And I get why. We spend a ton of time with our students. It’s inevitable that we notice odd bruises, outsized reactions, or a persistent wheezy cough.

But the truth is, we’ve had extremely limited training to deal with concerns beyond education. We simply aren’t qualified, and in my case, it’s not why I became a teacher in the first place. I became a teacher because I love education and kids, and the confluence of those two things inspired me. It still does.

And yet, our students’ home lives, which are sometimes riddled with traumatic events and circumstances, do affect their ability to learn. So I want to suggest, not that you become an ad hoc therapist, but rather that you consider classroom practices that can help your traumatized students learn.

What are ACEs and how do they present in the classroom?

Adverse childhood experiences (also known as ACEs) can have profound and lasting effects. When people experience traumatic events or situations as a young person, such as having an incarcerated parent or experiencing abuse, there are effects, and the effects are sobering. Consider a few:

• Serious chronic health conditions, such as heart disease and cancer
• Mental health conditions
• High-risk behaviors
• Poor social outcomes, such as lower graduation rates and persistent underemployment

You’ve seen the effects of ACEs in your classroom. Students who have had multiple adverse experiences are far more likely to have chronic truancy, repeat grades, behave unpredictably, and fail to make learning gains.

Here are other ways trauma-connected behaviors might show up in your classroom:

Marguerite seems unable to control her body. She never sits at her desk but instead constantly roams your classroom, touching other students and their stuff. 

Joseph seems incapable of showing empathy or compassion. For example, last week, when another student cried because an elderly relative had died, Joseph laughed.

Mikayla freezes when faced with new situations or transitions. Movement between classes, a new activity, or even a simple quiz immobilizes her.

Josh isn’t making any learning gains even though he participates in targeted interventions. A thorough evaluation showed no evidence of a learning disability.

Davon has poor response flexibility, which is the space between impulse and action. The threat of consequences has little effect. He seems unable to pause before acting out. 

As it turns out, though, there is good news. Researchers at the Harvard Center on the Developing Child note that the younger the brain, the less effort is required for that brain to change. You elementary school teachers have so much power to help students quickly overcome trauma. But even we high school teachers can take heart. The brain remains elastic enough to undergo change throughout our lives. It’s not until we reach our 20s that the effort becomes more difficult (although still very much possible).

How to help traumatized students experience success at school

There are four main ways we can help traumatized students be successful in our classrooms—and, at the same time, improve the school climate for all of us.

Technique #1: Coaching behaviors

When faced with unpredictable student behavior, my inclination is to take it personally. I think, Well, if I had a better relationship with this kid or if I’d done a more solid job of establishing classroom routines, Marguerite wouldn’t be wandering around or Davon would stop acting out.

But the truth is, I didn’t cause the trauma. And depending on how long it’s been going on, it may take some time to reverse its effects.

Once I’ve reminded myself that the situation isn’t a personal attack, I can better respond.

It’s important to take a moment or two to consider my own reaction and how it may be contributing to the situation. A good guiding question is, How can I respond in a way that helps the student regulate their behavior, feel more connected to our environment, and disarm all of our fears?

Allowing students to re-do the moment is huge, and that’s where coaching comes in. When Jose kicks desks on the way to the bathroom, consider saying, “Jose, let’s try that again. Show me you can walk to the bathroom without kicking any desks.” Do-overs are an extremely effective way to retrain our brains.

Incorporate compromise into your interactions with traumatized children. I was recently at an incarceration site when a student threw his papers on the floor and told me, with a very colorful vocabulary, that he was declining to participate. I picked up the papers, set them on the corner of his desk, and wrote the answer to the first question on his paper. A few minutes later, I saw the student working. Even though we didn’t talk through a compromise, I demonstrated how to (“I’ll do the first one …”), and it worked.

Compromise conversations can be effective, too, especially when you encourage the student to make the proposal. This gives them a sense of agency and control when their home experiences may have given little of either.

Last, offer students choice — positive choice. A choice between “sit down or get a referral” isn’t really a choice. Plus we know that punishment without a relationship can backfire. Consider, instead, offering a pencil, pen, or marker to complete an assignment. Or, allow a student to choose odd or even numbered problems, select the order of worksheets to complete, where in the classroom they’d like to work, or whether or not they want to partner with another student.

One more word about coaching behaviors … there absolutely are times when a consequence for inappropriate behaviors is the right answer. I would never suggest letting inappropriate behavior go unchecked. The idea is to think about how. Studies tell us that punishment can actually reactive a person’s trauma. That’s the last thing you’d want to do, of course. What works for me is to correct with kindness.

Remember, too, there’s a delicate balance between structure and nurture. Adherence to routines and rules can be very helpful for some students with multiple ACEs, but for others, those very same rules can feel insurmountable.

