Lessons in gratitude help students develop social awareness, a key component of social and emotional learning.

“Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” —W.E.B. Du Bois

1. Encourage gratitude to peers. Every morning, students begin their day with a soft start to ease into our space by doing choice activities such as building, making things, reading, drawing, or playing games together. Before they put things away, they are always encouraged to thank classmates they spent time with. This builds a sense of gratitude for quality time spent and sends them into their day feeling appreciative and appreciated.

Similarly, anytime students work with a partner or in small groups, they are reminded to thank their partners.The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework asserts that this helps to develop students’ social awareness in “understanding and expressing gratitude.” What a gift it is to learn and be together!

2. Explicitly demonstrate and model gratitude during Community Circle. After our soft start, we always meet in our Community Circle. By making a small shift in the language, you can incorporate gratitude. For example, on Mondays, instead of asking students to share a highlight from their weekend, I ask them to share something they are grateful for from the weekend.

Also, each week, we practice sharing gratitude on Thankful Thursdays. Here, we choose a different focus each time. Some examples are: what are we thankful for in ourselves, family, friends, nature, water, or how we feel in our class.

Community Circle time gives me a phenomenal opportunity to regularly share my appreciation for how much I love being their teacher, how thankful I am for who they are, and how grateful I am for the fun and joy we have together each day. Every day, we experience heartwarming, reciprocal feelings of being seen, heard, valued, and appreciated. What a gift it is to be their teacher!

3. Express gratitude for leadership qualities as classroom management. In my first years of teaching, I used to call the names of students who were yet to follow expectations, which made it a negative interaction. Later in my career, I would say, “I like the way [insert name] is sitting quietly,” in order to encourage compliance from others who were not yet ready. But when I learned that students are not there to please me, I changed my words to explicitly and specifically thank students for things like their gift of attention, for being ready to learn, and for working diligently toward their best.

I discovered that one of the most effective means for classroom management was to notice, name, and nurture the positive behaviors I wanted to see by expressing gratitude. So I now thank students for being leaders. I say, “Thank you for being a leader by doing the right thing (or for being a role model).” It’s a simple change in my choice of words in the form of gratitude. I give positive attention to those who are responsible and respectful. The others quickly notice and fall in line.

I truly believe all students have leadership qualities. If you search for a list of leadership skills, children already have many of these. It’s up to us to showcase, cultivate, and appreciate them. I wrote a blog post called “The Gift of Leadership” about the five aspects of developing these skills in the classroom. We need to see their potential first, believe in them, nurture their potential, explicitly teach leadership skills, and provide opportunities for them to showcase these skills.

Students love being called leaders. In fact, when they notice others demonstrating leadership skills, they now will say to each other, “Thank you for being a leader!” It brightens the room and brings a smile to faces every time. What a gift our contribution is to improve classroom culture!

4. Share gratitude in feedback. My routine for feedback regularly begins with an expression of gratitude. I love to recognize students for their effort and dedication to their learning and growth. Whether it is feedback on their writing, a math assignment, or an assessment, anytime I provide written or verbal feedback, it includes a statement of gratitude.

This appreciation goes a long way in nurturing their well-being and hard work ethic for future learning. What a gift it is to have students who love to work hard!

GENEROUSLY GIVE THE GIFT OF GRATITUDE

The gift of gratitude is as much for others as it is for you. Think about how warm your heart feels to express and receive appreciation. These positive feelings help to provide an optimal culture for learning, growth, and well-being that brings joy and appreciation to everyone in your classroom community.

Gratitude is meant to be shared, so express it and give it freely and generously. The more grateful you are for the many gifts you discover, the more plentiful and joy filled your life will be.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-and-modeling-gratitude-elementary-school?fbclid=IwAR2ZWSIAceTzTdkDEvoRnvgQAV3W1GoNkHsZZxGUpvZ4kQUBKT5CSvVAcv8

1. Respect our time.

Many of us have kids of our own; we’d like to spend our evenings with them instead of grading the papers we couldn’t grade during our “planning” periods because we had to watch someone else’s class last minute. Then, are we paid for those hours? Of course not. It hurts to see employees in other jobs being paid for working overtime when it’s expected teachers should often work for free.

