Finding Fulfillment Again
From the desk of Carol C…
Where will you keep your focus this year?
Most of us went into teaching to make a difference in the lives of children and therefore, a difference in our world. Remember the excitement (and fear) we felt at the beginning of each school year our first years in the classroom? The brand new lesson plan book, grade book, and workbooks…opening them for the first time? I couldn’t wait for my students to enter through my door.
As time went on, however, the excitement began to wane. Part of this was natural as it’s almost impossible to keep the same level of excitement about anything year after year. This wasn’t the issue for me though. The problem was I began to dread the start of each school year. That new lesson plan book represented hours and hours of planning. The grade book…hours and hours of grading papers. Workbooks? Boring mostly. It seemed there were more required meetings each year and more paperwork. Mandated testing became more frequent and more intense. High stakes to say the least. All I could see were the negative aspects of teaching. I knew the rest of my teaching career would be an exercise in endurance.
Thankfully, another teacher came to my rescue. She commiserated with me then said, “We can choose to continue with our current attitude about teaching, or we can recapture our old love of teaching.”
What was my friend talking about? Didn’t she know “the old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be”? Come to find out, my friend did know what she was talking about. We decided to reframe our view of what teaching means. Instead of looking at all of the parts we didn’t like, we focused on what brought us into this profession in the first place. We supported each other and refused as much as possible to avoid starting or joining in a woe is me/complaining party. We tried to make sure we planned lessons we would enjoy teaching and our students would want to participate in and learn. Whenever the opportunity arose we tried to spread our attitudes to others. It wasn’t easy to keep our positive attitude. There were days when our lessons were less than enjoyable, and the paperwork/meetings/expectations overwhelming. But we were determined to keep an upbeat attitude. We kept our sights on finding the fulfillment teaching once gave us.
What are you going to keep your sights on this year? A fulfilling journey with your students? Make it what you want it to be. You have the power!