Technique #2: Emotional regulation strategies

I confess, I’m not great at the coaching behaviors with my students, but I shine with regulation strategies. These are tricks you can arm your students with to help them regulate their own behaviors. I think that’s why I like this group of ideas so much; I can let go of my own monitoring by giving students more agency to attend to their needs.

Essentially, your goal with regulation strategies is to help students create a tiny self-distraction. This gives them to space to calm down, re-focus, or simply take a breather.

Examples include listening to music through headphones, doodling, taking a few deep breaths, running a quick errand for you, coloring, or doing a puzzle. These are not meant to last a long time. These are quick activities that can give a student a moment to get it together.

Over time, your traumatized students might be able to reach for these self-monitoring strategies on their own. That’s the magic of self-regulation strategies … they can free you from having to constantly monitor issues that feel unrelated to teaching.

Keep in mind, regulation strategies are not meant to replace classroom work. If Damien insists on coloring instead of completing his lab report, it’s time to back up to some of those coaching behaviors we talked about earlier. Compromise might be just the ticket.

Technique #3: Engagement practices

The number one question I get from teachers is how to be more engaging. The teachers in my community are constantly looking for ways to engage their kids that are fresh and effective, especially in this current climate of incessant testing.

I tell you this to say, engagement strategies are good for all of our kids, not just ones who’ve had past trauma. This is a win. Using engagement strategies is likely something you already do, but there are particular ones that can be especially helpful for our traumatized students.

Two easy ones to incorporate with zero preparation are eye contact and voice quality. Students suffering from the effects of ACEs do well with quieter voices, spoken to them from a close range rather than from across the room. Similarly, sitting down next to a student or squatting down to their eye level reduces their anxiety. This is called behavior matching and research shows, it lowers a student’s heart rate and stress.

Also consider adding games and playfulness into your routines, especially with older students who may not have experienced these at home. Even something as simple as a riddle of the day can help a student with unease. When a student is laughing, their defenses drop and they don’t feel afraid.

All of these engagement strategies create a slight increase in dopamine. That’s the feel-good chemical our brains release when they’re relaxed and happy. And we all know, relaxed and happy brains are brains that are ready to learn.

Technique #4: Instructional ideas

Good news! The instructional ideas that will help your kids with ACEs will help all of your students. The difference is that the efforts described here have been known to be especially effective for students dealing with the effects of trauma.

Traumatized students frequently experience overwhelm. This overwhelm results in fight (misbehavior), flight (avoidance, shut-down), or freeze (brain unable to learn) responses. The best way you can combat this overwhelm is through chunking. And I do mean chunk everything.

Break down every aspect of your lessons into bite-size pieces. This is where you want to be thinking about the order of instruction in your lessons and gradual release for student practice. If these ideas are unfamiliar to you, set up some time to work the instructional coach on your campus.

Be sure you are also making your expectations for student work clear. Model exactly what you’re looking for when you engage in whole or small-group instruction. Provide anchor papers and sample work. Even providing partially completed assignments for your overwhelmed students can be extremely helpful and encouraging as you gradually move them to more independent work.

Clear expectations are critical for students with ACEs. The research tells us that these particular kids struggle with “gray” areas or instructions that leave them guessing. Concrete, black-and-white examples and clear directions set them up for success.

One more thing to consider … kids who have experienced challenging backgrounds may be completely unfamiliar with effective study practices. Explicitly teach these study habits (in very small chunks!):

• Time management
• Organization
• Note-taking
• Memorization tricks
• Goal setting
• Active listening
• Testing tips

Final thoughts

It may feel like having to get crafty with our students who have unpredictable behavior, extreme emotions, or frustrating learning issues is just one more thing on our already very overloaded plates. I fully acknowledge we are asked to do too much.

Perhaps, though, incorporating just one or two of these ideas into your teaching practice might actually reduce your workload. As you provide a safe learning environment for your students who have experienced trauma, the amount of time you spend re-teaching or correcting will likely decrease.

For more information about ACEs and toxic response, check out Nadine Burke Harris’s book The Deepest Well (2018). Also, consider screening Paper Tigers (2015) with your colleagues. This documentary follows six high school students over the course of a year as they participate in a trauma-sensitive program.

Last word, and perhaps the most important one of all: be sure you are attending to your own needs through this process. Working with traumatized students can be, well, traumatizing. Build yourself a support system and self-care practices that ensure your own good health. As one of my favorite teachers frequently reminds me, “Take good care of you.”

The post 4 trauma-informed approaches that help kids with ACEs (and benefit your entire class!) appeared first on Truth For Teachers.

One student calling another an ugly name? “Hey, now, give dignity.” A contentious tone erupting at a team meeting? “Teachers, let’s not forget to give one another dignity.”

