Ms. M's Tales of a Teacher: My Personal Teacher Blog

 It is week two friends of my LEAD blog as we inch closer to the Delta Rho Teacher LEADership Development Summit on 2/11/23. This free, virtual summit is meant to help teachers of all levels of experience develop their teacher leadership skills and gain an understanding for what teacher leadership is. Teacher leadership is certainly hard to define, since there are many components to it and avenues you can take as a teacher leader.  Last week I shared the first letter L for Learn. Teachers are lifelong learners, and when we focus on learning for ourselves, we become better for our students.  The next letter is E for Engage. When we plan lessons for students, one of the main components is the engagement piece. We work tirelessly to make sure our students are moving, inquiring, working cooperatively, and employing all their senses. As educators, we also have to be excited for what we are learning about and feel totally immersed in our own learning. When we feel engaged in our own learning

 That's right my friends, you saw correctly! My chapter of KDP at Kean is hosting a Teacher LEADership Development Summit! The flyer will be attached at the end of my blog!  This week, it seems fitting to focus on the idea of leadership since we are celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Teachers mirror his image everyday by showing their students what leaders look like in the classroom.  I am also excited to be discussing the acronym (you all know I love them!) L.E.A.D the next few weeks to prepare for the Teacher LEADership Development Summit my chapter of KDP at Kean is hosting on February 11th.  We wanted to take the idea of teacher leadership and spend the day together and with others discussing what does it mean to be a teacher leader? How do we continue to develop as leaders? What can we learn from others and their leadership? So my friends, let's break down L.E.A.D with a focus this week on L- learn. It's true that all leaders are committed to learning.

 Happy New Year friends!  I've always said teachers are lucky because we get two new years each year... September and January. This is a great time to do a mid-year check in with ourselves and see what are we doing well, enjoying, and succeeding with, and of course, what we would like to change.  Raise your hand if you feel like an Olympic athlete in training in your work as a teacher! (Me raising both hands...) This is no surprise because of the amount of time, energy, dedication, grit, and mindset we put into our work. The countless hours of planning, the abundance of energy we pour into our lessons (yes even the dry ones,) and the love we put into each and every movement... we are just like those athletes that sacrifice everything for their goal, and the love for their sport.  These elite athletes might not compete in the same sport, or in the same ways, however, they all have one thing in common- they are resolute in their mindset that they are going to compete in the Olympics,