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FREE RESOURCE–3 Strategies for Cutting Chatter in the Classroom
Show transcript
Welcome to Beyond the Bedlam, Episode #13!
Today we’re talking about how to keep your head in the teaching game when you might be feeling worn out.
I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned about keeping my head in the game and helping you create a teacher win this week!
Grab a cup of coffee and cozy up in your favorite spot. Don’t worry about trying to take notes. Everything is spelled out for you in today’s show notes at beyondthebedlam.com/episode13. Enjoy listening and soak it all in.
As we get started today, it occurs to me that there are a lot of really good reasons you might be distracted from keeping your head in the long game for teaching. You may be overwhelmed by professional stress, facing a personal challenge that has nothing to do with school, be in a creative funk, or just tired of kids’ shenanigans when there is so much to get done.
Whatever challenge you’re facing today, I want you to know that I’m in your corner cheering you along and praying that God would meet you at your point of need. No problem is too small or unimportant to ask for God’s help. He cares about you and the challenges you’re working through.
I care about you too. While I can’t address every challenge that teachers are facing right now with a specific resource, I have heard quite a few teachers asking for help knowing how to get kids to cooperate and cut the chatter during class.
If you find yourself surrounded by chatterboxes in your classroom and need a few ideas for helping them reign in their excessive word quota, I have a free resource waiting for you at beyondthebedlam.com/chatterbox. This resource has my favorite tips for helping students chat at the right times in your classroom! If this sounds like a resource that would be helpful to you, I invite you to grab your free copy this week! If you find the resource helpful, encourage your colleagues to download it for themselves as well!
If there is another area I can support you in, I’d love to hear from you too! Visit beyondthebedlam.com/contact to send me a message about how I can encourage you!
Ok! Let’s get to today’s topic!
At the time of this recording, the Super Bowl is less than a week away, and the Winter Olympics has just kicked off! It’s an exciting time in the world of sports, and we fans are HERE FOR IT! Sports can bring enjoyment and a great escape for so many people from the stresses of life. Whether it’s playing in the game, simply watching the event, or gathering with people you care about to enjoy the event together, sports inspire us, encourage us, and challenge us both as participants and as fans.
If I’m being honest, I’m probably the least athletic person you’ll ever meet. In fact, in middle school, I was excused from P.E. 4 school days every week to be the choir accompanist because I just was not talented as an athlete, and the choir teacher needed a pianist. If there is any further doubt of my lack of athletic talent, I ask questions about every play of every sporting event I watch. And my best sport is most definitely running my mouth.
But as un-athletic as I am, I’ve always been SO intrigued by sports. They inspire me to pursue excellence in both areas of strength and weakness!
As I have been considering the reports of many educators experiencing burnout or considering leaving the profession, I am inspired to think about lessons we can learn from the world of sports as we think about the “long game” of our work as educators.
There are 3 components that I’d like for us to consider today in light of what we can learn from the athletic world.
The first is the motivation of the players and coaches.
Have you ever stopped to think about why people participate in sports? For some, it’s simply a love of the game. For others, someone inspired them, and they want to inspire someone else. For other athletes, they play sports to keep their body in top physical shape. Motivations may be different, but every player and coach has one.
The same could be said for teachers. We all have a motivation for teaching. Or at least we did at one time. Have you considered why you’re teaching today? What is it that drew you to the classroom? What is it that’s keeping you there?
You might know right this minute what it was or is that motivates you to teach. Or you may be scratching your head right now thinking, “Well, I used to know why I was teaching, but I honestly have no idea right now.” If that’s you, it’s ok. We all have times when we can’t see the forest for the trees! When you have a few minutes to think while you’re driving or washing dishes, or exercising or even taking a shower, take some time to remember why it was that you started teaching. I bet it will come back to you!
Whether we remember it every moment or not, everything we do has a motivation, and it’s important to know what our motivation is in our work.
What would happen if players went out on the field for their sport and just didn’t care? They would lose the game–or at best, their wins would be haphazard. The same can be true for education. If we go in the classroom every day without remembering why we even care to be there in the first place, we can expect to be bored, disengaged, and frustrated. But if we teach each day with our motivation in the forefront of our minds, we are more likely to find wins along the way that keep us motivated to keep going!
The second parallel we can draw from sports to our proverbial teaching game is having a game plan in mind. It’s great to know why we’re motivated, but if we don’t have a solid plan in place for winning the game, we will miss the goal every single time.
We certainly are often given a goal from the powers that be like meeting certain data criteria or improvements. Knowing our motivation in being in the classroom will help us want to meet that goal and give us the drive to come up with a game plan to do it!
But maybe you have a goal for being in the classroom that isn’t so much centered around what someone else told you has to happen, but is something still within your control to achieve in addition to the requirements set by your supervisors!
Whatever the goal may be for you, do you have a solid game plan for arriving at your goal by the end of the game? Do you know specifically what a win looks like for you and how you’re going to get that win?
Several years back, I learned to reverse engineer goals by determining what the end result would be and then figuring out what the last step to meeting that goal would be, then the step before that, and so on until you arrive at step one. To say that this process has literally changed my life is not an understatement.
If you have never reverse engineered a goal, I highly recommend that you try! The steps between where you are now and the completion of the game plan are each of the plays you’ll run during the game in your classroom! Maybe you can’t see every step you need to take to achieve the goal right now, and that’s just fine! Just take the first step and then figure out the next and the next.
And can I pause right here for just a second to encourage you to celebrate when one of the plays in your game plan goes well? Sure the end of the game may be a long way off, but having a successful play along the way helps you to arrive at that destination and win! Those small wins add up to really big wins! Stop and celebrate each step you take toward your long-term win in education!
The third parallel we can draw from a sports game to our long game in the classroom is resilience. There are a lot of times the plays won’t pan out the way we had hoped, even with the very best of motivations. But when that happens on the playing field for an athlete, they don’t take the time to roll around and wallow on the field. They move on and execute the next play! Maybe they have to regain yards in that next play, but they regroup and get back in the game.
There are a LOT of things we do not have control over in education these days. But we *do* maintain control over our attitudes. We can choose to dust ourselves off and get back in the game after we have an epic fail of a day. There will be times our game plan does not go the way we thought it would, but it is within our control to make adjustments, if not to the plan itself, at least to our attitude about the plan!!!!!
As we’re wrapping up this episode, I want to encourage you to consider where you are in the long teaching game. Do you remember your motivation? Do you have a game plan for accomplishing your win? How is your resilience doing these days? Are you sulking on the sidelines? Is it time to get yourself back in the game with an improved attitude? Maybe you know why you’re in this, how you’re going to win, and have the best attitude! If so, appoint yourself the head cheerleader for your teammates who are having a harder time!
We all need each other to win the long game! And please know as you move forward this week that I’m in your corner cheering you on!