What's Your Plan?

Welcome back from Thanksgiving!

If you a secondary teacher in most American schools, you are probably shifting your attention to wrapping up the semester and exam preparation. For some of you, exams will take place before Christmas, and for others, it will be one of the first things you do after returning from break.

Either way, it is time to start preparing students. They need to training in the art of preparing for something a few weeks away while simultaneously accomplishing the things they need to do today. And if your students are anything like mine were, they resist it pretty hard. A student once complained to me that "no adult has to plan for long term and short term at the same time."  I asked her if her parents went grocery shopping every day. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Of course not." I told her that meant her parents were having to think about both dinner tonight and what they might need for the rest of the month while they were shopping. I was also the yearbook advisor at the time, so I asked her if she thought I only took photographs the week before a page deadline.  Again, that would be crazy. I had to plan my days (what games I would attend, who I needed to track down to get another shot of) each day and week because there would be a deadline in December where those pages needed to be finished. 

In short, independent planning for both the short term and the long term is a life skill that will serve you from now until you die, so it's a little bit important, student resistance not withstanding. Their resistance doesn't make for a losing battle, just one you need to start early and keep emphasizing throughout the year. 

So, how do you build independence in students? In my study skills class, I handed out a paper calendar and had them fill out the big dates (exams, known test dates, etc.) as well as the things that were specific to them (athletic practice, play rehearsal, choir performance). I wanted them to get a realistic view of the limitations of their time.  Then, I asked them to realistically plan for where they could fit study time in for the exam. "But that's still 2 weeks away," one of them said. "I have this test to study for before then."  I reminded them that the entire reason we were doing this was to allow them to plan for both. Obviously, the days before that test should have their study time focused on those chapters, but they should also fit in about 20 minutes making flashcards or working on their study guide for the exam in that same class.

Recently, I was listening to the Good Faith podcast, and there were two guests who talked about anxiety prevention and building independence in young people.  They were  Kara Powell of the Fuller Youth Institute and Sara Billups - Author of Nervous Systems. They both referenced Lisa Damour, so I may be misattributing what any of them said to one of the others.

Sara Billups, I believe, discussed empowering kids while also guiding them, starting with three words - "What's Your Plan?" She said starting this way communicates to them that they have the ability to make a plan and is motivating. It doesn't mean you won't have to help them adjust an unwise plan, but if you start with the plan they made themselves, they will resist less. It also gives you a place to start from in guiding them to build independence. After they have told you the plan, you can say, "Why do you think that is the best thing to start with?" or "Do you remember that you have a volleyball tryout that afternoon? Are you sure you will have the energy for what you have planned after that?" Kara Powell recommended asking more questions than making statements. Statements feel like being dictated to, which we all naturally resist. Questions feel like we are choosing something. Even if the end result is the same, the second builds independence while the first reinforces dependence.

I recently interviewed the mom of three of my former students for a book I am writing about study habits. She said, "Looking back on it, I wish I had sometimes let them follow through on a less than wise plan so they could tie the consequence to the choice." It's natural for adults to want to prevent a negative consequence they can see coming. And, of course, if it is something major, we should - you don't let your child learned not to play in traffic using the method of natural consequences. But if the result is one failed quiz or one day of miserable exhaustion from staying up too late, it might be worth the investment. (This, by the way, is another example of adults balancing the short term and the long term together.) 

Growing up isn't easy. And, let's face it - not all adults have mastered it either. Helping kids navigate the process of becoming independent learners and functioning adults takes time, effort, care, and patience. It also takes teamwork. 

The Best Way to Learn?

During the first two years of my career, I frequently had the experience of stopping mid-lesson and saying, "Oh, I get it now." My students were a little shocked to find out I might not have gotten it before.  "No, no," I said, "I've been teaching you HOW to do it correctly, but I just put together WHY it works that way." I'm not sure if this made my students feel any better about my competence.