2. Respect our qualifications.

A Bachelor’s degree is no easy (or cheap) feat. Many of us have a Master’s degree. We shouldn’t have to work a second (or third!) job to make ends meet and give up our holidays and vacations that we so desperately need in this line of work. Respect the value we bring to our students and all the preparation that went into it.

3. Respect our health.

When we do more than what our job description entails (which we do, every day), don’t keep pushing us to do more. At some point, we are forced to place boundaries around our physical and mental health—and then we’re often seen as the bad guy for implementing them.

4. Respect our methods.

We understand that we have programs that need to be followed and there is a certain way to do things—but the micromanaging is a bit ridiculous. We spend so much time detailing lesson plans, we don’t have as much to actually use them. We spend so much time “documenting” every move that we forget the point behind all of it. I know in my heart that you’d be completely amazed at what teachers could do with more freedom and more trust in THEIR methods.

What if we shifted how we viewed these things?! What if we listened to the ones really struggling—the teachers? Only then will you understand what changes need to be made. Most of the changes aren’t very groundbreaking—imagine a world where there are enough substitute teachers and school supplies. Imagine a world where teachers have the time to pour into each of their students because many tedious (often useless) tasks have been taken off their plates. Imagine an environment where everything that benefited the teacher then positively affected the students—who should be our number one concern in all of this. When you listen to the teachers, you are listening to the students. When you respect a teacher, it has this amazing snowball effect; if you would just listen to even SOME of our pleas, then we could meet MORE of these children’s needs. Imagine an environment where most teachers weren’t experiencing burnout; a world where teachers didn’t have a reason to go on strike or fight for their rights that are constantly taken away. Just imagine.

Reference: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/prevent-good-teachers-from-leaving-classroom-respect?fbclid=IwAR00VIJHTwLS4j0-6mdoOQqYimDr12O31Nt-BMLftdxbtAyz6ckuezrn03c

Every teacher knows the routine: stacks and stacks of papers go into the bag. The bag goes home, gets slung on the counter. It taunts you all afternoon and into the evening until you’re grading papers while falling asleep to the sounds of the Jeopardy music. The truth is, that after engaging with students all day and very little downtime for grading and planning, taking work home often seems like a necessary evil. However, there are some things you can do to, literally, lighten your load as you head home.

1. Not All Assignments Need Grading.

Stick with me, here. I am not suggesting busy work or work for the sake of work. However, there is such thing as good old fashioned practice. Some activities lend themselves to evaluation through class discussion or are simply a step in the larger learning process. Be okay with letting those things slip past the grade book.

2. Active Monitoring Saves Lives

This may be a touch dramatic but it will save your sanity! As your students are working, you can roam the room to assess their learning. You can input a grade for participation or effort. If you are monitoring their progress in the classroom in real-time, you do not have to grade as much later.

3. Be A Good Steward of Your Planning Period

This is definitely the hardest one. Once the kids are gone for that precious planning time, it’s tempting to want to socialize with your peers, eat in silence or ya know, pee. And while these things are all necessary and important, be sure to carve out some time for actual work between decompressing and other obligations (#meetings). Set a timer for 15 minutes and see how much grading you can do before hitting the break room.

4. Use Your Resources

By now, most school systems pay for platforms that will host and grade your assignments. Things like SchoolNet or Canvas can be intimidating but once you get the hang of the system, you can input your assignments. This is great because it gives students instant feedback, saves paper and often gives you a breakdown of performance by standard and/or question.

5. Work Smarter, Not Harder

Being an innovative teacher is admirable but when the work is piling up, it’s okay to take a reprieve and revert to what you know works. There’s no need to spend hours planning to reinvent the wheel when there is a free or cheap resource available to you online (TpT here I come!). Beg, borrow and steal. Then when you’ve got some free time and some great ideas, return the favor–ya know, like in July.

