Oct

28

You Can Only Control Your Reactions To Things

Filed Under Dealing With Stress | 3 Comments

I often tell my students that they cannot control what other people do or think. They can only control how they react to what other people do or think. Personally, I find it very useful to think this way because it helps me deal with things in a skillful way. I can choose to retain my equilibrium, or I can choose to loose it. It’s really up to me. I realize that when I got angry with my students yesterday because they didn’t complete the work I left them while I was at the conference I wasn’t make a skillful choice. I chose to get angry. When I really think about it, I was also choosing to be a victim. A victim? Yes, a victim. I was complaining angrily to my colleagues about the kids and what they didn’t do after all the work I did blah blah blah. This morning it dawned on me (no pun intended) that I chose to feel bent out of shape and sorry for myself. I had created these fantastic lessons and look what it got me! It really wasn’t the kids who made me angry and upset. It was me. I chose to be angry. Now, I am going to make some skillful choices: I am choosing not to be angry with my students, and I’m choosing not to be angry with myself. I am controlling what I can control- my reaction to things.

Oct

27

When You Throw Coals At Someone You’ll Burn Your Hands.

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I came back to my classes today after being away on conference for two days. I had attended a two day conference on Instructional Intelligence. It was excellent. I think every teacher should have the opportunity to hear what Barry Bennett has to say. Check out the link. It’s well worth your time. I’d left lessons for my classes that I thought they could manage.- not too challenging but not boring. I had spent quite a bit of time on these lessons actually and was quite pleased with them. I was convinced that my students would find them engaging.

I was convinced, but I was wrong. Many of my students didn’t complete their work. Some of my students even skipped class when they found out I wasn’t there. Needless to say, I was very angry disappointed. I try not to get angry because being angry is not good for your health. Someone once told me that being angry at someone is like holding hot coals in your hand and throwing them at the person your mad at. You end up hurting yourself because you’ve burned your hands while holding the coals. Well, my hands were burning all day long even though I threw the coals (yelled at the kids) in the morning. How many years have I been teaching at risk kids. You’d think I’d learned by now. Obviously not!

Oct

25

It Takes An Entire School To Educate A Character.

Filed Under "At-risk" students | 2 Comments

Society expects a lot from teachers. Not only, are we expected to teach the three R’s-reading, writing and arithmetic, but now we are also expected to teach character. When did it become our job to teach so many kids to be respectful of one another, to be kind, to be compassionate, to be tolerant of differences etc.? For some time now, we’ve been hearing people say that it takes an entire village to raise a child. Will we be hearing people say that it takes an entire school to educate a character? What happened to the rest of the village?

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