As we roll into a new year, I've been reading some fantastic books (Girl Wash Your Face) and inspirational quotes about how to live your best life.
I've seen many control diagrams about the things you can and cannot control and felt I should apply these to teaching. All teachers know there are SO MANY things you cannot control but because teachers are passionate about teaching, we often beat ourselves up about things that are, perhaps, out of our control.
Here are my list of things you can and cannot control. I'd love to know if you think I should add to this?
WHAT I TEACH
You cannot control the curriculum you are set, however you can control how you teach that curriculum. Okay, it's boring, it's dry, it's not particularly 'student friendly' but how can you make it engaging for students? What can you do, with that curriculum, to make learning fun?
'Nothing!' I hear you say..
However, if you're a teacher, you're creative. Good teachers take bad curriculum and make it work in the classroom. You might not like it but you MUST not show that to students.
'Oh wow! We're studying Federation! Hurray!' - okay you get my point.
HOW I TEACH
Even the most experienced teacher has a disastrous lesson from time to time. Nobody is a perfect teacher, everybody is still learning their craft right up until they leave teaching. So the lesson didn't go as planned... what's new? Learn from it, improve it next time, get that behaviour in the class under control, remember all the rules you learnt at teacher college. You cannot always control outside influences during your lesson but you can control the standard you set for yourself and your students.
WHEN I TEACH
The amount of teaching time you are given for subjects is often so tightly formulated by a whole school timetable with reading groups, specialist lessons and assemblies - that you are often left to shoehorn subject matter into a smaller and smaller amount of time. Again, this is where your flexibility and creativity need to shine. What WILL you teach in that time given? What areas do your students need to work on to meet the learning objective? See my previous blog post about managing and collecting student data to indicate areas you need to teach. The amount of teaching time might be out of your control but what you DO with that time is up to you.
HOW OTHERS FEEL ABOUT MY TEACHING
Schools are full of teachers with different backgrounds and teaching experiences. You're not here to make friends (although that does make teaching fun), you're not here to impress any other teachers. What you do in YOUR classroom is YOUR business. If others don't like it, too bad. Do your own thing. I wrote a useful blog post here about working in toxic teams. If other teachers are making you feel inadequate or you're making them feel inadequate - that's unfortunate. It would be nice if everybody got along and agreed with everything you did but it is not within your scope of control to make them feel a particular way about you.
THE STUDENTS IN MY CLASS
The students you are given to teach are rarely within your control (sometimes there are special circumstances for being given a particular student) but how you treat those students is very much within your control. Their learning abilities will vary, their engagement will come and go and their behaviour will sometimes be good and sometimes it will be downright annoying. If you have set behaviour standards in your classroom and reinforced those regularly and consistently, then sometimes you have done as much as you can to control the issue. I read somewhere, that teachers should keep students engaged all the time. I do not believe that is humanly possible. Students, like adults, have various levels of interest in particular topics, combined with how tired they are (did they even sleep last night?) and their skill level (and willingness to try new things) will all dictate how engaged they will be in a lesson.
You cannot always control how engaged students are or how much they participate in the learning activity but you can control how you treat students, the words you use and the feeling you impart about 'learning' to them and how interesting you make the lessons.
IF PARENTS LIKE YOU
This is a big one. It's one I struggle with so often and I have to keep telling myself 'not everybody will like you' - it isn't so much that I'm a people-pleaser but I do try so very hard with my students that when parents complain constantly I do take it to heart. Some parents, no matter what you do, will believe YOU are the problem and nothing you say or do will change that. This is not something you can control. You can control how you engage with them and how often, but you cannot make a parent like you if they are determined you are bad for their child. Often parents listen to gossip about previous students, or misinterpret communication and will set themselves against you. There is really nothing you can do. The customer, in this instance, is NOT always right. You are a human being with feelings and it's unfortunate they may not like you as their child's teacher, but it not within your control to force parents to like you.
I really would love to know what I should add to this diagram about the things I can/cannot control. What do you think?