Anytime I share this story, people adopt a truism, assuming it to be a given. "Well, the best way to learn something is to teach it," they say. Education is full of these statements that people assume to be self-evident. But when I started learning about research into the science of learning, I had to investigate, not only what things work, but why. When you learn some principles of how the human brain works, you come to realize that everything is more complex and filled with nuance than you ever imagined.

Consider, for example, this tweet using this idea for a sports related skill. If a coach wanted a college athlete to learn a new skill, would he send that student to a middle or high school and have them teach that skill.  Of course not. He would show them how to do it (either demonstrating it himself or showing them film). He would then have them perform the skill while providing feedback until it became automated.  

Apply the same notion to a person learning a musical instrument for the first time. Would any piano teacher say to a student, "Now that you have had one lesson, it's time for you to teach one of my younger students"? It is easy to recognize the absurdity of this idea when we apply it to this type of skill, right. 

Still, this is the kind of malarkey being fed to classroom teachers throughout their degree and in professional development sessions. Get off the stage; have the students lead; have them teach each other. Then people post graphics that look "science-y" because they arrange them into a pyramid shape and attach numbers to them. You see it with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Bloom's taxonomy, which I have addressed on this blog before. I've seen it in non-academic contexts, which I addressed here.

Yesterday, Bradley Busch, who I adore and whose books I have shared broadly, quote tweeted this learning pyramid (whose numbers are too tidy to represent any real science). As you can see, it claims teaching others will give you a retention rate of 90%! That would be amazing if it were true. But I love Bradley's comment, "As a rough rule of thumb, don't rrust any pyramid when it comes to learning or psychology."

"But, but . . ." I can hear you saying, "You started this blog with a story of learning something by teaching it." Thanks for remembering that, but if you go back and read it again, you might find it is a bit less straightforward than that.  You will see that I was teaching something I already knew how to do.  In fact, I was teaching something I had learned in high school and had been doing throughout college, writing chemical formulae.  Teaching it solidified my understanding of the deeper reasons for the techniques, but it would have been an absolute mess if I had tried to teach it to them while I was a high school chemistry student learning it for the first time.

There are some in the evidence informed world who think we have to throw out all techniques that are not explicit teaching. As a science teacher, I do know that other techniques have value when implemented well as part of an environment based on explicit teaching. I advocate for using other techniques sparingly and judiciously, with an understanding of the cognitive science principles behind the techniques.  When it comes to students teaching others, I think there are three things that are important to consider - retrieval, summarizing, and thinking about meaning.

• Retrieval is one of the most powerful activities our brain has. I love learning interesting facts, and I really enjoy telling people about facts that I have learned. When I share, people frequently ask how I remember all these random things. Until a few years ago, I didn't know.  I thought I just remembered things because I liked knowing them. After I started learning about the science of learning, I realized why remember all of this trivia. The penny dropped the day after I learned why we say uppercase and lowercase when referring to capital and non-capital letters. (If you are interested, it is because, during the time of type setting, the blocks with capital letters were kept in the top drawer - literally the upper case). I heard it on the radio one evening, and I thought it was amazing; so the next day, I told all six of my classes about it. I told other teachers about it.  I told anyone who would stand still and listen to me tell it. Over the course of several days, I must have retrieved that piece of information seventeen times. I remember things because I tell people things. In spite of the recent disdain for drilling, coaches, theater directors, and music teachers will tell tell you they work. Cognitive scientists will explain why - retrieval myelinates the nerves required to remember information or perform a task. When we teach, we retrieve previously learned knowledge. It's not the act of teaching that is helping you learn; it's the retrieval (at least in part) that is helping you remember.
• Summarizing is a skill that you likely learned in late elementary or early middle school. It's the basis for a good book review, decent story telling, and critical to note taking. It's also something your brain does while you are learning. As a teacher speaks, the student brain unconsciously sums up the gist in order to figure out where to store the new information by figuring out how it relates to what they already know - their schema. Because it is an unconscious process, we often don't know if the brain is doing it well. I can't tell you how many times a student has said, "So, you are saying . . ." followed by something I was definitely not saying. But I've also had some students finish that sentence with a brilliant rephrasing that made it more clear for everyone. My favorite one was "So you are telling me that everything is mostly made of nothing" after a detailed explanation of the distance between the nucleus and the electrons in an atom. Teaching others forces us to take this often unconscious process and engage with it on purpose. It's not the act of teaching that is helping you learn; it's the summarizing that is helping you work what you have learned into your existing schema.
• Focusing on meaning is, according to Daniel Willingham, the best way to aid your memory. After reading his book Outsmart Your Brain, I started telling my students to slow down with their flashcards and ask, "Why is this the answer?" and "Why isn't it a different answer" and "How does it connect to other things in this chapter?" while retrieving. Focusing on meaning gives the brain something to hold onto.  When I was learning to write chemical formulae in high school, I could get it right by following the process. When I was teaching students to do it, I had to focus on the underlying chemistry behind the process in order to explain the rules, which led to my moment of clarity while I was explaining. If a student asked a question, knowing the underlying chemistry was essential to giving them a quality answer.  It's not the act of  teaching that is helping you understand; it is the focus on meaning of what you know that is required to teach it.

