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

 Greetings fellow teacher friends!  This week I wanted to share some short thoughts that I also shared in my inSpiration Sunday post on social media.  We are going to be hearing this phrase/question a lot this week "What are you grateful/thankful for?" In fact, we might even have students share their thoughts out on this as tradition has it. But let's face it friends, teaching is tough right now... I mean more than the usual level of tough. It can and is very easy to spiral into a trap where we feel hopeless and tired, and you know what? That is ok and natural! I often feel frustrated when people tell me to "look at the bright side of things" or "think of the positives instead" or "focus on doing what you can for your students." Well, I do that everyday... and I am allowed to feel discouraged and upset.  I would like to reframe our thinking for this idea, especially in light of the holiday this week. I have a file in my desk drawer at work ti...

 Today I'm excited to talk about a favorite topic of mine- leadership! I've been listening to podcasts, reading, and attending conferences on leadership to learn more about it. In fact, the burning question for me really has been, what is leadership? There are so many definitions that suggest it's one specific thing or another, but is it really something that can be defined with exacts?  What I am learning from my own experience is that leadership is more of a mindset rather than a tangible or definable thing we can do. I'm learning to not put as much pressure on myself to leap right in, figure out what leadership is, and well, lead. I realized from great leaders that I can reframe my thinking and be a leader from starting small. As Dr. Terrie Noland says "lead from where you are."  Recently at the Spotlight on Literacy Leadership Conference I learned that it's the small steps we take that can truly make a difference. A great leader can come from anywhere...

 

 Last week I shared out how powerful observing colleagues can be for practicing educators. This week, I want to keep that theme going for just a bit longer, but with a twist!  This past week I had the honor of presenting to the high school students who participate in the Tomorrow's Teachers program in my state. I was at my home base ( Kean University ) to present my work on family engagement. I was pleased to see that the students and their supervisor were happy with what I shared, and we had some time for hands-on work to get these future educators thinking about their future students, classrooms, and families. Of course, I also learned something!  It actually struck me a few days after when I saw a quote on social media: "Sometimes the greatest PD is the teacher down the hall"- Brian Aspinall from We are Teachers/ Education to the Core. As I mentioned in my blog last week, educators learn a lot from each other. The disheartening part is that we are not always provided t...

Observations and feedback... enough said right? I'm sure as a fellow educator you're half tempted to scroll by this post, cringing at the mere mentioning of it. Today I want us to reframe our thinking of observations and feedback based on what I learned from a recent webinar.  We know as educators that providing our students with feedback on an essay will help them to see where they made an error, and more importantly,  grow as learners. One of the sentences that stood to me in this recent webinar was "the same goes for adults!" Sure we are given feedback on our observation forms. We are used to this for sure, however, when is the last time you received feedback from a peer who is on your grade-level team. Or the the fourth grade teacher who provides feedback to a teacher on the first grade team. There are many possibilities when it comes to peer observations and feedback.  The point is to not make teachers feel nervous that yet another person has come in to observe, ...

 This weekend I had the honor to participate in my CTOY retreat, and I was able to finally meet more of my cohorts in person! The weekend was filled with laughter, plenty of photos, learning opportunities, and connections. This is nothing short of teacher magic for me!  One topic we focused on for our workshop was the idea of teacher leadership. We discussed what it means and how to work on developing our own leadership skills (more in another post!) Those who know me this warmed my teaching heart because teacher leadership is one of my three loves of my teaching life (along with literacy and special ed.)  For me, what made the retreat so special was the connections that I made with my cohorts (and other county teachers.) It was an opportunity for me to reflect on the importance of surrounding myself with others who are like minded and passionate about teaching like I am. When the ideas are flowing, we are creating, and the support emanates from every corner of the room, ...

 This weekend I've spent some time catching up on some reading that I had to put to the side at the start of this school year. For me, changing grade levels and classrooms is nothing short of a challenge, and I know most of my energy is spent the first year in a new grade level organizing, fine-tuning, and developing new curriculum/lesson materials for my students. One of the first things that I sacrifice on my "to do" list is reading and even attending webinars or workshops that I otherwise might not have missed, or insisted I spent the ten extra minutes reading. At first, this might seem logical and necessary, and part of me still knows that it is however, what am I really sacrificing if I don't spend time reading and attending the webinars or workshops I want?  I've always stood my my belief that teaching is lifelong learning. In order to do that, educators have to find what areas of education "stick" with them the most, and then spend the time and e...