I was brand new to the school and not at all familiar with its culture and traditions. Since I’d recently moved from out of state, I didn’t ask about “give dignity” or anything else that confused me. I didn’t want to look dumb. So I stayed quiet and worked hard. And hoped I’d eventually get it.

Eventually, I did.

Most of the kids at this school lived in poverty or gang-troubled neighborhoods. A majority were not U.S. citizens, and most did not speak English as their first language.

If ever there was a group of people used to not being on the receiving end of dignity, this was it.

Everything about their lived experiences shouted indignity. Were they treated as humans as they crossed the border and were ushered into detention centers? Did they feel worthwhile packed into tiny apartments with many folks sharing one bathroom? How dignifying an experience was it to walk through a sea of concrete and litter on their way to school?

As you might imagine, quite a few of our students struggled to speak to each other with kind words. And yet, the faculty worked hard — really hard — to be gentle and respectful to those children and to each other at every turn.

I saw the effects. Even though students rolled their eyes and said, “Yah, yah, I gotta give dignity, miss, whatever,” they did.

They learned to use uplifting language, kind words, and compassion. They saw they could offer respect and a second chance to an offending neighbor, and in so doing they came to believe they were worthy of respect and dignity themselves.

The majority of them went on to attend colleges and universities. Some of the kids I taught became social workers, computer scientists, engineers, and yes, teachers.

I no longer teach at that school, but in the years since, I’ve thought a lot about this idea of giving dignity. I’ve come to see it as a kind of recognition of the inherent worth of the occupants of the desks in front of me and of my colleagues down the hall.

To be honest, though, most days, I’m pretty terrible at it.

I no longer work in a school system that elevates humanity, so, frankly, I forget to.

It’s become easy for me to prioritize looming tests over really listening to my students. The pressures of my calendar constantly win over compassion. I miss linking arms with colleagues who emphatically insisted on giving dignity as emphatically as they insisted on anything else.

Seeing my students and my fellow teachers as a blurry sea of tasks has robbed me of the joy of my work. Worse, so much worse, is that this kind of thinking dehumanizes, well … humans.

And isn’t it precisely the dehumanizing of each other that has landed us in this unprecedentedly polarizing time?

I want to suggest that the necessity of giving dignity has never been more urgent. I also want to suggest there is no better place to begin practicing and teaching dignity than in our schools.

Giving dignity to our colleagues

I believe before we can encourage our students to show dignity to one another, we teachers have to be willing to do same. This looks like listening more than speaking, asking questions instead of jumping to judgment.

I was recently in a meeting with my fellow coaches, plus a couple of other folks on our team. We were on a very cordial, education-focused footing until someone used a phrase that included the word patriotism. Someone else hotly responded with a phrase that included the word oppression.

In less than 60 seconds, we’d flown from collegiality to red-faced anger.

While it is so tempting to take sides and engage in whispered, “Can you believe …” conversations, this disregards the worth of people.

What if, instead, we listened and asked questions? How might that meeting have gone differently if someone had said, “I can see you feel strongly about this. Tell me more.”

To be honest, I agreed with one of my co-workers in that quick exchange … and disagreed with the other. I would have loved to jump on the eye-rolling bandwagon.

But because I know the person whose politics annoy me, it was a lot harder for me to dismiss him. I know about his exceptionally traumatic childhood and his beloved veteran grandfather. I know how much he cares about our students and works hard to help them. We have a relationship based on respect, so reducing him to a political stance was impossible.

I do not mean to suggest we should ever acquiesce to belief systems that in and of themselves are dehumanizing. But we will never move towards understanding on the big issues if we constantly shut down and shut out during every disagreement.

So let’s listen. Let’s ask questions. Let’s avoid gossip. Let’s seek to create a workplace that celebrates the goodness of all of us by attempting to give dignity wherever we find the chance.

How to humanize your classroom so kids are known, valued, respected, & safe

Giving dignity to students

In the same way it can feel nearly impossible to find harmony in our adult work relationships, the same is true with our students. Perhaps even more so when the student population is challenging.

One of the schools I support takes place inside a residential detention center. The youths there have been sentenced to serve time for crimes they were convicted of. Most are not contrite and ready to be rehabilitated. Nope. They are angry and hurt.

Have you heard the phrase that hurt people hurt people? I can confirm it’s true (and I bet you can, too). It’s extremely difficult to respond to their coarse and bitter words with kindness and compassion. But it’s possible … and worth it.

Here are a few suggestions to help you think about ways to give dignity in your classroom.

