You really don’t need to get everything right at the moment.
In fact, we’re probably at a point in the school year where more mistakes are likely. You’re not doing anything wrong, you’re just being human.
Honour your mistakes at the moment and celebrate what they teach you.
Importantly, never compare yourself to the unreasonable expectation of perfection. It’ll just make you bitter and miserable.
Enjoy this week’s Goodie Bag – it’s our gift to all of you flawed educators.
GIFTS
This week Amy will chat to you about ‘The Power of Teaching with Questions’. Come along to find out how using questions can shift learning in your classroom from teacher centered to student centred. There will even be a challenge if you’re brave enough.
Got a question for Teacher Talk? Send to Amy at amy@realschools.com.au
OPPORTUNITIES
We’ve got another free download available for you today. Click here and you can get access to the detailed Prospectus for The Inner Circle.
Not only does it contain valuable info on what’s required to lead the implementation of Restorative Practices in your school, but it’s also an introduction to how we can richly support a School Leader in your school charged with that task.
THOUGHTS by Adam Voigt
This is a really boring, but important, quadrant model that I’ve been using lately what to discuss with School Leaders what they can expect when they implement Restorative Practices.
If you use it to plot instances of teacher intervention when there’s student conflict or poor behaviour, you’d place dots in all four quadrants. There will be times when you use RP and it fails (Box 1) – after all, nothing’s perfect.
You’ll also use other non-RP strategies and it could work (Box 4). That’s cool.
But what we’ve been discussing is how the predominance of dots would be places in Boxes 2 and 3. When we use RP it more often works than other ways of stepping in.
When we don’t, because were flawed and forgetful humans too, we usually aren’t as effective as we’d like to be.
Some people love to “ah hah!” and point at a time when RP didn’t work as evidence that it’s a flawed approach. Of course, it’s flawed!
I don’t use RP because it’s a guarantee. I just use it because it tilts the odds in the favour of my actions matching my purpose and beliefs.
Then I just hope I’m lucky that day.
EPIPHANIES by Simon Dewar
My epiphany this week came after I was listening to a Podcast from John Maxwell. Maxwell talked to the importance of ‘Less Direction and More Connection’.
It got me thinking about schools and my time in the classroom. As teachers, we can spend up to 80% of a lesson talking to our students.
That’s a lot of talking, but when I reflected, I’d have to admit that I’ve done it before in both the classroom and when leading a meeting.
When you are with your students or colleagues tomorrow, don’t fall into the trap of over-talking about what you want to happen.
That’s the direction part. Try to spend more time listening or asking questions. Less talking will increase engagement amongst your class or team and that’s the opportunity for greater connection.
Warm regards,
