Time for Reflection

"See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little." Pope John XXIII

I HOPE you had a joyous Christmas and are looking forward to a new year! Isn't that what teaching is about? Each new day, month, and year you look forward to another opportunity to reach students that you felt you had not reached. Keep Christmas alive by giving the gift of education to ensure that your students have a brighter future, a new begining and HOPE that they too will grow up to make a difference in the world.

One of the best professional development opportunities I know of and have used often is reflection. It doesn't cost your district anything and you can do this in five minutes at the end of the day. Often educators reflect by sharing stories with the teacher next door, husbands or friends who are close by, or a relative who has the ability to listen and understand. How often do teachers process those thoughts by writing them down, to look for patterns in their own teachings? This is an effective way to see your strengths and weaknesses. You can say, "AHA! I see what I did or can do." Looking in a mirror reflects your appearance and sometimes feelings. Recording your actions will also give you a look at yourself in the same light. How do you see yourself? That is YOUR reflection.


Taking time to look at your strengths helps to step back into the classroom each day and know you are doing something well. Keep doing that. It works! You can also step into your classrooms and look at one thing you can improve. Just one! That one change will alter your teaching for ALL students. Until you feel good about that weakness, keep working on it. When you see improvement, then you can discover another area to improve. Sometimes you think you are not teaching well because you have bad days. Reflect.

I remember a day when I thought I was the worst teacher alive. I had a bad day and nothing went right. I went home and before I went to sleep, I pulled my journal from the night stand and began to write about my day. When I was finished I looked over the notes about the student who said I was her favorite teacher, the student who said, "Thank you I learned so much today." There was a student who I took time to talk about her story during writing conference time. A boy came to me at the end of the day and shared that he had a good day. He said, "The time went by so fast." I remembered smiles and activities that we completed during the day.

I also remembered that one of my students continually caused me trouble. He had once again challenged me with his continuous calling out the answers before anyone else had a chance to respond. Because I had not responded with the appropriate solution, I felt I had been a failure and had let my other students down. Now that I was aware that the day had not been a total waste and I could think clearly about the real problem. I began to plan the next day and how I could prevent the student from hijacking my class. I thought of who he was and why he might be yelling out the answers even when I said, "Raise your hand." I decided that the next day I would have the students write their answers on paper and turn to a partner and share their responses. In the future, I would use more group work and less teacher directed lessons.

The next day, I asked the boy to be the leader of his group and to make sure everyone had a chance in his group to respond to the written instructions and questions related to the lesson.
I discovered that allowing my students to talk to one another and giving my problem student responsibility for making sure everyone talked, gave the students the opportunity to participate and listen when others were talking. It also took away the forum for getting attention with inappropriate remarks.

By reflecting in my journal for 5 minutes each night, I saw through my strengths and weaknesses and solved issues of classroom management. I learned to change one day at a time.

Keep the HOPE alive by reflecting on the positive. Don't give up on yourself or your students. Each day is a new beginning. Happy New Year. Make this your best year ever.