What can you, as a teacher, take away from these three principles if you want to use the technique of students teaching for learning in your classroom.

1. Timing is key - If you are going to have students teach other students, it is important that they not do it too early in the learning process. It should be after they have mastered the fundamental concept themselves. I had a project in which students taught, but they had almost three months of research and practice on their topic before they got up to present (and I promise you that we could all tell if they had not).
2. Heavy guidance - Students will not summarize and focus on meaning naturally, so you have to require it from them if you want them to learn from the activity. Make them summarize their lesson either verbally or in writing. Give them feedback on whether their summary indicates a proper understanding.  During the preparation process, ask them questions that force them to think about meaning. Have them rehearse their speech with a volunteer and instruct the volunteers to ask the types of questions students ask.
3. Reflection - Reflecting on our learning is the most neglected part of the learning process. After students have presented, ask them questions about the content and the process to help them consolidate their understanding.

Doing this well is time consuming. If you decide to engage this technique, make sure it is worth the investment. What's the opportunity cost - i.e. what else could your students be doing with that time? If you decide it is worth doing, make sure you are ready to provide the guidance, feedback, and reflection involved in doing it well.

Thanksgiving 2025 - Holy Trinity Anglican Church

Each year at Thanksgiving, I write a post about an educator who inspires me. I've written about the teachers of my childhood, my colleagues, the GRACE administration and parents, my group fitness instructors at the Y, and Learning and the Brain. 

This year, I am particularly grateful for my church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Raleigh, and most especially for its rector. His fancy name is Rev. Dr. John W. Yates III, but he's my pastor, John, and I could not adore him more.

Fair Warning:  This post is going to be longer than normal. There is some background information, and I want to tell the story in detail. Get some coffee and settle in.

A little background on me. I grew up in church.  I don't mean I went every now and then. I mean I grew up in the church building. My family was there, at minimum, 3 times per week - more if there were youth activities, drama practice, handbell or choir performances, etc. I also attended a Christian school from kindergarten through 9th grade and went to a Christian university. So, I've been hearing sermons since my ears were forming in utero. And, Roland Harrell, the pastor I had during the most formative of those years, was intelligent, thoughtful, organized, and prepared.  We used to joke that he could pull a sermon out of a comma in the middle of a sentence. He kind of ruined me for all other preachers. It took me a while in college to settle on a church for that reason. In Tulsa, a city FULL of churches, there was no preacher that lived up to Mr. Harrell.

