[we and our students are] Meant to Live

Dear Teacher,

Good morning.  It is Monday.  You know what that means!  Weekly theme song.  This one is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands.  I am not sure if that is telling too much about me out not!  🙂  I picked this week’s song because I am pumped up.  I got through some difficult mental/emotional hiccups last week after a school meeting and learning the state test results last week, and now all of that is fuel for my personal teaching change and to help my students to fly next year!  I know I can raise them (and me) up to more than they (and I) could be without a little change in me!

Without further ado.  Click play (and skip the add if one comes up) and then keep reading.

Teacher, where ever you might be in the school year.  You may be, like me, in the summer and it is approaching the end and a new school year is looming larger and larger on the horizon.  You might be in the throes of the school year with things going great or not so great.  You may be in another place in the school year, I don’t know.

And I don’t know how you are feeling.  Are you excited?  Are things going well?  Are plans coming together and next year is starting to take shape?  Are you students doing well and all of your hard work and planning is paying off?  Or are you on the other side?  Are you terrified or extremely nervous about the new school year and things are not coming together for you?  Are you falling a part?  Is the school year not going so well?  Is all of your hard work and planning looking like a waste of time and your students are just not getting it?  Do they just not want to get it?

You most likely have a mixed bag.  That seems to be how most of us spend the school year.  A little from columns A, B, C, and D.  Some things are going well and your feeling good about how things look.  Other areas are not so good and you are a stressful wreck.  And with other factors you are just kind of in the middle.  This is how I spend most of the school year and summer.  I think we all do.  We are teachers.  We find a balance somehow!

No matter where you may be and how you may feel, I want you to stop, breathe, and relax.  Now, think of the biggest boldest, most impossible sounding goals you can have for yourself, your classroom, and your students.  Dream big.  Where do you wish you and your students could be as teachers and learners?  Who do you wish you could be as a teacher?  What would you be doing?  Who do you wish your students could be as learners and scholars?  What is your most impossible. yet semi-realistic goal that you would like your students to meet?  Teacher, I am serious.  Think of one or two gaudy goals for you and your students (“gaudy goals” are an idea from the training I went to a couple of weeks ago).  If you don’t have something to shoot for, how do you know where you are aiming?

Now that you have a goal in mind, find a way to get there.  I am serious.  What can you change?  What can you do?  Pick a handful of small things that you can do to try to move and find a path to those big, impossible sounding dreams.  Everything was impossible for the first time they were done.  There are some awesome examples of teachers who have done this and found their way to make the dreams reality.  I hope to highlight some of them soon, but that doesn’t matter right now because you could be one of those teachers.  Dreams are just dreams until we make them real.  How can you make your dreams and goals the real world for you and your students?

Teacher, you and your students are meant for so much more.  Do not be happy where you are with your students, where ever that may be.  You are meant to live for something more.  Your students are meant to live for something more.  Be something more.  Move your students on to be something more.  You can do it!  You can be more!  Go be more!  Don’t ride this feeling off.  I know that something stirred inside of you while you thought of bigger dreams.  Do it!  Work at it!  Make something more happen.  Be the something more for yourself, your students, and your school!  You are something more.  Prove it this week!

You are awesome!  You are the more!  I know you will show it to yourself and the world at-large this week!  Be the teacher you know that you always could be.  Go big this week!  I mean it!  You are amazing!  You will make a difference this week, and every week!  Keep on going and keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

PS…For those of you who use Edmodo, I have started an Edmodo Group for the daily updates.