We're Teachers, Roll With It

So, you wake up and the coffee pot is broken. No worries, you can just get some coffee in the lounge at school. Your car won’t start, so you have to have it jumped off, and then you get caught by every red light in between home and school. No one made the coffee in the lounge so you have to, but the lounge coffee pot honestly belongs in a museum for ancient relics. You are scared to touch it in case you are the one that finally breaks it, and everyone knows that there is no money in the budget to replace it. You finally get to your classroom and realize that you never made copies for the lessons today and, surprise, surprise the copier is broken again. It looks like we will be teaching creatively today, improvisation is good right? Then your administrator walks in for a surprise evaluation, and your students have decided that today is the best day in the world to talk about everything except the lesson. To many people this sounds like a bad day, but for teachers, that’s what we call Monday.

As a teacher, there will be many times when we have to overcome obstacles. Facing multiple challenges that require improvisation and creativity. If you are a teacher who truly knows why you do what you do, it is far easier to roll with the punches. Being “mission ready” gives teachers the confidence that they have already critically thought out what needs to be accomplished. That means you have already outlined the objectives you need to meet each year, semester, quarter, week, day, lesson, etc. You know where you are going and have a plan on how to get there. This can require some creative thinking as materials are not unlimited, and not everyone can take field trips to exciting places to help supplement the curriculum.

Then comes the challenges that get thrown at you. Let’s be honest, the school year we know as 20/21 has thrown many challenges at teachers and the world. Some teachers are having to teach remotely, others a mix of remote and in person. There are teachers who get to teach all their students in person all of the time, but they have to take instruction time to clean and sanitize at a far greater rate than before. There are districts that have to move teachers and students around to allow for greater social distancing. We have faced so many challenges as educators, but if our “why” is clear in our mind, then we can dig in and get creative on how we accomplish all that we need to for our students.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I totally understand having bad days and struggling to overcome your own attitude, much less facing down the craziness that is a world pandemic. There are mornings when my students ask me if I have had my coffee yet, and then volunteer to fix me a cup. That is usually a good indicator that I am being cranky. Those are also the times when I have to use some internal dialogue to remind myself of my why. When facing this school year, there were many times that I had to stop and take stock, as it were. When I have to remind a student for what seems like the 9 millionth time today to wear their mask. When I have to rethink an experiment because we do not have the equipment and materials for each student to have their own, and what I need to use is not really sanitizable. When I have to get very creative with my seating pods since this student cannot sit with this student or that student, but thinks they are best friends with another student and will talk all the time. I have to roll with the challenge and use my creative thinking to accomplish the ultimate mission, teaching my students.

Ask yourself how well you roll with life’s challenges. Are you mission ready and able to think on your feet, or do you struggle with how to face a mission that seems to change every few minutes? Take time today to develop a strategy for how to roll with change, and how to cope with the stress that it brings. Pick a buddy to sound out ideas with. Strategize your self-care. Do you like to take a walk when you are stressed, or go to the gym? Do you need five minutes of quiet to process and recenter? Create your plan so that you are more prepared to roll. After all, we are teachers and teachers are a lot like superheroes, right?