6. Set Boundaries

Ultimately, there will simply be times when you can’t get it all done within the school day/week. If you have to take work home, be reasonable. Treat yourself to a Sunday afternoon at a coffee shop while you grade papers but also know that you are a whole person with a real life and almost everything can wait until Monday. You will be a better teacher with rest and time to relax.

7. Touch Everything Once

Whether it’s a field trip form that needs to be submitted, worksheets that need grading or something that needs to be recycled–handle it the first time you pick it up. The endless shuffling of papers leads to lost items and forgotten tasks. That leads to overwhelm which ultimately puts you behind. The temptation is to get sidetracked or avoid less than savory tasks but “eat the frog”, as they say, and deal with things right away so they do not pile up on your desk–or in your take-home bag.

8. Use the Summer

There is something to be said for using a few hours of your summer break here and there to organize your classroom or plan well in advance to help streamline the school year. Even an hour or two a week can make a huge impact on how the school year goes and ultimately pay dividends by freeing up your evenings.

Reference:https://www.boredteachers.com/post/tips-for-taking-less-work-home?fbclid=IwAR3vPybXjtfT85rD0hkG4Ua-gISTETlY1uEHtP9e4Z2N4QjtOcEj2Yh15gM

Helping students become independent, questioning thinkers begins with stepping back and guiding them to take the lead in their learning.

EMBRACE THE QUIET MOMENTS

In an era of learning acceleration and learning loss, it can be hard to grant ourselves permission to slow down. But if we’re looking to cultivate learner agency, we must consider the negative effects of accelerating learning—of always asking our students to be “on” in our classrooms. We must ask ourselves: Where does the urgency come from, and how might it be disenfranchising some of my students?

That sense of urgency can actually cause us to diminish learner agency. I’ve certainly been there. When I’m feeling that sense of urgency, I can’t help but intervene prematurely, act on behalf of my students, and bear the majority of the cognitive load. But when I extend my wait time and embrace quiet moments that allow students to have opportunities to think on their own, my time investment pays off in large dividends, providing me with independent learners who find they have lots of tools to overcome obstacles on their own.

When we embrace these quiet moments, we bear witness to student process, which is perhaps the most personalized part of learning in our classrooms.

PRAISE STUDENTS’ JOURNEYS

By stepping back and supporting our students while they productively struggle, we can learn a great deal about their learning habits, praising and coaching their efforts along the way.

Praising students’ journeys is a great place to start. But we must be specific in our positive feedback. We must name what our students are doing well in order to help them identify it for themselves. Otherwise, our classrooms become places full of empty compliments.

• “I can tell you’re seeking patterns,” I said to a student recently. “That is something good mathematicians do. You may not always find the patterns, but looking for them is a great idea.”
• “I know research can be frustrating and confusing,” I say to validate my students’ feelings when they engage in the research process. “Let’s talk about some ways to work through those feelings.”

CULTIVATE A SENSE OF MASTERY

Daniel Pink, author of Drive, describes mastery not as unlocked achievements or boxes checked on a report card, but instead as a “desire to get better at something that matters.” In schools, this means cultivating awareness of how effort is connected to tangible progress.

After all, it makes intuitive sense: If we can see that the effort we’re putting into a task is helping us grow, we’re more likely to replicate those behaviors and persist through challenges. But it’s easier said than done.

ALLOW FOR LEARNER-DRIVEN EVALUATION

In order for students to evaluate their own work, they need to have the language to do so. Otherwise, students may nondescriptively refer to their work as “good” or “bad.” This means that educators must create structures, such as learner-friendly rubrics, that can provide them the language necessary to self-evaluate.

These learner-friendly rubrics should contain standards-based, student-friendly learning objectives, such as I can calculate the area and perimeter of rectangles. After evaluating their work on the rubrics, I recommend following up with a structured reflection, in which students state strengths, challenges, and action steps in their own words, as I detail in Reclaiming Personalized Learning: A Pedagogy for Restoring Equity and Humanity in Our Classrooms.

When first starting learner-driven evaluation, learners will need a lot of support. You may want to model how to reflect, even letting them borrow some of your language until they’re ready to do it on their own.

