In the Middle of It with Amy Kelly, The Ish Girl

For episode show notes go to http://theishgirl.com/ep119.

For episode show notes go to http://theishgirl.com/ep118.

For episode show notes go to http://theishgirl.com/ep117.

For episode show notes go to http://theishgirl.com/ep116.

Amy recommends six YA books that will be released in May of 2021 and talks about why it's so important to read with your teens.

For episode show notes go to http://theishgirl.com/ep115.

For episode show notes go to http://theishgirl.com/ep114.

In our last episode, we talked about the overwhelm and paralysis that often accompanies teaching. We focused on choosing a "North Star," a big picture, guiding value that helps us create boundaries within our classrooms, and priorities for organizing our time.

However, even once you've established student learning as your North Star, it's still easy to fall into overwhelm and paralysis. Because devoting the necessary time to planning and instruction means filtering out all the noise. It can feel like a constant battle.

One of the sources of that noise can even be your administration.

As leaders, their bosses encourage them to stay on the "cutting edge" of education, and often that means adopting new "methods" of instruction.

Teachers are on the ground with those initiatives, the place where the rubber meets the road.

As beginning teachers, it can be exhausting every time your district/school adopts a new "method." Learning the method distracts you from perfecting your craft.

To make sure I'm articulating this the way I want to, here's another way to think about it.

Imagine your content as a package. Your job is to get the package to your students, in a way they can open it up and use it. There are a million ways to deliver the package, but some are more efficient than others. Some are easier for you, because of your personality and gifts. Others are more effective for the students.

As a beginning teacher a huge part of the learning curve is understanding exactly what is in the package – the big picture, your content – and studying and discovering the best ways others have delivered the same package to their students.

How you deliver the package is your method. You can drive it in a truck, or on a motorcycle. You can send it by airplane.

You also give your students tools to open up the package – things like scissors to open the box, language for how to read and follow the instruction in the box, and a screwdriver to use for putting together what's inside.

As a newer teacher, you want to keep all this as simple as possible – as you gain more and more experience, you'll get a feel for what works and what doesn't, and gain a comfort level with trying new things and making adjustments.

The struggle point is when your administration adopts that new method. Keeping our example going, what they're saying is that you need to use this new Tesla (a stick-shift) to deliver your package, and you must use this particular highway, and here are the tools we want you to give your students to open the box: a hammer, a straw, and a stick of gum.

(Okay, that's a little snarky, but you get what I mean.)

When you are at the learning-the-package, big picture stage, figuring out that new delivery system can push you over the edge.

This is where it can get murky and become hard for teachers to know what to focus on first. It's one of those places you might hit overwhelm and find yourself paralyzed, even though you know you have so much to do.

What we're talking about today is how to stay on track and keep moving forward by keeping your "main thing" in mind.

Again, this is where the north star we've chosen comes into play. As we talked about in Episode 112, with this guiding our big picture, we know our priority is to move our students forward in their learning in the area we teach, so they know what they need to know by the end of the year.

So, looking at that big picture, where to start?

The first question to ask yourself is: what do I need to teach?

The answer, for most, is: Objectives. The standards and benchmarks, essential elements, or whatever your district or state calls them.

So, are you clear on your objectives for your students?

Because Your objectives are truly your "main thing".

How can you keep your "main thing your main thing"?

One of the best ways to tackle the feeling of overwhelm when it comes to instructional content is to start with your end goals in mind.

Where do they need to be at the end of this year? At the end of the semester? The quarter? The month? The week? The day?

In education, we call that, "backward design".

If you're a Steven Covey fan, backward design the educational version of "Begin with the end in mind."

Here's a "proper" definition from an article that I'm including in the show notes:

Backward design is "a process that educators use to design learning experiences and instructional techniques to achieve specific learning goals. Backward design begins with the objectives of a unit or course—what students are expected to learn and be able to do—and then proceeds "backward" to create lessons that achieve those desired goals. In most public schools, the educational goals of a course or unit will be a given state's learning standards"

That, my friends, is a great big job for someone at the beginning of their teaching journey.

And hear me, please: THAT IS OKAY.

It is okay to keep things as simple as possible as you learn the ropes.

Time is something that you don't have a lot of as a teacher.

You need to use it wisely.

That means that letting yourself get distracted by new methods can seriously cut into your instructional practice and planning.

In the same way you chose a big picture value to guide your decision-making (which we talked about in the last episode,) you need to develop a big picture approach to your planning. With that kind of plan, when new things are thrown at you, you know where to tuck them into your overall goals for your students.

It's easy to get overwhelmed, even paralyzed by the process of instructional planning.

Take a small step in this process. Start thinking and planning with the end in mind.

