Want some guidance to become more reflective and follow the Reflective Teacher path?
Looking to nurture your professional growth?
Start a teacher reflection journal.
Being self-reflective will help you establish professional goals and keep you on track in meeting those goals.
At the end of the year...
Teachers are ready to decompress.
Teachers are ready to relax and rejuvenate without all the pressures of #TheTeacherLife weighing on their exhausted shoulders.
Teachers want to just sit back and wait for the new year to approach before even thinking about kids, lesson plans, classroom design……
HA!! We all know that is not even remotely true!
Yes, it’s important to relax after the year ends
Yes, it’s important to rejuvenate after the year ends
Yes, it’s important to decompress and relieve the stress that the school year brought on
HOWEVER…
Teachers think about school, their future students, instruction and classroom design
ALL THE TIME!
Teachers are naturally reflective and forward thinking. Let’s face it…
You can’t see a children’s book and not think about how you can use it in the classroom.
You can’t see a bucket at Target and not think about how it will perfectly contain editing pens and pencils in the writing center.
You can’t see a new pack of colorful Flair pens and not think about how great they will be to color-code your Curriculum Calendar for the new year.
You know that you have that area in your home where you begin to pile up all the new stuff you buy during the summer until it’s time to get back into your classroom for the new school year.
My point it this…
Teachers are naturally reflective and think about school and classroom and instruction all the time.
That’s just what makes us special, right?!
Starting the Reflective Process
The reflective process is already part of most teacher evaluation and accountability systems.
Reflection is a natural process that teachers go through everyday.
Without reflection, teachers wouldn't be making adjustments to their plans for the next day's lessons.
Reflection and notetaking was evident in all of my lesson planning strategies.
My curriculum planner had changes, revisions and bold check marks to signify I needed to keep certain activities and strategies in the plan!
However, my reflections about my professional growth stayed in my head.
We all know that writing down your goals to see them daily is a powerful tool!
Just look at all the vision boards on Pinterest and Instagram that people have created about their careers, lives, homes, etc.
When we make our professional goals visible to ourselves and revisit those goals to reflect, they are more likely to become a reality.
Reflective thinking, for me, was a self-care strategy! That's why I write it about it today.
Start a reflective teacher journal. Make the first page your Vision Board for your professional life and growth.
Follow that with written goals for your professional life.
Next, create action steps for how you will reach those goals.
It could be reading a professional book that you've had your eye on.
It could be creating a teacher support group of like-minded teachers.
It could be focusing on an instructional component in your classroom.
Maybe you want to "spice up" your Shared Reading!
Maybe you want to work on conferring strategies!
The possibilities are endless, but only you know what you want in your professional life.
Write it down and revisit that writing daily. If you can't commit to daily, be sure to do it weekly!
But maybe you want to start the Reflective Teacher process in small steps before committing to a Reflective Teacher journal.
If you're looking for a little more guidance to start The Reflective Teacher Journey, click here.
Until next time...
