Setting Teaching Goals

Goals are an odd thing. Teachers generally know the value of setting goals, creating a viable action plan and meeting goals. As teachers we deliver lessons aimed at helping our students create and reach personal and academic goals. As professionals we establish goals for ourselves annually and strive to meet them throughout the year.

Overall, I feel that I am a “goal oriented” person - I like having meaningful direction for my actions and enjoy reaching a bench mark for personal success. Yet every year I struggle to establish and articulate meaningful professional goals for myself. I want to set goals that will help develop my abilities as a teacher and benefit my students while still maintaining the components of being “realistic” and “attainable”. While every year I’m able to carefully craft these goals, I always question myself and wonder if I settled on the “right ones” for the year. It takes me forever! 

Thankfully, I finally feel that this year I managed to create well thought-out goals that will not only motivate me to use better teaching practices in my classroom but will feed my desire for professional and personal learning.

Even though my official professional goals have been set for the year, and I’m satisfied with them, I have continued to think about professional and personal goals. I now wonder if I can embrace other professional-esque goals for myself. Something along the lines of:

1.     Establish a better work-life balance: by using prep time more effectively and taking less work home with me at night. I know that I tend to “over work” on not only my actual job, but with my volunteer obligations and creative pursuits as well. I think this will help me to be a better teacher in the end as I’ll have some distance and time to reflect rather than being constantly engaged in the moment or current task at hand. (I guess my need for directed reflection  is why I started blogging this year, but still it will be a good challenge).

AND

2.       Take more risks: try new things inside and outside of the classroom, new teaching/learning styles with my students, seek out new experiences that I can integrate into the classroom as teachable moments. This could lead to some exciting learning opportunities for myself as well as my students. I’m not saying I’m going to go out and try anything extreme this year (don’t expect me to take up sky diving or something) but I do think I will be able to step out of my comfort zone and embrace new opportunities.

Extending this tradition of professional goals will mean that this is going to be an interesting year full of personal challenges. I guess I should consider revamping my personal goals as well… but that’s a post for another day! 

Live Different: Motivation for a new school year

School’s been in back session for us for about a week now and teachers and students alike are getting back into routine. Classroom norms and expectations have been established, and it seems as though it’s back to “business as usual”.

 Expect for that I feel like I want to help provide my students with more that “the usual” experience of learning at school this year. I want to engage them in meaningful learning, challenge them to embrace new experiences and see the world and themselves in a new light. I’ve been encouraging my students to set meaningful goals this year, to get involved with the school community and to embrace this year as a new opportunity to make something incredible happen in their lives. Sometimes this is easier said than done with sleepy teenagers first thing in the morning (or even after lunch on some days..)

Today, however, my school had the unique opportunity to welcome the “Live Different” team back into our gym for the third year in a row. This group of Canadian young adults delivers an important message to students: that they matter and that they can change the world. Through motivational stories, sharing personal experiences and an upbeat rock band, (this year is was an awesome duo called Everglow) the Live Different Team encourages students to find and own their voice and story and to defeat negativity in their lives and the world around them. This empowering message is relevant to teens and hopefully gets them to look beyond the surface and see what they are truly capable of in life.

The organization also has a summer academy for students which enables them to travel while making the world a better place. They also have an internship opportunity for young adults and travel opportunities to help build houses, schools or other community projects in the developing world.

What’s even more amazing than this group’s ability to inspire students is that they are all really amazing and down to earth people. I had the opportunity to chat to a few of their team members after the assembly and they are truly passionate people. Check them out online at http://livedifferent.com/

While I’ve only known the students in my current classes for a few short days, I can already start to see the amazing talents and gifts they have.   Young people are capable of true greatness and after listening to the motivational speakers from Live Different today I feel satisfied that our future, not to mention our present is in good hands.

 It can be hard to listen to your own voice and to “own your story” as the team encouraged us to do today; but if they can do it and I can ask my students to do it- we as teachers should be willing to do it as well. So now the only question is, what does your story sound like? 

New Beginnings

September is often thought of as a time for new beginnings; summer vacations come to an end, the leaves change colour and students (and teachers) go “back to school”. As a teacher, I have always loved this time of year. It’s exciting to come back and catch up with colleagues and hear stories of everyone’s summer vacation adventures, or their adventures in their summer school classrooms. I love buying new school supplies and stationary. I even like organizing my teacher bag before the start of school. However, it can also be a stressful time of getting course outlines ready, getting classrooms set up and the somewhat anxious anticipation of meeting students on the first day. Nine years in, and I still get nervous on the first day of each new semester. I probably always will…

As I went back to work last Monday for our week of pre-school in service meetings, my mind set was totally different this year. I have had an amazing summer filled with new experiences, new adventures, and most importantly new learning, both personal and professional. While I always like to think I come back to my classroom with a renewed sense of energy and eagerness, this year feels different- I’m excited to be teaching some new courses, happy to have an “old” course back after a two year break and I am inspired to try new things and keep the summer of learning alive. The teaching world looks different to me this fall

This new lens and empowered feeling I carried with me this week has inspired me to start a blog. Sometimes my head is full of ideas and I just need to write them down. Having a focused outlet for all the “teacher things” on my mind will hopefully help me make sense of them and continue the creative inspiration I’m feeling today.

Happy new school year to all my teacher friends and good luck for the journey of learning ahead of us!