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Teaching has never been an easy job. Everyone knows that teachers are underpaid and underappreciated for the amount of important work they do, day in and day out. Since the COVID pandemic began impacting schools in Spring 2020, teaching has arguably been more difficult than ever.

In my work with teachers, I am seeing dedicated, hardworking professionals struggling more than ever before. They are physically tired and emotionally drained. Some are dealing with health concerns and others with increased anxiety about personal safety and well being while at school. There is no shortage of challenges for teachers in the COVID era.

When faced with all of these difficulties, it is understandable for teachers to question their commitment to the profession. One exercise that I have found to be helpful in these moments is to reflect on your personal reasons for teaching, or your “why?” statement.

Try this: think for a few minutes and write down a one sentence answer to this question: Why did you become a teacher?

Once you have your answer, ask yourself, Why is that important to you?

Then, do it again with that answer. And again.

After the fourth or fifth round of asking yourself Why?, you should have distilled it down to a pithy statement that encompasses your personal mission for teaching. Write this on a post it and stick it somewhere you will see it often. The more you remind yourself of your Why?, the easier it will be to remain positive in the face of challenges. And this is important because we need YOU!

Here is the latest Teacher Formation podcast episode!

Latest podcast episode is released!

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Teacher Formation · Trauma-Informed Teaching and COVID

When the Governor of my home state closed schools for three weeks back in the middle of March, I remember thinking that seemed like such a long time! I could not have imagined that we would stay home the rest of the school year, nor that many schools would not be reopening for face-to-face instruction this Fall. As hard as it has been as a parent and for my children, I know it has been just as difficult for teachers.

For those teachers returning to school this month, whether in physical buildings or virtual classrooms, a lot will be different than in the past. The excitement of a new school year is dampened by the anxiety of having to adhere to safety protocols or the challenge to engage students online. Either way, teachers will have to be more resilient than ever.

How can teachers return to this uncertain school year with resilience? How can they build resilience in themselves and in their students? It may come down to taking stock of where we are and learning to focus on what is within our control.

Teachers (and students) have experienced a lot of stress and anxiety over the past several months. It’s important to acknowledge those feelings and recognize ways that you have coped with negative emotions successfully in the past. Give yourself a pat on the back for all that you have managed to deal with and practice cultivating gratitude for bright spots amidst the darkness. While this time has been tough, I am thankful that my family has remained healthy and safe and that we have found small ways to appreciate extended time together at home, for example.

Next, it can be super helpful to make a list of current worries or concerns. I find that getting this list down on paper helps take it out of the constant loop in my brain so that I can stop fixating on those things I am worried about. Then I go through my list and draw a small cross next to all of the things I am worried about that I cannot actually control. This becomes my prayer list. To summarize Phillipians 4:6-7, “Pray about everything, Worry about nothing.”

The remaining items on my list of worries are the things that I can control, at least somewhat. I visualize these as knobs on an imaginary control panel, and I try to think of concrete steps I can take to resolve these concerns. Taking action beats worrying, every time.

Taking positive actions also means practicing self-care. Of course, no amount of exercise, sleep, meditation, or proper nutrition will fix a pandemic or make up for the very real trauma experienced as a result of COVID-19, systemic racism, or lack of resources and support in challenging teaching and learning environments. But being resilient means that we continue to take small actions that we can control in order to remain optimistic about larger things we may not be able to control.

Whatever this beginning of the school year may look like for you, I encourage you to control what you can and pray about what you cannot as you practice resilience in the face of challenges. In the words of my favorite poster I used to have hanging in my classroom, “Do your best, and let God do the rest.”

When my little sister was a competitive gymnast as a child, I vividly remember her struggling to get her kip on the uneven bars. The kip is a foundational move in which a gymnast glides forward and up, raising to perch above the bar. This then enables her to flow into various other moves, including a transition to the high bar.