Fast forward to my adult life. I had been attending a well known church downtown Raleigh for quite some time. I never really got plugged into it, though. I was briefly in a community group, but it didn't stick. It's a big church where it is easy to be pretty unknown. Maybe I needed that for a while, but in late 2022, I started feeling that it was time to move on. I don't have anything bad to say about that church; there's no dramatic story. I just had allowed myself to become stale. I was mostly anonymous, showing up on Sunday morning to listen to the sermon and that was about it. Because it was non-denominational, doctrine was very much de-emphasized. If asked about specific doctrines, they would say, "We hold some things in a closed hand because they are essentials. We hold everything else in an open hand because Christians can respectfully disagree on those."  I am on board with that philosophy. I grew up in a Pentecostal church and a Baptist school and went to college at ORU. I taught in a Christian school with a multi-denominational population. So, I am accustomed with respectful disagreement amongst faithful people, but at this church, we didn't get a chance to respectfully disagree; I couldn't tell you if I disagreed with them or not because they never talked about them. (I'm not even 100% sure I know which issues they might put in each hand.) So, I wasn't growing at church. I went to church for those last few years because I am a person who goes to church, not because I was contributing to or taking anything from it. I got my doctrinal development from podcasts. I knew this wasn't right, but inertia is powerful; so it took God moving in my heart to get me to think about looking elsewhere.

But in November 2022, I didn't feel like I could leave yet. I had committed to a two-year giving initiative, and we were only near the end of year one. I didn't want to break my commitment, and I still believed that what I was giving to was a good thing. I didn't want to make my home somewhere else only to say, "I'm sorry, I can't give here for a year because I'm still giving over there."  So, I decided to wait until after Christmas of 2023 and then start looking for a church home, where I could grow, serve, give up any sense of anonymity, and stay until I died. 

Okay, here's where God has a sense of humor because He knows what is coming and we don't. During the fall of 2023, He started nudging me out of the classroom, something I had never remotely considered.  You can read that story here. Everything in my life was about to change as I went from very stable income and a predictable school calendar to the unknown of hourly work, writing a book, and the attempt to build a consulting business. When I made my last payment to the giving initiative, I thought, "Really, God? I know I said this was when I would leave, but . . . NOW?  Do I just not have enough change coming in my life?" But I knew there was a reason this needed to happen, so I made a list of local churches and began visiting.

The first church I visited was definitely not it. I posted about it on Facebook, prompting one of my friends to send me a "What were you thinking?" message. I was thinking I needed to go to church this week, and there was one on this corner; but don't worry because I'm not going back. On a walk to a kickboxing class with my friend Meagan, I said, "I will visit however many it takes; I want to find the place I can stay forever, and it may take time to find that place." She suggested that I visit Holy Trinity Anglican Church, saying, "I think they have the things you are looking for."  This was, word for word, the same thing she said when she suggested I take a tour at the Y, so she's wise about knowing what I am looking for.  

My first visit was interesting. I sat about halfway back in an aisle seat. After a song and prayer, when I sat back down, I was blinded by sunlight coming in through a very large window. I got up and moved, feeling very conspicuous (although, that's just the Spotlight Effect - no one actually noticed). Having attended very few liturgical services in my life, I felt a little awkward about kneeling and responsive readings, but I also  liked the sense of ceremony and connection to everyone else in the room that came from it.

Then, John got up and preached the sermon (start at 22:00). It wasn't long, but it didn't need to be. It was powerful. It was about loving your enemies and blessing those who curse you, which feels countercultural in our current climate. After putting it in the historical context of Jesus' audience, John shared a story about a time his dad, who he clearly loves, was betrayed by a friend and told how he responded. I was impressed by the vulnerability it took to share this obviously painful story, so later that week, I found his email address on line and thanked him. I ended the email with, "I don't know much about Anglican practices. Is there a resource you could point me to?" I thought that, if he answered at all, he would send a link to a website. He wrote back a lovely response and said if I would send my mailing address, he would mail me a book called Anglican Essentials (for which he had been a contributor). There's so much about this gesture that appealed to me:

1. If it is possible for books to be a love language, they are mine. This, friends, is the way to my heart.
2. It is unusually kind. Copying and pasting a link would have gotten the job done. It took time and care to put the book in an envelope, put the appropriate postage on it, and mail it to me.
3. It shows that he cares about scholarship - both his and mine. I didn't know it yet, but he is a Brainy Smurf. I've since heard him talk about pursuing his degree as "thinking I could scratch an itch only to find out it was poison ivy; everything I learned just made me want to learn more." This is basically my life as well (minus the advanced degree). 

