My world, specifically my work world, is changing. I once was fearful and full of trepidation as I worked toward making a decision on this frontier, but that has subsided. It has transmuted into something glorious and I am excited to be a part of transformative change in education.
Between my newest book, Creating Teachable Moments (available soon), and my new-found affiliation with Fearless learners, I am exited to announce that I am working towards being a ‘Wholistic’ Neurogrowth Educational Achievement Coach. I will have the availability AND ability to affect students where they are and guide them to success in their endeavors, both in and out of the classroom!
I can’t wait to guide students to learn how to learn and how to calm their minds with mindfulness techniques!
Today’s students struggle with the learning process, they struggle with the steps of attaining new knowledge and applying it to their lives both as students and as citizens in today’s world. It is not a skill taught in the classroom….not that teachers don’t want to be able to do so.
Why is it not taught? Teachers simply don’t have the time. Let me give you a personal example, one that I have lived for the past twenty-six years, in four different high schools in four different school district.
Each class generally has about thirty students, some years I’ve had eighteen in a class, others thirty-four. Some years my overall number of students has totaled over two-hundred.
I am up at 4:00 am, meditate, exercise and mentally prepare myself for the day. I’m out the door by 6:00 am and arrive at my campus at approximately 6:30 am. I enter the school, go to my classroom and prepare for the students. They begin to enter at 7:05 am. Class starts at 7:15 am, but attendance isn’t taken seriously at my current campus so many don’t enter until nearly 7:30 am. I cover content and required curriculum, deal with phones and behaviors and dismiss the students at 8:00 am and repeat this until the end of the day, 2:35 pm. Between each class I’m expected to be in the hallways monitoring students and
I barely have time to say hello to my incoming students.
My conference period had been spent in either meetings or grading and lunch consists of 15 minutes of wolfing down food. After the students leave, I have to wipe down the tables, sweep the floor and mop if necessary. You see, the janitors only take out the trash, they either don’t care to take care of their duties or don’t have time to do so.
With the above being said, I get home about 4:30 pm, plan my classes, do grading I didn’t have time to do and crash into bed about 8:00 pm so that I have enough energy to make it through the next day. This wasn’t an option when I was younger with small children at home. At the time I had to plan and grade after they went to bed, thus I was chronically sleep deprived.
As you can see, I only have about thirty minutes to cover content, much less help my students with study skills or help advance their social/emotional learning.
Over the past few years I have spent time working on values as part of each lesson I cover and this has made a difference in the behaviors and work ethic in my classroom, but it has not made enough of a difference to decrease my work load or really help the students discover their inner super powers.
I’m exhausted and ready to make a REAL difference with students independently and on a one-on-one basis.
With the newfound changes on my horizon I am once again rejuvenated and ready to work towards greatness, not beaten down and downtrodden. I am ready to fall in love with my job all over again!