The image of the kip gymnastics move is what I now use to talk to teachers about Key Instructional Practices- KIPs that raise teaching to a higher bar. KIPs can be thought of as foundational strategies that can be built on to result in high-quality teaching and learning. They can also be considered Tier 1 supports for the whole class in a multi-tiered system of support framework.

I believe that there are some KIPs that are universally applicable for teachers, such as intentional lesson planning and the use of formative assessment strategies. Planning solid objectives for lessons raises the bar for student learning to a much higher level then aimless instruction. Likewise, checking for student understanding frequently through formative assessments ensures that students actually meet the learning objectives!

Other KIPs I often talk about include the use of explicit instruction (I do, We do, You do format, or Model, Coach, Fade approach), opportunities for frequent retrieval practice, and meaningful or authentic summative assessments. Finally, developing a culture of learning and fostering a growth mindset in both students and faculty could be considered a KIP that raises the bar for learning.

Schools or individual teachers could benefit from reflecting on what strategies they value most as Key Instructional Practices to elevate learning in their classrooms. Then, choose one or two KIPs to focus on over the course of a semester or year and see how much teaching and learning can improve. Just like my sister getting herself to swing from the high bar, teachers are capable of great things with intentional effort!

Every summer, one of the great joys of my job is seeing my students from last year return to campus for the second summer of their Master of Education program after having experienced their first year of teaching. I run into them at the dining hall or walking across campus and get to ask about how their year went.

These teachers are passionate…and they are tired. They have faced a lot of challenges in their first year teaching. They are humbled and reflective. They are eager to tell me about strategies that worked well and about those that definitely did not. They talk about their classroom management plans and about their curriculum, the professional development they attended, and about the novel studies and science projects that they enjoyed. But most of all, they tell me about how they love their students. Every single one of them uses the word “love” as they describe how they feel about their class.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude towards these teachers, and all teachers, who are out there doing the hard work and loving their students despite the challenges of this profession. I am certain that their students know they are loved, and in my view, that is the most important gift a teacher can give them.

Teachers, thank you for loving your students. I see your enthusiasm, and the twinkle in your eye as you describe how you show up day after day, put on a smile, and show your students that they are worthy of love. You are making a difference. You are changing students’ lives, just as they are changing your heart.

When I think back on my education, there are a lot of things that I think I did wrong. This might come as a surprise to my family and friends who have always considered me to be a good student. There is no doubt I was a high achiever, and my academic success has certainly served me well in my life. My regret, though, has to do with my mindset.

What I remember most from my early school years is an intense focus on academic performance. I was always competing with other students and with myself. I remember feeling humiliated when my third grade teacher called out errors I made on a writing assignment, and I remember the pride at having my name on the top of the reading chart on the wall for the whole year in fourth grade. I was insanely jealous of a fifth grade classmate who was recognized for having the highest percentage in math class and vowed that it would be me the next quarter. From these and many other memories, I am sure I had a fixed mindset and wanted nothing more than to prove to everyone how smart I was.

As I progressed into higher grade levels, I got very good at what researchers like Denise Clark Pope call “doing school.” I excelled inside and outside of the classroom and checked all the boxes to get into college. It wasn’t until halfway through my undergrad years that I began to question my approach. I realized that I wasn’t as passionate as many of my classmates about what I was actually learning. Instead, I was coasting by in my courses, doing the minimum required to get the A and keep up the image of success.

What I really wish is that someone would have stopped me along the way and told me the truth: that school is not a game or a competition to win. I wish I would have learned to love learning for the sake of learning and not for some external award or recognition. Maybe then I would actually remember what I learned instead of forgetting it immediately after the test. Maybe I would have studied things that interested me more than just choosing assignments and classes that I knew I could ace. I can only imagine how much of a difference this could have made in my life.