The next week, as I approached him, he said, "You're Beth?" I wondered if I just looked like someone with questions, but he had gone to the school website in my email signature, so he would recognize me. Again, a kind act that took some time. He suggested another author that morning. I was talking to my friend Elizabeth, who had been on a similar journey with moving from a large non-denominational church to small, Methodist church recently. As I told her the story, she said "Wow, you found your people."  This was made more evident a few weeks later when he expressed, in passing, an interest in theoretical physics and specifically string theory. It was my turn to give him a book. When I gave it to him, I told him it was my favorite book about string theory, and he told me that made me a special kind of nerd. 

Done. Sold. This is my church. If, after only 5 weeks of knowing me, you knew that I would consider it a compliment to be called a nerd (and a special kind of nerd at that), you get me.

Every other member of staff has been wonderful. Claudia sought me out after seeing me for a couple of weeks in a row and told me she could help if I had any questions. I've learned well from the sermons of Tripp, Caleb, and Jason. The vestry is full of friendly people who are intentional about connecting. I am not anonymous as I sit around the same people each week and chat with them before the service. There are opportunities to serve, so I am now on the altar guild and have recently been added to the reader list.

What God knew when he started prompting me to move churches was something I didn't know.  I was about to lose something I had taken for granted, the intense Christian community I had experienced at my job in a Christian school for 21 years. Even though it wasn't right, I had "gotten away with" treating church the way I did because I attended chapel, teacher devotions, and a prayer meeting weekly at school.  That's not happening in my current role, and God knew I was going to need a pastor who I wanted to listen to, often going onto YouTube later in the week to listen again. He knew I was going to need a pastor who was patient with my constant communication. (Because he became so important to me so quickly, I send him way more emails than a reasonable person should, and he is gracious in answering them.) God knew that I would come to love liturgy, finding the repetition of the creed and certain prayers each week more meaningful than I imagined. He knew I was going to need sermons that sometimes feel like they are just for me.  God knew I was going to need Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Raleigh.

This may not seem like the most "education-y" of posts, but John is a gifted teacher. I have learned more in the past 22 months than I had in most of my adult church life. Teaching matters here, and I could not be more thankful for that because that teaching has been a gift to me - and one that I really needed more than I even knew. In a meeting with Claudia, I mentioned something about one of John's responses to me, and she said, "Yes, we really like to think here, and he leads that."

So this year, I'm giving thanks to God for Holy Trinity Anglican Church, generally, and the gift of John Yates, specifically. I sometimes wish I had found you sooner, but God blessed me with you at exactly the time I needed you. Thank you for everything.

And thank you to Meagan for being the kind of friend who knows what I need.

Growth Spurts

Last week, I wrote about the growth that comes from small but consistently applied effort. This week, I thought it would be a good idea to address the fact that, while the effort applied may be consistent, the results might not be. They may appear as "growth spurts" that baffle both the child and his or her parents. With a little knowledge of science, you can help them connect the dots.

Have you ever tried to start a fire with the "rubbing two sticks together" method? It's not as easy as it looks on TV. It takes a long time of applying force at exactly the right angle and speed before enough energy is built up to bring the small pile of dry leaves (or whatever you are using for fuel) to reach the activation energy for that reaction. Something that has been smoldering for several minutes suddenly bursts into flame. With some selective time edits, film makers make it seem like it happened quickly; but it didn't because it couldn't. Your arms simply could not apply the amount of force needed all at once that would be required to make it happen quickly.  It requires a steady building of energy to finally reach the tipping point.  (Conversely, you cannot accumulate the needed energy over a very long period of time, so you can't take breaks.) On the uphill side of the slope, it would be easy to give up, thinking, "Well, this isn't working, so why should I continue?"

