Teaching Matters

How to Keep Your Passion and Thrive in Today's Classroom

Todd Whitaker, Beth Whitaker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138170995
• eBook ISBN: 9781317927044
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Recharge your batteries and rekindle your excitement about teaching! This new, updated edition of the best-selling book, Teaching Matters: Motivating and Inspiring Yourself, offers practical advice on working with colleagues for inspiration, using social media to connect to other professionals, and adding fresh new appeal to your lessons.

The practical ideas and inspirational examples in this book will help you keep your passion for education alive and thriving in your classroom. Get use-now tips on everything from creating a positive atmosphere in the classroom to dealing with difficult peers. This is truly a must-have motivational resource for all educators!

“Teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible.”

—Unknown

If you are reading this book, then you have chosen the most important profession that there is—teaching. There is no other work we can do that is more valuable or essential. You are truly among the most influential people on earth. Yet, feeling like we are truly that critical is a great challenge. This book will help all educators to be revived, rejuvenated, and maybe even resuscitated. What we do is so important that we have to be able to remind ourselves of this every day.

Throughout this book, we will continually use the word “teacher.” Understand this word “teacher” applies to everyone who is reading this book. It doesn’t matter if you are a regular classroom teacher (whatever “regular” means), special education teacher, counselor, principal, college professor, media center specialist, cook, custodian, secretary, bus driver, or parent. If kids see us, then we are teachers. One way or another, we are teachers.

It is a funny thing, but whenever I hear teachers say they are having trouble getting motivated to go to work, one thought always occurs to me: “How do people who are not in education ever get motivated to go to work?” Though other people’s jobs may be easier or less demanding, as teachers we have chosen a profession in which every day we have the chance to make a difference in the lives of many or even dozens of young people. If we can’t derive motivation from the impact we have as educators, then how can others in less essential occupations EVER get fired up about their jobs? Yet it is a challenge that we all face.

Many schools, districts, and universities conduct teacher needs assessments, asking what their greatest needs are. In organization after organization, employees indicate their greatest need is greater morale.

This is not inherently a criticism of anyone. Quite the opposite. What it really is is an understanding that high personal morale, or positive feelings, can never be too great. No matter how positive we feel, we wouldn’t mind feeling even better if we could. Burt Reynolds used to say, “You can never be too rich or too thin.” I don’t know if he is correct in those cases, but I do feel that we can never feel too motivated or too inspired as educators. Knowing that we have a great chance each day to impact the lives of young ladies and gentlemen in our schools is a tremendous responsibility, but it is also a wonderful opportunity. Figuring out how best to take care of ourselves so that we can effectively achieve these results is the purpose of this book. As educators, we have to do it because there are numerous young people who are counting on us.

How Many of You Have Children?

One of my favorite questions to ask groups of educators is: “How many of you have children?” Typically if I am talking to large groups of teachers, four out of every five hands go up. Then I ask, “How many of you want your children to go to okay schools with pretty good teachers?” Usually only two or three hands out of the entire audience go up. I then say, “I guess those of you who raised your hands, your children must go to worse schools than okay and have poorer teachers than pretty good.” The audience usually gets a good chuckle out of this. Then I ask the entire group this question: “How many of you want your children to go to great schools with outstanding teachers?” Every hand in the room goes up. I then say, “So do the parents of every student that enters the doors of our schools and classrooms each day. See, we have chosen the most important profession that there is and it is the one with the highest standards and the highest expectations of any other profession. The only acceptable standard is the standard of greatness.”

That standard of greatness sounds intimidating, or even impossible, doesn’t it? However, that really is the level of expectation we face. No wonder we are so tired at the end of each day! It really is a higher standard than other professions.

The other day I went into our local super discount store. It is probably the same chain you have been in many times. When it was time to check out, I happened to get in the line with the surly clerk. Have you ever been in that line? Probably way too often. Yet, while I was in the line with this less than giddy checkout person, I thought to myself, “I’ll still come back here; their prices are pretty good.” And anyway, the clerks are not necessarily too much better at any of the other stores!

Also, not too long ago, I happened to be in a long line at the bank. I was in too much of a hurry, and like every other educator I know, had way too many things on my plate. While in line, I thought to myself, “I don’t even care if the teller rounds off!” After all, if we are in education then a few dollars either way doesn’t even make any difference, does it?! All kidding aside, we easily tolerate less than perfect standards with almost every other profession we come in contact with. And the simple reason is, it is just not that important. However, when it comes to education, those standard increase dramatically.

The authors of this book are blessed to have three wonderful children, and we don’t expect them to ever have one single teacher who “rounds off” in his or her interest. And we don’t expect any of our children, any of your children, or any of the young people that walk through the doors of our schools each day to ever get one surly teacher. That is quite a challenge. It is a much higher standard than in other professions. Yet, we knew that was our challenge when we chose education. As a matter of fact, for most educators, that is precisely why they chose education. They wanted to make a difference in the lives of others on a daily basis. Every day we make a difference in the lives of the students we come in contact with. It is up to us to determine just how positive that difference is.

The Value of You

Yet, how can we be the teachers we need to be when we feel worn down to a nub? How can we be our best when we need a shot of enthusiasm or energy? The answer, of course, is we can’t. That is why we have to take care of ourselves. If we do not take care of ourselves, then we cannot take care of anyone else either. This book will help all educators to revitalize themselves and even their careers by helping them realize that they have chosen the most important profession that there is.