Unfortunately, schools continue to be places where we encourage competition and academic performance. Too often, achievement is prized above learning and growth, and practices like honor rolls and class rankings perpetuate the idea that school is something that can be won. My current research on how students experience academic competition in high schools reveals that competitive classroom environments contribute to student stress and anxiety while fostering a performance goal orientation towards learning, especially in high achieving students. I believe teachers can mitigate the negative consequences of schooling by limiting competition in their classrooms and explicitly teaching about mindsets and the purpose of schooling.

It’s not about winning or losing. We all can win if we learn to love learning.

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, so my husband and I took our three kids out for a special dinner and ice cream treat. As we were waiting for our food, we started chatting about what we were going to give up for Lent. I asked first if they even knew what Lent was, and my five year old daughter said no. I was about to explain it to her but my almost seven year old beat me to it. He looked straight at her and gave the most beautiful explanation of the season of Lent- much better than I would have done! I was blown away by the depth of his understanding and the ease with which he retold what he had obviously learned in school about the Catholic faith. It reminded me of why we send our children to Catholic school.

It was like when my oldest son was in kindergarten and we went to get donuts for breakfast one Saturday morning. In the drive through line at Dunkin Donuts, I paid for the car behind me and his little voiced piped up from the back seat saying, “Mom, that was like an act of charity. That’s one of the seven virtues!” Or when my daughter in PreK goes to Adoration and tells me, “Jesus is in that bread. You can’t see him, but he is inside there!” Or when we were watching Shaun White in the Olympics the other night and talking about how talented he is, and my son says, “I bet God called him to be a snowboarder, like how He called Mrs. R to be a teacher.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my children and I am ridiculously proud of them. But this is not a post about them and the sweet things they say. Rather, this is a post about the power of teachers. I’m sure every Catholic school parent could give similar examples of the times they have been amazed at things their children have said and done as they grow in their faith. This is not by accident, but is a direct result of the dedication and positive example of Catholic school teachers. I am so grateful that my children have such excellent teachers guiding them in learning about and living the Catholic faith.

You may wonder if your students are really paying attention, or worry that they are not learning everything you are teaching them. It may be easier to remember the times they failed a test or forgot to turn in an assignment than the times that they showed a glimmer of understanding or repeated something you taught them outside of class.  Well, I’m here to tell you, you are more powerful than you know. Thank you for teaching children to understand and experience their faith in ways that will delight their parents. Truly, you are shaping lives and renewing the face of the Church.

In teacher education, we often stress to beginning teachers how important it is to set up and practice solid classroom routines and procedures at the start of the school year. In fact, teachers are frequently told not to introduce any academic content for the first two weeks of  the year, instead dedicating that entire time to setting up classroom norms and practicing procedures until they become habits. I believe this is good advice. Strong classroom management and organization is essential for teachers to be able to facilitate student learning, and students benefit from a structured classroom in which they know what to expect and how they are expected to behave.

I also believe, however, that the beginning of the year is not the only time that this structure can or should be established. Sometimes it is necessary for teachers to hit the reset button in their classrooms. Perhaps a few months have gone by and procedures that were firmly in place at the start of the year have started to slip. Maybe students and teachers have grown bored with routines, or perhaps the norms and procedures implemented at the beginning of the year were never actually very effective for that particular group of students. In any case, teachers need not feel trapped by what was established at the start of the year.

In my first year of teaching, I listened to the advice of those who told me to be firm and consistent and set up a strong discipline system at the beginning of the year. It was effective and I had few classroom management issues. However, I was concerned that I did not have a way to recognize and reward positive behavior in my students and I was eager to infuse more joy into my classroom. I recall telling a colleague that the following year, I would be sure to include a positive behavior system as well. “Why wait until next year?” she said, “Your students would love this now!” And she was right. That weekend, I developed what I called “Miles of Smiles.” I taped a strip of posterboard to each student’s desk and bought a roll of smiley face stickers. From then on, anytime I caught a student making a good choice, they would get a sticker on their strip and once it was full, they could wear it around their head like a crown for the day before adding it to a chain we would display in the classroom. This became one of my favorite elements of our classroom, and I am so glad I did not wait until the beginning of the next school year to try it out.