Map out where you want your students to be by the end of the year and work backward to achieve your goal.

It doesn't matter where you are in the school year. Use this process as a self-assessment of your instructional practice. Reflect on where you and your students are and what you need to cover the rest of the year.

This big picture approach helps you put boundaries around your time because you know what your priorities are. Not only that but also, having a big picture perspective will improve your practice, reduce overwhelm and make you more connected to the needs of your students.

One of my biggest challenges as a new teacher was figuring out what to prioritize. Given my huge to-do list, I fell into overwhelm and, as much as I hate to admit it, was often paralyzed into not taking any action, because I didn't know which thread to pull first. I realized that I needed to take a bigger picture approach to set my priorities. I couldn't base them on the granular, day-to-day responsibilities. To combat my overwhelm, I needed a big picture, values-based north star.

The issue was, which north star to pick? Was it connecting with my students? Creating relationships with colleagues? Communicating with parents? Pleasing my administrators? Jumping into leadership roles to make a place for myself at a district-level? Making sure my students left my classroom knowing what they needed to know?

My knee-jerk response was: ALL OF THE ABOVE, of course!

But that was a recipe for crazy-making – no matter how much experience you have, but especially for beginning teachers.

So, I took the opportunity to observe the extraordinary people I had the privilege to work with. There are two that I remember, who after watching, I knew had very different north stars.

Both these teachers were on the staff at a brand new middle school we helped open. They taught the same subject, at different grade levels. And by watching them, I discovered they each had two very different North Stars.

The first taught at the 7th-grade level. His students came to us as 8th graders, as we were both assigned to the gifted and talented teams in our respective grade levels.

He was dynamic and engaging, and very active on the educational speaking circuit, as he had recently been awarded Teacher of the Year by a major U.S. entity. This meant that he was often out of the classroom to keynote different events.

He was known for the grand, sweeping activities he did with students, from marching down the halls with his classes to demonstrate adjectives and adverbs, to conducting classroom video conferencing with scientists and other professionals out in the field.

Pretty snazzy, right? And the administration – both at our campus and at the district level – ate it up.

The second teacher was his counterpart on my 8th-grade team. I had a front-row seat as I observed him get in the building early each morning, connect with as many kids as he could teach them the stuff he knew they needed to know – specifically, how to think for themselves – and get out at the end of the workday. He was a "why" guy – you know the one – the guy that challenges the different initiatives admins roll out, and refuses to jump into anything unless he can see how it correlates to what he's doing in his classroom, for his students.

Their North Stars were different. The first's was to impress the administration and build his career on the speaking circuit. The second was to make sure his students learned everything they needed to know before they left his class. They had very different end goals in mind.

The truth is, as a master teacher, you DO want to hit on most, if not all, of these – connecting with my students, creating relationships with colleagues, communicating with parents, pleasing my administrators, jumping into leadership roles, and making sure students leave the classroom knowing what they needed to know.

The trick is understanding that you can't do it all at one time.

So, for beginning teachers, here is what I would say: list out all your north stars and put them in a hierarchy.

That's the first step in setting up boundaries for what you prioritize.

To figure out how to rank your list, I recommend using the question that Gary Keller proposes in his book, The One Thing, but with a twist. Ask yourself, "which is the most important, that by mastering, will make everything else easier or unnecessary?" Once you have the first thing, then go through the rest of the list, asking yourself the same question.

I would argue that in that list – Connecting with my students, creating relationships with colleagues, communicating with parents, pleasing my administrators, jumping into leadership roles, and making sure students leave the classroom knowing what they needed to know – the thing that would make everything else easier or unnecessary is: Making sure my students leave my classroom knowing what they need to know.

If you make that your first priority, everything else is going to fall into place – you'll connect with your students through the vehicle of your curriculum. The same goes for colleagues – by asking for advice and suggestions for best instructional practices, you'll forge relationships. You'll please your administrators because you're doing your job. Leadership is (possibly) unnecessary at this point because you're in a position to be a mentee rather than a mentor.

Once you've mastered that, you can reevaluate your list and move on to mastering the next thing.

With student learning as your North Star, you're poised to keep the main thing the main thing – which is what we're going to talk about in the next episode.

It's the beginning of the year, and my husband and I need to sit down and do our yearly Financial Planning Summit for 2021. I have to be honest, it's something I dread every year.

You know the feeling I'm talking about – that pit in your stomach that prompts you to do everything you can to avoid it?

Dread comes from lots of places. In our case, it's rooted in:

• Previous experience
• Hating the "details" (That's me - I'm a big-picture person)
• Getting stuck in the weeds of details (That's Philip, who is my exact opposite – he rocks the details, but it's more difficult for him to see the big picture.)

