2016 Resolutions- Create, Learn, & Encourage

I make a collection of resolutions each year, and last year some friends and I grouped them: health, personal, and professional goals. I'm going to attempt to track the professional goals here this year.

I'm going to leverage my strengths to improve upon my areas of weakness.

1. Create- Increase my professional social media presence. Blog at least once a month. Tweet at least once a week.
2. Learn- Keep track of time spent on professional commitments in my calendar, and analyze how I'm spending my time to budget time better. In an effort to avoid over-committing or stretching myself too thin, I need to both plan forward and log endeavors honestly. I'll log to the best of my ability and reflect at the end of each month to make more specific and measurable goals for the next month.
3. Encourage- Really see the people (all kinds of colleagues) I interact with and offer specific praise. As an introvert, I spend a lot of my time observing and listening to others, speaking up about things when an original idea comes to me or I notice something problematic. I want to purposefully work on regularly praising some of the good work others are doing around me. This comes from wanting to not just steer clear of the negativity that seems to cloud education lately, but to work against it. (Inspired by http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2015/12/24/new-years-development-goals-for-leaders-2016-edition/ shared by a moderator on https://www.facebook.com/IllinoisECET2)

Here's to 2016! #teacherresolutions

Better late than never?

Teachers Write! Weekly Reflections #1 & #2

I'm late on the suggested reflection questions for the Teachers Write! virtual camp, so I'm just posting them here, and not on Jen Vincent's blog- which should be checked out: http://www.teachmentortexts.com. I didn't realize there was a first one until the middle of the week, but have decided I should figure out my goals for participating in Teachers Write! camp so I can get the most out of the experience. I have my students set, reflect, and revise goals regularly, so why wouldn't I?

 

Reflection #1:Read more: http://www.teachmentortexts.com/2014/07/teachers-write-weekly-reflection-1.html#ixzz37RpzpIsR

These questions were meant to kick off the Teachers Write Camp: 

Why are you writing?

1. To become a better teacher of writers.
2. To get a better handle on what kind of writer I am, to improve my writing, and to determine how interested I am-and how invested I should be- in sharing my writing with others.
   

What is your goal(s) for Teachers Write this summer?

1. To write: To write to at least two-thirds of the posts and to publicly post my writing, both on the Teachers Write blogs' comments and my blog, at least one-third of the posts.
2. To learn about me as a writer: To learn about my own writing process, get a rough idea of what my own strengths & needs are in writing, improve my writing, and decide what I want to do as a writer going forward.
3. To steal: To learn about a ton of strategies, prompts, mentor texts, and teaching points I can bring back to my classroom this school year.
   

Reflection #2: Read more: http://www.teachmentortexts.com/2014/07/teachers-write-weekly-reflection-2.html#ixzz37RotfzTU

How do you track your progress? What kind of goal works for you?

 Via reflection on this blog. Some goals I set are easier to "track" than others. Though tracking minutes spent or words written sound appealing, I'm going for how many days of the week I did some writing. The other goals of learning about myself as a writer and stealing ideas are less quantitative; I think I'll add a quantity to them once I've made progress on the first writing goal.

How do you celebrate your progress?

 Celebrate by sharing the writing & progress! :-) 

How did you do this week? Did you meet your weekly goal(s)?

1. I didn't meet this goal. I wrote to two posts this week, and very writing besides those. So, new goal: Write to three posts this week, and spend 30 minutes on any further writing.
2. I am learning (Tracking this is tougher, it's not a "SMART" goal) about my process... see the pit & peak of my week below.
3. I'm finding plenty to steal. Ex: Word hoards.

What was the pit of your week? (The hardest part, the non-fun part?)

Getting to writing is hard. Actually sitting down to do it. Once the pen is down to paper, it gets easier. I'm going to pay close attention to what I'm thinking when I finally get to writing... what worked to get that pen to paper? Need to have some serious discussions about this with my students. 

 

What was the peak of your week? (The best part, the most-fun part?)

Reading others' comments on my writing is the peak this week. After the struggle to sit to write, there is a huge pay-off in the actual writing, and even more so when you have other people- strangers even!- who take the time to read what you wrote and write something in response to it... I have to remember that as I motivate myself to sit down to write this week! And I'll remember with my students how much the authentic audience matters!

 

What are you looking forward to and planning for the week ahead?

I'm looking forward to meeting my revised goals!

Teachers Write & Read During the Summer

I'm trying to blog again! The goals I wrote about before are still close to my heart. Also buzzing around in my head this summer is the need to get a healthy body and mind.  For now, a healthy mind means reading, writing, and reflecting.

School years can sometimes take a toll on a teacher.... and to sustain the level of passion, connection, and commitment I find right for the work, I need some serious summer R&R. There's plenty for a teacher to do personally and professionally to get ready for the next school year. I'll be blogging here and tweeting some ideas, too.

This time, I'm taking advantage of a few things this summer to make sure I keep reading, writing, and reflecting :-)

One: a dear colleague of mine and I are trying to keep writing during the summer! We co-host a Teacher Writing Group at our school and do a little bit better with it each school year. This summer, we're trying something different by meeting a handful of times in coffeeshops to write together. I'll keep my fingers crossed some colleagues choose to join us.

Two: I found Kate Messner's Teachers Write! Writing Camp. An awesome find hosted by Messner on her blog, with guest authors and cool teachers everywhere working on their writing during their summer vacations! Check it out---> http://www.katemessner.com/blog/

Three: I'm part of a group of teachers that holds a book club every month.

Embedded in all of these activities I'm subscribing to this summer is the thought that teachers who teach reading need to be readers, writing teachers need to be writers... engaging in these activities helps us better teach our students these habits happily and successfully. More on this another time; this is quite long already!

More on Goals

I'm thinking I need a goal about how often I will post.
For now, let's say:

at least once a week.

Overarching Goals

One of my overarching goals here is to develop my teacher practice and philosophy of teaching. I hope that by reflecting publicly on the choices I make as a teacher, I will continue to improve my work as a teacher. These choices are ones I make in and out of my classroom and school.

Second, I want to hold myself accountable for developing my voice as a teacher. I have begun to understand that part of being a professional is being able to voice my stance on education issues, with support for that stance. I believe writing is a powerful tool in the task of clarifying what I think about particular issues and supporting any arguments I might make. I hope that comments and feedback from whoever reads this blog, agrees with my sentiments, questions my ideas, and/or challenges my stance will allow me to further develop my teacher voice and understanding of education issues.

Third, I want to lend my voice, my meager experience, and humble expertise to the fray. I have been reading that teachers should be speaking publicly about "education reform" to shed light on the impact of all the changes happening, and those being proposed, on real classrooms and real students. Sometimes it seems that teachers are being left out of the public dialogue, when in reality they have ideas and opinions they share all the time with those around them. I know I do, and it's time I expand the circle of ears (or eyes- ay minds!) I reach. I hope someone learns something from my words.

Are these three really separate goals? Probably not. Are these the whole of what I hope to accomplish? I'm not sure. Like I tell my students: writers revise, revise, and revise. So don't be surprised if I do.

-Eliza