If you are feeling like a change is needed in your teaching, whether it is a specific procedure that needs to be reconsidered, an additional element of your management plan that needs to be added, or even a change in your approach to an individual student’s learning or behavior, do not hesitate to make that change. You can make a change tomorrow, or you can wait until after the Christmas break when it may feel like a natural time to introduce a new process, since routines and procedures should be refreshed after a long break anyway. Simply explain that something was not working the way you wanted it to, or that you noticed an issue with whatever it is you are changing. Explain and teach the new procedure or element the same way you would at the beginning of the year, provide a rationale for why you are asking them to do things that way, and practice as necessary. Most students will appreciate that you are willing to reflect on your teaching and make adjustments to improve the classroom environment for everyone.

What mid-year changes have you made? How have they been received by your students? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.

(If you look closely, you can see the chain of smiley “crowns” hanging across the board in my old classroom!)

Standardized Stress

Last week was a pretty momentous occasion for my oldest child. As a third grader, he spent the week taking his first actual standardized test (yes, it took a whole week). This might not seem to be too big of a deal to most people, but considering I wrote my dissertation on how teachers prepare students for standardized tests and the motivational implications of high stakes testing in schools, it was a big deal to me!

I was happy that the experience was not at all traumatic for my son. He took it like a champ and was mostly just excited for a week with no homework.

I know from my research on this topic that, unfortunately, the experience of taking standardized tests in school is not always as carefree for all students as it was for my child. The introduction of high stakes standardized testing can be stressful for teachers and for students, and can cause anxiety, boredom, and other negative reactions. In the face of pressure to achieve high scores, students and even teachers may be tempted to cheat, especially if teachers feel that their jobs may be on the line if students do not achieve sufficient scores.

Other negative consequences of the implementation of standardized tests include narrowing of curriculum to focus only on tested subjects, loss of instructional time spent preparing for and actually taking the test, and teaching directly to the test rather than teaching topics and issues that are important and interesting to teachers and students. Additionally, test scores are often misunderstood by teachers, students, and parents, so the emphasis on testing in schools seems even more arbitrary when the results of the tests are not even used in a meaningful way.

While these negative consequences of testing are widely acknowledged, there are important reasons why standardized tests are necessary as a means of tracking student achievement of grade level standards and year-to-year growth.  Federal education policies also mandate the use of testing to hold public schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Although private Catholic schools are not necessarily subject to the federal accountability pressure, they are often expected to share general student achievement results in order to market their schools as offering a high quality academic education.

So, since the practice of standardized testing is not going anywhere anytime soon, what can teachers do to minimize the negative consequences of testing for students? The answer lies in open, honest communication about testing and focusing on learning rather than performance.

Many students have questions and concerns about why they are being asked to take tests and what the tests mean for them personally, and some teachers inadvertently heighten their stress by emphasizing how important the tests are. Students hear rumors that doing poorly on the test means they will fail and have to repeat the grade or they think they will get in trouble or make their teacher mad if they miss a problem. Teachers can help by being upfront and honest with students about the tests-why they are taking them and how the results will be used. Even if teachers feel pressure to have students perform well on tests, it is unfair to transfer that pressure to students. Telling students that the test is low stakes for them personally can help alleviate their stress.

Rather than focusing on how important it is for students to do their best on the tests, teachers can send the message to students that the test is just measuring what they have already learned and helps to determine what they still need to learn. It is a tool for learning, not simply a measure of performance. This message affirms that learning is a process, not a product.

Testing does not have to be as frustrating and stressful as it often is for our students. Positive early experiences with testing can help shape students’ attitudes towards tests for years to come. Help young students learn to take the tests in stride and realize that learning is more important than performance.