However, it's NEVER as bad as we think it's going to be! (OK that's a lie – it used to be. But it's not anymore. We've been married long enough that we know how to "fight well.")

Most of you are back in the classroom now after a much-needed winter break.

If you're newer to teaching, you may have experienced dread about going back.

Maybe you're feeling overwhelmed in general?

With virtual learning or even in your physical classroom, you might feel like you're recreating the wheel, especially when it comes to administrative tasks.

I'm curious – do any of those tasks inspire dread in you? For instance, tasks like grading? Filing? Record-Keeping?

Fortunately, there are lots of ways to minimize the dread you might have about getting all. the. things. done. In fact, it can be pretty simple to reduce it. Adopting ONE practice in your classroom organizational systems (that we'll be talking about) will:

• Save you time
• Get rid of that dread
• Create more time for you to engage with your students

If you're like me, as a newer teacher, it was a reality check to realize there were so many things I had to do as a teacher OTHER than engaging my students. It was a little disillusioning, to be honest.

So when I said that – "Things other than engaging my students," what popped into your head. Wherever you are, say them out loud. And pay attention to how your body feels when you say each of them.

• A huge stack of papers to grade
• Lesson plan materials to file away
• Parent communication to send
• Lesson plans to design
• Grades to record
• Interim and report card comments to write

Which of these repetitive tasks created the most tension in your body? Tightened a knot in your stomach? Felt a contracting in you rather than an expansion? Felt like DREAD?

According to an article from Counselling Directory (I've included a link in my show notes,)

"Dread may be described as a sense of impending doom. An oppressive and overwhelming force; sucking the joy out of life and smothering your enthusiasm for new experiences. Dread may include being constantly on edge, imagining worst-case scenarios and screen-playing moments of imminent catastrophe in your head." -Counselling Directory

Wow.

"Oppressive and overwhelming force sucking the joy out of life"...have you ever experienced that as a teacher? And look at that next part… "smothering your enthusiasm". Does that description resonate with you and your administrative tasks as a teacher?

Like I talked about earlier, most of us don't think of the administrative tasks involved in the jobs we choose. If you're like me, you were drawn to teaching for the interaction with students. For the impact you can make.

Is the need to take care of all those administrative tasks creating an overwhelm in you? One that stands in the way of that interaction with students you desire?

How do you balance it out? The work MUST be addressed. BUT there ARE ways to make it easier on yourself.

One of those ways is to automate.

What is automating? Basically, it means letting a machine do the work for you.

So what things are you doing...over and over again...that some type of software could help you with?

It doesn't have to be super complicated. Simply starting to use a spreadsheet for grading that has a calculating cell could save you so much time.

Identify those tasks that routinely eat up your time. If they always use the same step-by step system to complete, they are a good candidate for automation.

Not sure what those might be? Check these out.

Simplify grading collection by choosing forms of assessment that you can grade in a streamlined way.

Grading calculation with spreadsheets or software

With families – save the emails you write. Is there something you communicate often? Use what you've saved to create a template, then pop the template into an email signature in your email software.

If your school already has a learning management system, then you're all set. If not, you can create (or find!) a simple spreadsheet to use and save time.

This is something I'm going to be talking about in the next episode, and there are some great options out there that can streamline how you link state standards to your instruction, and even help you share your planning with colleagues. One I've talked about before is Planbookedu

There is, however, a caveat with automation. Too often, we (or our schools or districts) adopt software or technology without a clear understanding of its use or purpose.

This is backwards!

Tech needs a specific purpose - this isn't a chicken vs. egg scenario. The purpose always comes FIRST.

On the other hand, the opposite end of the tech-happy spectrum is resistance.

Some might balk at automation, maybe because:

• They don't feel like you have the time for the learning curve,
• They're just not interested – happy with how they're doing it
• Their school doesn't have any viable options, and it takes too much time to investigate or research and present to their administration

One of the articles I'm sharing in this week's show notes talks more about this. The author had a great insight:

"The motivation to automate one's practices starts when a teacher comes to his own conclusion that conventional instruction is fundamentally broken and more time is needed for personalization and relationship-building."

If you'd like to leverage the power of automation, here's how you can get started.

1. Brainstorm tasks that you do daily or weekly that always have the same step by step process.
2. Calculate the estimated amount of time it's taking you each day or week to do those tasks manually.
3. Choose one task to automate.
4. Research ways you can simplify that process for yourself.
5. Take action. It might mean Googling a solution on YouTube or approaching admin. with a software proposal.
6. Let me know how it goes! We are often more likely to follow through if we tell someone.

If you take these small steps, you may just find that dread being replaced with a renewed hope and enthusiasm to make an impact.

Isn't that why you started teaching in the first place?