The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
See the “What are you doing wrong?” cartoon.
I’d like to ask: What are your doing right?
Yes–so many things not in our sphere of influence or control. What can we impact?
I have watched student teachers move through initial overwhelm at all there is for them to learn in order to teach even one lesson successfully in a classroom of twenty or thirty young people. I have watched as they learn the art and craft of teaching –one layer at a time.
If you identify one thing at a time, the odds are you can make progress no matter what else you’re facing outside of your sphere of influence or control. Once you take that step, you can keep going with the next step. There are nearly endless possibilities for these small steps.
Even when teachers are pressured to focus on preparation for standardized tests or keep pace with break neck sped curricula, a few example of what I have seen:
- short warm up activities that spark thinking and creativity.
- one student in each class each day chosen by teacher as particular focus that day– to make sure to connect with individually as a way to build a working relationship
- students inspired by teacher sharing brief stories of his/her own struggle, of breakthroughs and ways they learned to manage stress, tests, homework
- music, movement, reflections, during transitions and at beginning and end of class.
I have seen that teachers who set their sights on a manageable step– whether it is relationships, content, classroom organization, skills or process–are able to sustain a growing sense of self efficacy that helps them keep going through whatever else is pressing on them.