Tag: encouragement for teachers

Posted in General Inspiration, Get Psyched!, Pep Talk, Uncategorized

Why We Fight…

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

I do not know how you feel right now, but I feel like I have been in a fight.  Not a fist fight, but a battle.  The beginning of this school year has been a little rough.  My students have been great!  I am not talking about them.  It has just been tough to get things going.

I have written a lot about the changes that I am striving to make this year.  It is not easy to dramatically change how you do what you have been doing for a long time.  This is my eighth year of teaching, so I am trying to break a lot of old habits and undo a lot of the “old ways” that I have taught.  When the going gets hectic and the clearness of my schedule gets muddied, I want to fall back into what is comfortable.

Yesterday was most definitely one of those days.  I had to constantly remind myself why the changes are important.  I had to keep telling myself why I needed to keep going on the road that I am on.  I had to look at myself and tell me that I can not give up and I can’t surrender.

It was hard.  I was left feeling beat up by the battle by the end of the day.  So now, at the beginning of a new day, as I sat and thought about what I might want to write for a post, I wondered what I needed to hear myself.  What I came up with is that I need some motivation.  Something to pump me up.  So I went on a search.

I found a pretty motivating (and a little funny from the way it was set up) set of movie speeches to get me fired up and ready for the day.  Have a watch and listen with me.

I love the way that was put together!  Are you more ready for the day now (or tomorrow if you are seeing this at the end of the school day)?  I know I am!

As I was looking for this, I found another video that was shown at a training I recently went to.  This video helped me this morning, as well.  It is a look at the recent past and the exponential changes we have seen in present and full of predictions for the continued changes into the future.  It is a reminder that we are teaching students for who the future is unknown.  There is a statistic that keeps changing (in the upward direction) of the percentage of jobs that will be available to our students when they are adults that do not exist at the moment.  This is in the video.  This statistic never ceases to astound me.  It is eye-opening to think that our students are going to enter a world that does not exist yet, and this world is unfathomable to us at the moment.  We HAVE to be on our game.  We have to fight!

I probably ought to share the video.  🙂  Even if you have seen it before, it is worth another watch.

After this, I don’t have a lot to say.  I need to let all of this sink in for you and let it motivate you for your “fight” today.  I do want to close with a quote that goes along with the video and what this information means for us as teachers.  It is from Eric Hoffer, a 20th Century American philosopher.  What is amazing about this quote is that he past away in 1983…a little before the impending technology boom that has caused much of the exponential changes that we are seeing.

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

Teacher, I hope you have a great day.  I hope you have a great end to the week.  I hope next week brings some of the awesome that you are working towards with your student.  You are awesome and amazing!  You are fighting the good fight.  Keep fighting and keep on teaching!

Love, Teacher

(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
Posted in Best of Dear Teacher/Love Teacher, General Inspiration, Guest Post

The Best of Substitute Teacher Guest Bloggers

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

Today’s post is the best of the guest blog posts by “Substitute Teachers.”  I was away for almost two weeks, and I asked a few people to post in my stead.  They did a wonderful job and there were amazing posts while I was gone!  I enjoyed reading and applying what they wrote!

I am going to use today’s post as a little plug.  I am looking for help in two areas.  I would love to have a collection of “Substitute Teacher Posts” to use when I am unable to write and to possibly to a weekly guest post.  I am looking for people who might like to write some words of encouragement, hope, and/or challenges.  Some teacher testimonies, stories from the trenches of teaching where encouragement and hop made a difference, would be awesome, as well.  You don’t need to be a blogger, you just have to have something to say!  Email if you are interested: dearteacher@outlook.com.

The second plug is another requests for stories or words of encouragement, but this is stories about teachers that you have had in the past that made a difference.  I want to collect thank you letters to former teachers and/or stories about how what they did and how they taught made a difference in your life.  I think we could learn so much from reading stories and letters like this!  I want to post these stories from time to time, and if I get enough I would love to think about putting a book together.  Would you like to be a part of this?  Please?  🙂  Use the same email to let me know your interest, or just send me your letter or story.  I am going to start by posting my letter soon!