We have to understand that every day our frame of mind is up to us. Each day we choose to view life in a positive light or a less than positive light. We determine if our cup is half full, half empty, or if it is just another dirty dish to wash. Each day we decide if school is about the 95 percent of the kids who put forth a pretty good effort every day or about the few students who are our biggest challenges. It is up to us to determine if the best part of our job is June, July, and August or Megan, Phillip, and Juan. No one else can do this for us.

I truly do hope that each one of you has a supervisor, principal, or department chair who makes you feel worthy and valued each day. I also hope that each of you works in an environment where everyone is positive, productive, and professional. There is nothing that I would want more. However, rather than just hoping, I insist that for all of our students it is up to us to make sure that the environments we create in our schools and classes truly are the best they can be. The field of education deserves our best, our students deserve our best, and most importantly, we deserve our best. Let’s make sure that each day we wake up, look in the mirror, and remind ourselves that we have chosen the single most important profession that there is. It is the least we can do for ourselves.

“A pro is someone who can do his or her best work … even when he or she doesn’t feel like it.”

In baseball, getting a hit three out of ten times will get you into the hall of fame. In basketball, hitting half of your shots will get you into the starting lineup. In sales, having success even one out of four times might make you rich. But, in education, we have to treat our students with respect and dignity ten days out of ten.

Ten Days Out of Ten

One of my favorite sayings as a principal was: “You don’t have to like the kids; you just have to act like you like the kids.” It sounds funny, but it is true. Think of the best teacher in your school (besides yourself). I have great faith that that best teacher has students he or she likes less than others. However, with great teachers, even the students they like the least feel that they are the teacher’s pet. It is because these great teachers treat every student with respect and dignity every day.

If you act like you like the students, then it doesn’t matter if you like them. If you don’t act like you like the students, then it doesn’t matter if you like them.

It is essential that every day we work to demonstrate how much we care for each student that we come in contact with. The clerk at that discount store we mentioned in Chapter 1 can have a bad day. Even the bank teller we mentioned can slack off a little, but if we have chosen education, it is critical that we come to work every day in a positive frame of mind.

If you ever question that it should be ten days out of ten, then ask yourself this. How many days out of ten would I like my students to be respectful and responsible? How many days out of ten would I like my students to come to class prepared and behave appropriately? How many days out of ten would I like my students to be cooperative and caring? If you answer these questions ten days out of ten, then the least we can do is to have the same level of expectation and effort out of ourselves. If we cannot do it as an adult, then it is completely unrealistic to expect the students we work with to even come close to this standard. And again, if we don’t model this consistent, appropriate, and professional behavior, then the likelihood of those around us demonstrating it becomes greatly diminished.

In the book Motivating & Inspiring Teachers (2nd Edition): The Educational Leader’s Guide for Building Staff Morale, I talk about my Uncle Larry. My Uncle Larry has this theory. His belief is that he doesn’t want anyone running around smiling ruining his bad day. And believe me, Uncle Larry pretty much lives that. Do you work with anyone like that? Do you live with anyone like that? It is a real treat, isn’t it? Well, in Chapter 15 yourself in a positive frame of mind even around people who regularly have a sour disposition. However, I bring it up here because I first want us to make sure that we are not someone else’s Uncle Larry!

Amazingly, even my Uncle Larry is positive some of the time. When it is time to eat or when he is in his recliner fully in control of the remote, he can even be pleasant (especially during his nap time!). However, it is the random snarls and put-downs that we most remember. If you work for a supervisor that is professional nine days out of ten, but humiliates you or someone else you work with once every two weeks, or even every two years, you spend much more time thinking about and talking about that one day than you do the other nine. You have to be aware that as a teacher you have to at least pretend to be in a positive frame of mind each day. And the first step to doing so is to realize that it is up to you. You don’t have to be in a good mood each day; you just have to act like it.

Thank God It’s Monday!

Dr. AI Burr, a retired educator who is one of my heroes, likes to say, “Great teachers come to work in a ‘thank God it’s Monday’ frame of mind.” When I share this with educators it always draws a chuckle. Sort of a “Yeah right—thank God it’s Monday. Sure.” However, the real question is, “Who determines our frame of mind?” And, we all know that the answer is, “We do.” It isn’t the school board, the parents, the dean, or the students—it is us. And, there isn’t anyone else.

Dr. Burr shares a story that I’d like to paraphrase for you. A teacher was going home from work after a typically grueling day and stopped by the hospital to see his sister. He and his sister both knew she was never going to be leaving the hospital. When he arrived at her room she mustered up her usual smile and asked, “How was your day today?” The teacher moaned and muttered, “Oh, it was terrible. The kids were horrible, I had to deal with this awful parent, and the administrators were their usual incompetent selves.”

His sister held up her hand as if to say stop and shared, “You may have enough days left to have a bad day, but I don’t, so I do not want to hear it.” What a valuable lesson for all of us.

It is an amazing thing, but I have yet to see one single teacher, young or older, who has enough days left to have a bad day. And I know for a fact that not one of the students that walk...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Front-Other Page
• Front-Other Page
• About the Authors
• Front-ch Page
• Introduction
• Table Of Contents
• PART 1 WHY YOU’RE WORTH IT
• PART II TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF
• PART III RAISE THE PRAISE—MINIMIZE THE CRITICIZE
• PART IV PEERS AND CHEERS
• References