Practicing What I Preach

One of the loveliest and most challenging perks about returning to the classroom is the opportunity to put my money where my mouth has been for the past decade. I’ve been training, coaching, and supporting teachers since before I went into admin, and now that I’m a full-time teacher again, it’s time to exercise those teaching chops. Now, that’s fun. But also a little scary because I’m not 100 percent every moment. Let me tell you where I have been struggling.

Using my resources: I’ve been preaching to students and teachers and colleagues for years to use the tools around them. Dictionaries, websites, notes, textbooks, and so many other resources are just waiting for us to use them. But I’m truly overwhelmed by how many resources I have now, and I’m working to figure out when to use which resource. Case in point: While planning a mini-lesson on citation practice for this week’s station rotation, I tried all sorts of generative AI tools, and the results were, in a word, garbage. Then I remembered the treasure trove that is university websites, and within a few minutes, I had the resources I needed for this week.

I truly need to remind myself why I’m using these resources. My intention is to use the time I’m saving by not creating everything from scratch to know exactly how my students are progressing and then differentiating appropriately and quickly. Definitely need to sharpen this particular saw.

Slowing down to speed up: One of my favorite admin colleagues (Hey, Langton!) used to say that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. But I have so many ideas I want to implement and so many structures and activities from the past I want to revive! And I’ve been very intentionally building culture in my classroom - most likely my next blog post - and working on taking time to make decisions in my life, so I’m adopting Mr. Langton’s wisdom and reminding myself that slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

I tend to walk fast and talk fast and eat fast and change fast, while telling folks about the benefits of slowing down. This journey is really forcing me to look critically at my own speed, in the classroom and in my personal life.

And every day in the classroom is another opportunity to practice what I preach.