Okay, now for the posts.  Read a few and share the one you liked the most!

Which one is your favorite?  Why?  Since you liked it, share the link with others and spread the encouragement!  🙂

You are awesome!  No matter what the week has been like, today will be great.  Make it great.  Keep moving and keep teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

PS…I am going to officially stop sharing the link in the Edmodo communities (I am only going to share in the Dear Teacher/Love Teacher group there from now on).  It is never more important than now for you to share Dear Teacher/Love Teacher with others.  Share where ever you can and spread the encouragement revolution!  By the way, you can share in the communities, I am just not going to.

Posted in Best of Dear Teacher/Love Teacher, Pep Talk, You Are Awesome!!!

The Best of the Pep Talks

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

 

(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to the blog and/or give credit to Dear Teacher/Love Teacher)

Dear Teacher,

Today’s “best of” is made up of some of my favorite posts to write, and include some of my favorite all-time posts.  Every once in a while we need to remember why we do what we do and get excited about it.  We may be on the downside of the teaching roller coaster and a little boost of reminder is all it takes to be headed back up the hill.  That is what these posts are about!  They are supposed to remind you of the awesomeness of what you do so that you want to go out there and be awesome-er!  Here is to being awesome-er!

Some of these are older and you may have definitely missed them.  Check out as many as you can and let us all know your favorite (and why)!

Well, I hope you are “pepped” after reading a few!  Pick your favorite, tell us why it is your favorite, and then go and share the link to it!  You can have more than one favorite, if you want.  🙂

You are awesome!  Today is going to be a great day!  You are going to have a great rest of the week!  You are amazing and are making a difference for the future!  Never forget that!  Keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

Repeat PS from yesterday…I have an idea.  I want to compile stories about teachers who have made a difference in peoples’ lives.  It can be a story or a “Dear Teacher ___________” thank you letter.  I want to share them on here and maybe in a couple of other ways (possibly a book).  If you are interested, email dearteacher@outlook.com and put “Teacher Story” or “Teacher Thank You Letter” in the subject.  Thanks.  I am excited about this project!  (I will post more details about this soon, but please send your story/letter if you can!)

Posted in Challenge, General Inspiration, Teacher Testimony, Theme Song

Why You and I Are Here…You Raise Me Up

Posted on by Dear Teacher/Love Teacher

Dear Teacher,

Yesterday I talked about how I was feeling overwhelmed when I looked at my goals and expectations for the new year (and all the work it will take to get there).  This morning I am feeling overwhelmed in a different way…a good way.  First of all, just a quick follow-up from yesterday.  I took my own advise and just worked in the areas I knew that I could get some stuff done pretty easily.  Throughout the day, those little things built on each other and I was able to make some great strides in climbing that mountain of preparation for the new year!  I had a few people cheering me on, and that helped!

This is not why I am overwhelmed this morning, though.  I am overwhelmed because of you!  I had more people respond to yesterday’s post than any other.  Most of the feedback came through Edmodo and the Facebook Page, and it just kept coming.  Many people shared about how yesterday’s post encouraged them and helped them to keep moving even when the task was daunting.  Along with this, many of the messages also shared what this blog means to them and how the encouragement, hope, and challenges help them to feel like they are not alone.  Knowing you are not the only one feeling what you feel and that other people are going through the same things that you are going through goes along way to renew you teacher’s heart.

These messages make me want to share, again, why I started this blog and what I hope to spark with it…and I think the sparks are flying. But before I do, I am going to veer a little off of the new normal here and have a song to listen to while you read on a Thursday (two songs in one week!  Woo hoo! 🙂 ).  Play the song and then read on.

