Growth Mindset

I try to always have a growth mindset, both at work and in my personal life.  Currently I am beginning my 7th year of teaching fourth grade.  Each year I take in a new group of about 26 - 28 kids.  A teacher with a growth mindset helps to figure out what each particular group needs.  I know that I cannot expect each group, or even each student to function or behave in the same way.

As I am trying new ideas for teaching and behavior management, I always include myself as a part of the problem or solution.  I wonder what I am doing to contribute to the successes or failures of the group.  I find that when I look at my own role, I can identify things that I may be doing to make a situation difficult.  For example, if I make it a requirement that my students sit still, I may be creating unnecessary problems.  Instead I look at a problem and think about what I need the students to do, and what are ways to get there.

A New Year

I am always very excited to start a new year.  I love that in this job there is closure on each year.  It gives us an opportunity to reflect on the previous year and also the opportunity to make changes.  As I start each new year I add ideas or change things that need changing.

One thing that I am really excited to work on is the community.  I am having a slow start to my classroom routine, but this past Friday I was able to have a great conversation with the class about acceptance.  It felt for the first time this year that a classroom community is on its way.  This is by far my favorite thing about beginning a new year.

First Week

My first week was very challenging.  I felt really prepared and had fabulous plans written.  There were many more behaviors to work with than I anticipated.  The hard part was not being able to get to what I had planned.  I missed both my community building activities and academic plans.  I had planned a different energizer or brain break each day.  As I went along I could feel that the class was not able to tolerate so many different ideas.  Instead I worked on one activity for a brain break the entire week.

The activity I did was the greeting where you toss the tennis ball around the circle.  It took all week to get most of them tossing the ball and not pitching it, not laughing at each other, cooperating, etc.  I am glad that I gave them more time with the activity until we felt that it was successful.  Otherwise it feels like rushing through things just to get them done without any gain.

I am hoping each week will gradually get better.  I do love my group!