I take a weightlifting class at the Y.  Occasionally, I attempt to add 5 pounds to the bar and see if I can get through a set with an increased load. If I can, does it mean that I am 5 pounds stronger that day than I was during the previous class?  Of course not. It means that I had been progressively building strength throughout the past couple of months. On a graph, it would look like a sudden spike, but if it were possible to add half a pound at a time, I might see a smooth curve in my growth.

While the brain is neither a muscle nor a combustion reaction, some similar principles will be evident when students begin making change. Small, progressive action applied consistently over time might not show small, consistent improvement. A student might apply great study techniques that don't show an improved grade on their very next test. That's likely because there was some foundational knowledge that they did not acquire in the past when they were using ineffective techniques. I wouldn't expect to take a weightlifting class using proper form today would mean that I could add ten pounds tomorrow; I know that will take time. But we tend not to apply that same type of thought to cognitive work.  We think if we change our study habits today, our grade will improve tomorrow.  But the reality is that, just like the muscles in your body, your cognitive muscles need time to grow and adapt too. 

Why is it important to be explicit about this?  Why should we talk to students about recognizing that the apparent growth spurt actually comes from longer periods of sustained effort?  Won't it be obvious to them that success comes from improved study habits?  Well, no. As humans, we are are really bad at recognizing cause and effect relationships, especially when there is a slow, slightly invisible nature to them. If a student does make an excellent grade on a test, they (and their parents) are likely to attribute that to something they did on the day of the test or the night before. Perhaps, my sleeping position the night before made a difference; perhaps cramming really does work. Maybe, it's what I ate for breakfast.  Then, you have a student who, like a baseball player who won't change his socks during a winning streak, thinks they have to eat oatmeal every test day rather than recognizing the slow and steady combination of habits that led to that good performance.  

When a student does well, the wise teacher should congratulate the efforts they have been making and the strategies they have been implementing and the habits they are developing.  That's what it looks like to develop a growth mindset. It's not just about using the word "yet" every time you get the opportunity; it's about teaching kids the power of growth through sustained work. 

So, when you see growth that appears quick, remind them that a lot of work led up to that. It wasn't the grade fairy that decided to bless their paper today.

The Power of Small, Consistent Effort

Last week, I did something big. 

I mailed in my last house payment - 9 and a half years ahead of schedule!

Did I just get a massive salary bump?  Nope, I'm making about half of what pulled in when I was teaching. Did a rich uncle die and leave me an inheritance? No, as far as I know I have no wealthy distant relatives (or close relatives). Did I win the lottery? Not a chance - literally -  because I don't play the lottery, so my chances of winning are 0.0% (just slightly below the 0.0000000034% it would be if I did play). 

So how did this happen? Because of the best advice I've ever followed, and it wasn't even given to me.  I happened to be at a birthday party where I overheard Bob, a financially savvy man giving advice to a younger man, whose name I do not know, who was about to buy his first home. He said, "Never pay only the amount it says on the bill. Always pay something over. Sometimes, it may be more. Sometimes, you may be rounding up, but whatever you can do over in any month will save you a lot in the long run."  I thought that sounded reasonable and have applied it to every loan I've had since.

For 19 years of that time, I was on a teacher's salary.  While I was doing pretty well in the 19th year, the first few years of that time were slim. I was still in credit card debt at that time, so the amount I had to put over on the mortgage payment was small. Once the card was paid off, I was freed up to add more while dealing with some other costs. When my car died and had to be replaced, and I had to lower the amount I was paying over on the house again. At times when I got a tax refund, I was able to put more on it.  When I left teaching 18 months ago and started my job at the Y, I was thankful I had savings to pull from. But I never made a single payment that was only the minimum. Even if the amount over was, as it once was, $8.51, I knew those small amounts would still add up.  And they did.

"This is supposed to be an education blog," I hear you saying. "What does this have to do with education?" Well, thank you for asking; I'm glad you always do when I have seemed to stray from the point.

Some students have a long way to go when it comes to scholarship.  Perhaps, they stopped paying attention during online learning and have yet to figure out how to re-adapt. Perhaps, they stay up too late at night on their phones and come to you in a less than optimal state of alertness. Perhaps they haven't had to study in the past or have gotten by until now with ineffective techniques. 

Regardless of the changes they need to make, they cannot make them all overnight. They can start going to bed earlier, but it is going to be a minute before that results in noticeable change because their body must adapt. And some may need to back up their bed time by 10 minutes per night in order to make it work because trying to back it up two hours all at once will just result in tossing and turning. It might take more than one test for newly acquired study techniques to show improvement.  They may only be able to sustain 10 minutes of focused attention during studying and need to make it 12 next week and 15 the week after that.  

The human brain resists change because it worries you might die if you deviate from the status quo. And, it really resists big changes that happen fast.  So, encourage your students not to take a New Year's Resolution approach to improvement. Encourage them to change one thing until it becomes normal and then take on another.  These small but consistent efforts add up over time, but more importantly, they are sustainable in a way that big, sudden changes are not. 

This is bigger than one student or one test. Small, consistently sustained improvements eventually result in good habits.  Good habits eventually result in more self control. More self control produces better character. Better character contributes to a more responsible citizenry. You see where I'm going. These things that seem so small in our students as individuals ultimately make the world better for everyone. 

And you, as teacher, get to be part of that with your own small, consistent effort in the lives of your students.

A Note for the First Year Teacher as we Head into November

Hello first year teacher.  It's November. You have finished your first quarter and are heading towards the holiday season. I'm going to ask you some questions whose answers I already know.

Are you tired? Yes, of course you are. You've been putting all of your physical and mental energy into the last three months.

Were your kids chaotic because Friday was Halloween? Yes, of course they were. It's good that they'll do most of their sugar loading over the weekend, though.

Have you had a demoralizing parent conference? Probably so. It may be the only profession where they expect you to be just as skilled in your first year as you will be ten years later. But I hope you have had an encouraging one too.

Have you had a demoralizing conversation with an experienced teacher? Probably so. Some of them are burned out but aren't aware of it. But I hope you have had a lot of encouraging ones too. 

Being new to anything is hard. You don't have routines and past experience to help you shortcut your thinking, so your working memory is at capacity most of the time.

The good news is:  It gets better.  Some of it takes a while, but I promise it does get better. 

• Some things get easier quickly, as you learn the names of students and get more comfortable with your daily routines.  
• Some things get better incrementally as you are better able to notice oncoming issues and head them off at the pass. You learn better classroom management techniques and employ them with more deft. You develop more efficient grading routines.
• Some things take a few years. Hold on for year three.  That's when you will realize that your content and pedagogy are firmly under your feet and you think less about them while you are teaching. That's when you are able to more fully engage with the students and fluidly teach at the same time.

The most important difference is that you will grow in confidence as you gain experience. After 25 years of teaching middle and high school, I was fully aware that there were things I didn't know and there were still things to learn, but I also knew when I was right and when it was okay to insist that students do what I wanted them to do. That's likely something you spend a lot of time questioning now, but you will spend much less time stressing over that as you gain experience.

If you change contexts, it might start over again - a little.  Teaching in a new school or taking on a new discipline means having less assistance from your habits and long term memory. But, you will hold your pedagogy knowledge and be able to catch on to new things more rapidly.  About 18 months ago, I began teaching indoor cycle classes at the YMCA. When I first started, I was constantly miscueing times and having songs end before I was done. I'm a sub, so I often attempt to mimic the instructor for whom I am subbing, but I have finally developed a style of my own.  Last Monday night, on the way out the door, one of the men who has been in many of my classes said, "She's getting harder," to which a lady replied, "I think she's just more confident that she was a year ago."  They were both right. Because I am more confident, I know how hard I can push a class (while still making the point that they are allowed to do whatever they want to) and when a break might be needed.

