Year Four: Believe in yourself, let go of perfection, and lean on others.

     Today is my "official" last day of summer. Today I did a quick workout, showered, and went back to bed. It was wonderful and I felt like I deserved some more sleep so I took a nap at 9:00am. This started my day of self reflection on my personal and professional goals/habits that I want to establish as I enter my fourth year of teaching. Today I also printed materials, made lists, and joined a group of 2nd grade teachers from my district in an informal setting to discuss our why, what, and how for teaching and more specially teaching reading. It was awesome! 

  In the last few weeks, I've thought about how I want my fourth year in the classroom to look and how I don't want it to look. This is the first year that I will not have any outside commitments at the start of the school year. For the last three year, I have been taking courses for certification or completing my Masters degree online. I've also put a ton of pressure on myself to be this perfect teacher. Now anyone who has ever been in my classroom or have seen me teach, may not have known that this was one of my goals in the back of my head. However, I have seen growth and failures in this mindset as I've maneuvered through various schools and settings. It is one thing to hold yourself to a high level of excellence in teaching and it is another to produce negative self-talk about your practices on a daily basis when using these standards against you. These things may seem very different but in my mind during my first two years, they were always connected. This lead me to feel constant stress and pressure on myself to do things as perfectly as I could. I want to expand on this in a later post in the future, so I'll leave my experience of my first few years in the classroom as that. 

  Making it a priority to embrace more self-love, positive and growth mindsets, and not adding unnecessary stress to this school year, I'm excited to take on this year with a whole new perspective and array of positive emotions. This year, I am going to make it my goal to reach out to others and not try to reinvent the wheel. This year, I am going to give myself more time to enjoy basic things without the guilt. This year, I am going to fail fast and let it be okay. 

 At 7:30am tomorrow, I will meet the staff and teachers at my new school and get the day to work in my classroom. I'm not going to try to make it perfect. I'm going to make it practical. If you need more inspiration on this topic or anything else related to teaching with grace, check out Angela Watson at The Cornerstone For Teachers. 

Check out the article that inspired this post: 

You can’t do it all, but where can a teacher really cut corners?


Have fun this week and show yourself love and grace! 

Heather