean on when times get rough. 

Because of TeachThought's  September Reflective Teaching Blogging Challenge and the other professional blessings I recently  experienced, I commit to nurturing connections with my professional peers - virtually and in real-time. And I commit to building the kind of teacher-student relationships that foster the healthy learning experiences that students deserve.