ASK QUESTIONS MORE OFTEN THAN YOU PROVIDE CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

While providing specific and actionable feedback is helpful for productive learning, asking thoughtful questions can help students give themselves feedback, allowing them to tap into their own agency and initiate improvements to their work on their own.

Good questions will have multiple answers; they won’t lead students, either. Consider asking questions like “Why did you choose to…?” or “Is there a more efficient way to…?” This will force students to think about their thinking, adding a layer of agentive criticality to conversations.

When students are stuck, you may feel inclined to intervene directly in order to get them over their obstacles. But we must remember that if we, the teachers, are acting on behalf of students to help them overcome challenges, we may be doing more to diminish agency than we are cultivating it. In this instance, I like to ask students, “What tools do you have to help you get unstuck?”

TELL STUDENTS YOU TRUST THEM

This sounds simple, but it’s really powerful. By telling students that you trust them, you hand over responsibility to them, and you let them know that no matter what happens—even if they make a mistake—it’s all going to be OK.

But you have to walk the talk. It’s not enough to only tell students that you trust them. You have to show them, too, by embracing the aforementioned teacher moves that cultivate learner agency.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/teacher-moves-cultivate-learner-agency?fbclid=IwAR0ole9Un-nq68da-fmyYr7T3UPgtptnwBOs8y6sHj4knVwBOC7eDxl2ByE

We can’t be held to normal standards right now because life is not normal.

Somehow, people seem to forget that we are still in a global crisis. Sure, we’ve adapted, we’ve persevered, we’ve come to accept that constant uncertainty is our new “normal.” But we’re in a state of dysregulation. We are not at our best, and our students are not at their best. We have to accept and expect imperfection instead of holding ourselves to (and being held to) impossibly high standards, especially when the world is on fire.

You do not need to give up your mental health to support the mental health of the people around you.

Teachers are empathetic, compassionate listeners and advice-givers, and as natural caretakers, we’re taking on a lot of other people’s emotions right now. Our students, of course, come to us when they need help, as do our friends, coworkers, and family members. But so many of us are starting to ask ourselves: How much can I give? How much warmth can I spread if I’m not being fueled?

You deserve a break.

Rest is not something that needs to be earned. You don’t need to finish grading those tests or planning your weekly lessons in order to “qualify” for a break. You deserve rest. Because everyone deserves rest. If you need a physical and mental break, TAKE IT. Take the personal day, don’t grade that assignment, be okay with a lesson plan from Google. Giving yourself the space and time to breathe will not prevent your students from learning and growing.

Your stress affects your students.

Are we good at hiding A LOT of the negative, overwhelming, anxiety-inducing emotions we feel on a daily basis? Of course. We all know that many aspects of teaching are a complete facade. But if you’re not at your mental and emotional best, your kids will feel it and be impacted by it. Students–no matter how old they are–are experiencing childhood in a way that we cannot fully comprehend, and we’re not doing them any favors by pushing ourselves to our breaking points.

Administrators cannot keep asking teachers for MORE.

We. Can’t. Do. It. I mean, we can, but for how long? How long can we keep this fire blazing to spread warmth to everyone and everything around us? And once we’re completely burned out, how many people will follow in our path?

We’ve been told to be the Giving Tree, to sacrifice everything we have to make others happy, to push through our own exhaustion to provide energy for other people, to ignore our own needs so that others’ needs can be met.

We all know that everything we do, we do it for the kids. And by all means, keep doing it for the kids. Because in some ways, that act is what fuels us to keep going – it ignites our passion as educators. So sure, maybe we’re all on fire right now, in one way or another. But we absolutely cannot continue to stoke our flames for the sole benefit of the people around us.

Because when you set yourself on fire for other people, there’s only so long you can keep them warm before you fizzle out, and everyone – including you – is cold.

Reference: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/dont-set-yourself-on-fire?fbclid=IwAR1Kq8f3wFf5lpf9FpfGJ_q3uCnxuCloI9WyHP3EP45W0_zj6pQIB1t8p2U