Teach Well, Live Well

Strategies for Success

John Luckner, Suzanne Rudolph

• Editorial: Skyhorse
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781634507172
• Categoría: Education
• Categoría: Education Teaching Methods

Teaching is a highly rewarding—and highly demanding—profession. Honoring educators for the invaluable work they do, this unique resource provides critical information about being a highly competent teacher while living a rewarding, satisfying life outside of work. New and experienced teachers will find a unique collection of strategies for developing essential skills for being masterful in teaching and in life. Focused on preparation and effective teaching techniques, this nuts-and-bolts volume helps teachers find the right balance between personal and professional priorities and covers a wide range of topics, such as: •Increasing their teaching effectiveness •Improving their ability to collaborate with others •Developing self-care strategies for a vibrant personal and professional life Featuring "bottom line" tips, reproducibles for teacher reflection and support, and up-to-date resources, Teach Well, Live Well is an essential tool for educators looking to enjoy vibrant, productive careers and lives.

1

Preparing Properly

Have a Great Year and Career

Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882),
American author and philosopher

You are going to have a great year because the work you do is important and meaningful. You are going to have a great school year because

• you will interact with students who exhibit liveliness, curiosity, freshness, openness, spirit, and independence.

• you will feel pleased when you have taught a lesson well and students demonstrate their enthusiasm and understanding through their responses to questions or the projects they develop.

• you will have the opportunity continually to learn more and to share that knowledge with students.

• you will see the glow of understanding on students’ faces.

• you will have the chance to be creative—to develop lessons, facilitate discussions, and create projects.

• you will connect with a student whom many others have given up on.

• you will have the opportunity to be a quasi-actor, performing on stage for an audience of students.

• you will be part of a team that works together to provide services for students and families.

You also will want to tell yourself, “It’s going to be a great year,” because healthy, optimistic thinking leads to improved performance and increased job satisfaction (Seligman, 2002). Similarly, striving to maintain a positive state of mind, a belief in personal control, and an optimistic view of the future will not only help you adapt to stressful events more successfully but will also help protect your health (Taylor, Kemeny, Reed, Bower, & Gruenewald, 2000). Consequently, you want to develop a mind-set of personal control and optimism about yourself, your students, your colleagues, and the great year you are going to have because these traits will help you to manage the ebb and flow of everyday life and to cope more effectively with challenging events (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

Now keep in mind that having a great school year doesn’t mean that everything is going to go smoothly and that you are not going to experience challenges, setbacks, and negative events. Research consistently has documented educators’ concerns about discipline, large class or caseload sizes, excessive paperwork, diminishing resources, and challenging student behavior. Teaching today is a more demanding occupation than in the past. Increasingly, teachers are expected to compensate for the shifts in society and family that affect children and youth. Teachers are required to comply with legal mandates, respond to public demands and criticism, and teach more complex content to a higher level of mastery. At the same time, the student population is becoming more diverse across a host of variables, such as linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic factors.

As you can imagine, teaching, like all other forms of work, will never be devoid of stressful conditions or interactions. Such occurrences are part of living and working in the 21st century. To meet these daily challenges, you will need to be mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared. You will want to cultivate a mind-set of optimism and find ways to maximize your achievements and to savor your successes. Simultaneously, you will want to remind yourself, and your colleagues, of the positive influence you have on the lives of the students with whom you work and their families. And most importantly, you will want to determine personally appropriate ways to take care of yourself and to find ways to continue to learn and to grow so you can stay vibrant, effective, and productive.

Bottom Line

Recent research published by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC; Smith, 2007) indicates that satisfaction in one’s job is positively related to general happiness. NORC also reported that in comparison to all occupations, teachers ranked sixth in overall job satisfaction, scoring higher than many other well-known professions (e.g., physicians, lawyers, police officers, nurses, accountants, psychologists, authors, and engineers).

Working in the field of education provides you with an opportunity to do essential work. It offers a focus for your life; grants you an identity; and gives you an arena for self-expression, contribution, socialization, and personal growth. Yet like all professions, teaching presents challenges as well as a unique set of pressures, which are very different from other occupations. To cope effectively with the pressures intrinsic to the field of education, you will need to take proactive steps; you must regularly find ways to recharge, apply your talents, and continue to learn and develop. Equally importantly, you must take the time to create a personal life that is enjoyable and satisfying.

Maintain Perspective

The purpose of life is happiness. Happiness is determined more by the state of one’s mind than by one’s external conditions, circumstances, or events—at least once one’s basic survival needs are met. Happiness can be achieved through the systematic training of our hearts and minds, through reshaping our attitudes and outlook. The key to happiness is in our hands.

—Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler,
The Art of Happiness at Work (2003)

The teaching profession presents a unique set of stressors that can challenge your ability to maintain perspective. The daily requirements of teaching effectively and being professional while interacting with members of the school community provide numerous opportunities to experience stress. Common sources of stress include interactions with difficult students or parents, an insensitive administrator, school politics, an excessive workload, poor work environment, conflict with a coworker, unrealistic expectations of yourself, fear of failure, and negative thinking. In addition, the rhythm of the school year and the fluctuating pace of work demands may at times leave you feeling drained and exhausted. Although you may feel that you do not have control over these stressful factors, you do have influence over your own attitude and responses to the challenges you’re facing in both your personal and professional life. Consider for a moment, why is it that when two people are blindsided by events at school, such as a last-minute change in the grade they were planning to teach or having to deal with an upset parent, one person may cope relatively well, while the other may feel stressed out and miserable? All things being equal, perspective plays a huge role in how we cope with stress. Although at times, we do not have control over our circumstances, we do have the ability to choose our own attitudes and behaviors. People who maintain an optimistic perspective when faced with adversity tend to be more resilient and to cope more effectively with stress.

According to Seligman (2002), optimism and hope are associated with better work performance and health. Optimistic people tend to view their problems as transient and situation-specific. They perceive themselves as having some control. Pessimists, on the other hand, perceive their troubles as long lasting and uncontrollable. Based on these di...