Teacher, I am just like you.  I teach because I love it.  I teach because I want to make a difference.  I teach because I do not think I could not teach.  Teaching is in my heart, blood, and soul.  I am a teacher, just like you.

I am also a teacher just like you in that I get stressed by the expectations from others.  I love my students, but sometimes teaching them can be difficult.  Sometimes the weight of all the little things that come along with teaching weigh me down.  Sometimes those things can bowl me over and run me down.  I get tired.  I get beat up.  I get worn down.  I see the ebb and flow of the year that always wants to push me closer and closer to burnout.  I fight it off…but it is hard.  I know what you go through in a year, Teacher.  I am just like you.  I am a teacher.

(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to this blog or give credit to this blog.)
(c)DearTeacherLT2013 (You may use the image if you link back to this blog or give credit to this blog.)

Every school year I get to that point right on the precipice of burnout.  I can see and smell it.  I don’t get to the point of burnout every year, but I usually get close.  Really close.  Last year was different, though.  I saw burnout on the horizon, but I never really got that close to it.  It stayed in the distance, far away.

Why?  What was different last year.

I can actually point to a number of things that helped make that happen, but I want to focus on one.  Hope.  The power of hope.  The funny part is, it wasn’t hope for me.  It was hope for others.

I read through the book Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen near the end of the school year (great book whether or not you teach at a Title I school or not), and I got to a section that talked about the power that hope has on the brain and learning.  This opened my eyes.  I needed to help give my students hope and encouragement more intentionally and make it a priority.  I took on the task of handwriting personal notes to all 80 of my students.  The response was amazing!  I will write more about this another day, but the students loved getting these…I had some students hound me about it until they got theirs.  They started asking the other teachers when they would be writing notes!  Sorry teammates!  🙂

As I wrote these letters, I got to thinking how much some simple words of real encouragement (based on positive truth..the only kind of encouragement I know how to give) would make me feel and spur me on to bigger and greater things.  I went looking online for some kind of source of this kind of encouragement for teachers.  It wasn’t there.  I could not find anything like that.  I wanted something for teachers by teachers to give hope and encouragement.  I just couldn’t find it.  So I decided to create it myself!  Thus Dear Teacher/Love Teacher was born!

The purpose of Dear Teacher/Love Teacher is give hope, encouragement, inspiration, and challenges to you, Teacher, from another or other teachers (me and my Substitute Teachers).  More than giving you hope, though, the other purpose, or the sparks, is that I want to push you on to do the same for other teachers and for your students.  I want you to be a conduit of hope and inspiration.  There is so much negativity in education right now…I want to start an Encouragement Revolution.  That starts with me and starts with you.

Going back to the beginning when I talked about burnout, I think that hope giving and spreading is one of the big reason that burnout stayed away from me this year.  Encouraging others encouraged me and kept me going!

The reason that I believe encouragement is so important to give out, is that it is a part of our job as teachers…or should be.  I had you play this song, not so you could think about the people who “raise [you] up” but to start thinking about yourself as someone that others could sing this song to.  I want you to be a person that raises people (both other teachers and your students) up to more than they could be.

How can you…

  • lift some burdens from some of your fellow teachers?
  • sit a while with someone who feels alone and help them feel less lonely?
  • fill your students with wonder?
  • help students and other teachers feel like they can climb impossible mountains?
  • walk with a teacher over a stormy sea?
  • make a student or a younger teacher stronger by being on your shoulders?
  • push those around you to be more than they could be without you?

Teacher, if you are here reading this.  You understand the importance of hope.  You get the need for encouragement.  You want to be inspired and challenged.  I am glad you came.  I am glad you are finding that here.  Now go and give what you have gotten here out to others!  If you just keep it to yourself it isn’t worth as much!  If you give away all the good that you have and run out…come back here for a refill.  That is what I am here for!

You are so awesome!  I know that you will leave a trail of that awesome behind where ever you go!  You are amazing and you are making a difference!  Keep going and keep on teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher