Do Your Methods Match Your Mission?

Last year, I did a whole series of posts on my school's mission statement.  All schools have a mission statement.  All churches have a mission statement.  All businesses have a mission statement.  At this point in America, I think it is possible that all individuals have a mission statement.  As a reminder, the mission statement of GRACE Christian is

"GRACE Christian School is a loving community that spiritually and academically equips, challenges, and inspires students to impact their world for Christ."

Mission statements are good to have and to put on t-shirts and coffee mugs, but what is more important is to use your mission statement as a filter.  Do you take the time to ask yourself whether your goals, objectives, or even methods align with your mission statement?  I think most of us are good at making goals from it, but I'm not sure that most people filter our methods through it.

I confess that it took me until last year to ask myself that question.  I knew our school's mission statement and I was fully committed to it, but I don't know that I intentionally constructed my classes around it.  So last year, after deciding to be almost obnoxious about it, I set out some student goals based on the specific mission of my school.

Equip:  Make you the informed thinker you need to be to make good decisions.  Ultimately, I want my students to make good decisions.  Whether that is choosing the right classes to take or exercising integrity in difficult moments, students must be informed. 

I teach them science, but I also tell them as many things as I can about as many ways as God gives me.  I show them that I love art and literature because it shouldn't just be an English teacher thing.  If they are interested in something, I learn what I can about it.  From baseball to theology to music, if you are going to make wise choices, you must be informed.  I can't teach them everything, but I teach them as much as possible and model for them that I am always learning. 

Challenge:  Ask you to perform better than you think you can at things you don't think you are good at.  If there is anything that two decades of teaching have taught me, it's that kids are capable of more than they think they are.  I teach eighth grade, so they enter my class with seventh-grade skills.  They have to leave my class with high school skills so they will be ready to learn more deeply.  For that reason, I use a lot of class time training.  I don't give them a study guide.  I teach them three ways to make their own.  I don't provide a "word bank" for tests.  I advise them on how to create good flashcards for themselves.  I spend a lot of review time showing them how to eliminate wrong answers in multiple-choice questions, a skill they will need for at least the next four years and possibly longer. 

Many of my good students perform lower in the first quarter than they are accustomed to.  It frightens them, and they want me to go back to their comfort level.  Sometimes, their parents want that too.  It would certainly be easier to do so, but I know that isn't right.  We would never take a toddler who falls down after their first few steps to go back to crawling, and we should tell kids who fall at their first few self-improvement attempts to go back to their old ways either.  We should comfort, encourage, and support; but we should not allow them to revert to their old ways.

Inspire:  Ask you to look beyond the grade, the curriculum, and the tests to see what you can do with your education.  This is the part of the mission statement I know I cannot accomplish.  God inspires, and he uses the many teachers a child has (including academic teachers, parents, culture, coaches, and even friends) in their lives as tools. 

So many of us are focused on grades and how learning applies to a job that we forget the purpose of education.  It's nice that we can get jobs related to our education, but it isn't the point.  The point is that they become more human.  A robot can be programmed to perform a job task or given the knowledge (data) needed to complete a calculation.  Part of being human is interacting with other humans who are different than we are, people with different skills, values, and interests.  The multidisciplinary approach to education helps them become better at those interactions.  When I have
this conversation with students, I say, "What if the ONLY thing I could talk about was physics.  Would you want to spend time with me?"  Of course, the answer is always no.  What if scientists only married other scientists?  What a boring life that family would lead.  Being interested in things makes you more interesting.  It allows you to interact with more people.  It allows you to serve more people.  Don't lock yourself into one thing.

Don't Weigh Down Their Flight

It's that time of year when my social media feed fills with pictures of kids off to their first day of school.  From kindergarten to seniors, they are posed with their backpacks and first-day outfits.  College students pose, sitting on their dorm room beds, and those who have decided to enter the workforce pose standing in front of their place of business.  Kids of all ages smile at the future they are about to enter.

Among these happy photos, there are always a few moms who insist on making the moment about them.  They post about how much they cried and how tragic it is that their lives are about to change.  They beg for the sympathy of their social network, and they get it.  Dozens of hang-in-there comments and hundreds of sad face emojis make them feel affirmed, but they don't recognize that they are taking the joy away from their child.  You think it shows them you love them, but that's for you, not them.

Don't misunderstand.  I'm not saying you don't have the right to your feelings, and sadness is natural when your child leaves home.  But, there is a difference between your child seeing your tears as they wave goodbye and the repeated stab that comes from seeing it over and over online.  The former is something the child can absorb, knowing their parents love them, and then choose to set aside as they head off to classes.  The latter keeps popping up because when the post gets another heart or comment, it pops right back up to the top of the newsfeed.  Over and over, the child is reminded that their normal and natural development is a source of pain to their parents.  They did the right thing, the thing they were told to do, the thing they were trained to do, even the thing they were pushed to do; but the repeated exposure to their parents' sadness makes them feel like they have done something wrong.

These posts always remind me of the time I worked in a daycare.  Most of the parents brought their kids in, got them settled, and waved goodbye with a happy smile and a "Have fun at school.  See you later."  They may have expressed sadness when they got in the car, but they made their child secure in having fun with their friends.  There were a few, however, that couldn't leave until they had made their child cry.  They'd leave the room and stand at the window, looking sad.  They would find a reason to return, sometimes multiple times.  Each time, they would go and interrupt their child's play, speaking them in a gloomy tone.  It was like they needed to know that their child was sad to see them leave.  A happy, well-adjusted child didn't make them feel needed, so they had to make their baby miserable in order to feel whole.

A few years ago, a teacher at our school discovered a live webcam of an eagle's next in Minnesota.  For months, we watched these birds sit on eggs, covered in snow and fighting the wind.  When the eggs hatched, dad flew off to find food.  He brought back fish and rabbits.  Mom stripped the meat off of them and fed them to the open mouths of the eaglets.  About 10 weeks after hatching, the mother started doing something weird.  She started removing things from the next.  She took out the downy feathers and dropped them over the edge.  She pulled at the nest with her beak, making the bed less comfortable.  These moves made the eaglets restless, and they started moving toward the edge.  A week or two later, they perched on the edge and started making their flights.

Imagine if that mother eagle, after all the preparations she made for the flight of their babies, stepped on their wing.  What if she rode on their back because she wanted to them to stay close to the nest?  The well-prepared, properly-developed eagles wouldn't be able to accomplish that for which they were designed.

I'm not saying you can't be sad.  Of course, you are sad.  I'm not saying you shouldn't cry.  Of course, you will cry.  I'm not even saying they can't see you cry.  It would be a little strange if your child thought you didn't care that they were leaving home.  What I am saying is that you can't make every phone call about your tears instead of their news, and you should keep your social media posts joyful.  They shouldn't have to keep seeing your tears over and over, or you will weigh down the very flight you have spent two decades preparing them for.

First Day Jitters

Summer is over, and it's time to return to school for another year of learning.  You walk down the hall, feeling a little nervous.  You might have even had a dream about it last night.  You wait for your classes, not sure of what the year will bring, whether or not each class will be difficult or easy. 

This scenario is familiar to students, but what you may not know is that it is also the first-day experience of most teachers.  Just like students, teachers also don't know what the year will bring, whether they'll be accepted, and whether they'll be caught unprepared at some moment.  Last week, one of our teachers (who is in her fifth or sixth year) said, "I still get nervous."  I'm in my 21st year, and I do too.  I said to her that the year I'm not nervous on the first day is probably a sign I should quit. 

While we think of nervousness as a negative feeling, there are some positive things about it.
1.  It shows you care about what you are doing. 
2.  Nervousness has exactly the same physiological symptoms as excitement.  They are only different if you think they are.
3.  Nervous energy is just that, energy.  Your body recognizes that you are going to do something difficult and gives you the energy to do it.  On a recent episode of the TED Radio Hour, Kelly McGonigal said the answer is to stop fighting it and be grateful that your body is giving you the energy you need.

Depending on where you go to school, your first day might be tomorrow or three weeks from now.  Students will be nervous.  Parents will be nervous.  Teachers will be nervous.  Even administrators will be nervous.  Let's all take a moment to thank God that he designed our bodies in such a way that they know we need extra energy and have mechanisms to provide that for us.

Steele Thoughts About Great Teachers

Danny Steele is taking a little Twitter break to prepare for the start of school, so I thought I would take a few thoughts from one of his blog posts and elaborate on them.  If you are a first-year teacher, there is much wisdom here.  If you are a veteran teacher, these are good reminders.

1. Great teachers don't always have the best lessons, but they always have the best relationships with students.  The first time I read this, I balked at it a bit.  The current climate of education on twitter is one that really de-values quality instruction.  As a person who has spent the past twenty years striving to improve the quality of instruction, this bothers me.  Taking all of @SteeleThoughts into account, however, I recognize that he doesn't undervalue the time his teachers take in preparing good lessons.  The keyword here is "always."  Great teachers don't ALWAYS have the best lessons.  They have bad days.  The good news is that if you have a good relationship with your students, they'll forgive you for it.  You can redeem a bad day if you have a good relationship.

2.  Great teachers understand the power of human connection, so they are relentless about building relationships, even about connecting with the knuckleheads.    You are going to teach students who are like you.  You are going to teach students who are not like you.  You are going to teach students who don't like you.  And the secret teachers don't like to admit, you are going to teach students you don't like.  It's part of being a human being, and it is okay.  The best ways to overcome it involve prayer and looking for anything that will allow you to appreciate something about that student.

3.  Great teachers will spend some time during the summer thinking about how they can improve their lessons next year.  It's just what they do.  This one caused quite a stir last summer when it was originally tweeted.  A lot of teachers thought he was implying they were bad teachers if they got some rest during the summer.    This was in no way what he was trying to convey.  He was acknowledging the truth that teachers do think about school during the summer.  They read about their subject matter or the best educational practices.  They reflect on what worked and what didn't last year.  When he said, "it's just what they do," he was acknowledging the passion of the people he sees, not prescribing a daily activity.

4.  Great teachers look past the bad attitude.  They realize there is always something else going on.  Most people want to get along, and that includes students.  They aren't usually looking for ways to make their own lives difficult.  If they are, however, it is usually because of something going on in their life or in their own heart.  If you think back to adolescence, you might remember how confusing it was.  The hormones in your brain are making it hard to see past your own nose.  Now, imagine if you had also had the pressure of social media hanging over you (I'm so glad I didn't).  Some of your students also have difficult family situations and are moved back and forth from one home to another each week.  Some are hungry, and some haven't slept well.  These are all things that influence attitude.  It doesn't mean that you don't hold students accountable for bad behavior; that's your responsibility as a teacher.  It does mean, however, that you can do it with some compassion, recognizing that it doesn't define the student.

5.  Great teachers did not become great by accident.  They became great because they made a decision that good wasn't enough.   This is the most important one.  No one is born great at what they do, teaching or otherwise.  It requires learning, which means you have to be teachable.  It requires time, which means you have to be patient.  It requires energy, which means you have to be diligent.  It requires asking lots of questions, which means you have to be humble.  It can be done, and you can do it.  Have a great year.