Thank you for choosing this profession, especially right now.  If you are in your first year, it means that you were a high school junior or senior during lock down and choose to major in education in 2021.  2021 - the hardest year experienced teachers ever had - and you choose to enter the profession then!  Good for you.  

Hang in there. View this year as an investment in your future years. It's an exhausting profession, but it is also an extremely rewarding one. Contrary to advice you may have been given, don't avoid the teacher's lounge; just find the right people in it. Befriend an experienced teacher (not one of the burned out ones, find someone who still has enthusiasm) and learn everything you can from them.  Don't be afraid to ask for help or admit when you don't know something. Whatever mistake you just made, someone else in your building has made it too, and they can give you advice about how to fix it.

Rest well during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Don't be surprised if you get a little sick on the first days of the break; it's like your immune system knows you have time now. Occasionally, take a break by letting something take longer to grade than you want it to or by satisficing (making it good enough to suffice). Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. 

And keep telling yourself that you are learning this year, so you can teach in future years. 

Think RIght, Do Right, Love Right

"You can have orthodoxy and orthopraxy but not have orthopathy." - Lacrae

This is an education post, but I encountered this statement on the Russell Moore podcast in which he was interviewing Christian rapper, Lacrae, about the reconstruction of his faith after a time of doubt.  I was driving, so I had to repeat it over and over again until I got to a stoplight where I could write it down. He was talking about how Christians with solid doctrine (orthodoxy) and solid church practice (orthopraxy) often don't respond with the same compassion that Christ would (which he called orthopathy).

He was spot on about the Christian response to things, but this isn't the place for me to address that.  What I want to address is how this applies to education - particularly those of us in the evidence informed movement.

I do believe we have educational orthodoxy - right thinking about our desire to use research.  We should obviously want to find the best evidence to inform our classroom decisions and encourage others to do the same.  I believe we have educational orthopraxy - right practices based on the best evidence we could find. It is excellent that we have limited our displays, put our desks in rows, and engaged in direct instruction with checks for understanding. 

Where I think we need to be careful is with our orthopathy. Are we treating people who put their desks in pods as though they are less than we are?  Are we bothering to ask the reason why they put their desks that way? We should care if they do, listen to it, and be open to the idea that it might work for their kids in their classroom. If you know a teacher who still believes in learning styles, are you rolling your eyes and scoffing at them; or do you kindly explain the difference between learning styles and dual coding so they can understand why adding visuals is a good thing? 

It is easy in our age of instant information for us to think that everyone has access to the same knowledge that we have. But many people don't know what they don't know.  They are doing the best they can with what they were taught.  And if they went to education school longer than 7 or 8 years ago, they were likely taught learning styles, pods, and project based learning. I was taught 29 years ago that tests were about to become a thing of the past and everyone would have portfolios.  

Let's remember that teaching is a complex job with lots of expectations from multiple sources. If your administration is expecting project based learning, a teacher may not be in a position to insist on direct instruction.  Parents, principals, and professional development seminars are all making teachers feel demoralized by implying that no matter how good they are, they should be striving to get better.  Going online and celebrating something in their classroom should not be met with more "You're doing it wrong" messages. 

Evidence informed crowd, let's not be the mean kids at the lunch table.  Take the lead of Andrew Watson, who is simultaneous VERY well informed on the evidence AND one of the kindest people I know.  He meets questions about educational myths with understanding first, why the teachers believes what they do. He understands that they were likely taught those myths by trusted sources. He offers a new perspective or a framework in which to think about the topic. He present research for what it is, a dynamic field that we have to adapt in our own contexts. Before I ever met him, I knew him through the Learning and the Brain Twitter account, and one of my favorite things was that he would present a question like "Does X work?" with an answer like, "In some limited circumstances with the right conditions, yes."  Contrary to popular belief, that is what a science answer sounds like. 

So, let's climb down from our soap boxes and look at the context and motives of the people around us. Let's give them the grace we would want. Let's have orthopathy.