• Teach to students’ interests. This can feel like a herculean task in this age where teachers have less and less input on content. Yet nothing says “I see you” more than giving students content that piques their curiosity and speaks to their interests. Let make it relevant become the backbone of your lesson planning. At that detention center I mentioned, some of the most angry, volitive young men began treating me like a much-beloved aunt because I brought them books I thought they’d like. It was just that simple.
• Differentiate the heck out of your lessons. You have students sitting in the desks in your classroom who are academically lost. Erect every ladder you can find to help them climb up to their grade level. (There are outstanding resources for easy differentiation right here at Truth for Teachers.) Offer your kids dignity by refusing to let them fall even further behind while on your watch.
• Attend professional development related to childhood trauma. You’ll pick up loads of ideas, not to mention a generous amount of understanding that will help you see difficult students in a whole new light. Google “trauma-informed teaching” for an avalanche of information and strategies.
• Read your students’ IEPs and student files. Call home. In other words, seek to understand who they are and where they’ve come from. All of this will transform your thinking about your students, so you can see them as people rather than problems.

An example: a few months ago, as part of a research project, I reached out to the parents of a young man who had already graduated to talk to them about their experiences in our school system. By the end of our interview, I was stunned.

This mom told me about her son’s early childhood, the years when he didn’t speak or make eye contact, the physical harm he’d caused himself. I’d known none of that when I taught her child. I was ashamed. More importantly, I was convicted.

Recognize the dignity in your students by listening to their caregivers and reading their files. This may sound like a ton of work, but it doesn’t have to be. Once a month, skip grading one whole assignment. Use the time you would have been grading to make a phone call home or to do a little background reading about one of your students.

(By the way, you can file that ungraded assignment as student work samples. You’ll be glad you did when you are invited to a parent-teacher conference and need anecdotal evidence.)

The ultimate guide to authentically creating a secondary classroom where students feel safe, welcome, & whole

Helping students give dignity to one another

Once you are working towards practicing dignity with your colleagues and your students, you are ready to give your students tools to practice dignity with each other.

My number one suggestion? Encourage do-overs.

Here’s what that looks like:

Amanda: Jeez, Jonathan, do you seriously have to keep tapping your pencil like that? You’re driving me insane. Gah, you’re so annoying.

Teacher: (quietly to Amanda) Hey, let’s try that again. How could you more kindly make your request?

Over and over, ask your students to try again. When they’re stumped (and they will be), equip them with sentence starters and replacement phrases.

Together, create “Say this instead of that” word lists. Create scenarios that convey the opposite of dignity, and then have students act them out with kinder revisions.

In other words: practice, practice, and practice some more. As your students get better at using value-giving words in little ways, you can move on to more potentially inflammatory topics.

Will your older kids roll their eyes? Yep.

But I promise you, they will eventually get it. And by eventually, I don’t necessarily mean in your classroom. But someday they will. Someday they will see their own worth and so, the worth of the people around them.

Classroom meetings: Your most powerful tool for creating a respectful, inclusive class culture

Giving dignity to ourselves

One last thing …

Refuse to participate in systems that lack dignity.

Some of you are teaching in environments that do not give you dignity. In whatever way is right for you, say no. You cannot possibly give compassion and kindness to the folks around you if you are not experiencing those things yourself.

In her book This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us, Cole Arthur Riley says, “To be human in an aching world is to know our dignity and become people who safeguard the dignity of everything around us.”

Let’s engender dignity in our schools and in our classrooms. Let’s give it in heaps to our students and our colleagues. Let’s insist on dignity for ourselves.

The post Give dignity: countering a culture of disrespect and dehumanization in school appeared first on Truth For Teachers.

We loved to sit in her office and grapple with big educational questions, such as issues of equity and access, as well as the smaller stuff, like when the copier paper would be delivered.

In this particular conversation, she asked if I could be an effective teacher if I wasn’t so relational with my students.

I gazed at the teapot that sat on the credenza behind her desk while I thought about the question. After all, I was (and am) an extremely relational teacher. If I had an education philosophy, it might go something like, “Teaching my students and loving my students go hand-in-hand.”

From the moment I stepped into a classroom, my relational teaching style was obvious. I simply loved my students and being their teacher. I eagerly wanted to understand who they were — their dreams and fears and learning styles and histories — so I could do a great job teaching them. I didn’t see any other path to success. Loving my kids and doing everything I could to reach them was never a decision for me. It was an instinct.

This style looked like showing up at their baseball games, spending my Sunday afternoons calling their parents to talk about progress, staying up late to devise lessons they would find engaging, and on and on.

My colleagues, to my embarrassment, noticed this and often commented on it. They worried I was going to burn out. Or that I was “trying to make the rest of us look lazy.” They thought I was working hard, not smart.

But I just couldn’t fathom any other way. Plus, this approach was a joy to me. Being relational with my students gave me energy and passion for teaching.

Without question, this style worked well for me.

Right up until the moment it didn’t.

I needed a change…but a change in my teaching context, or in how I showed up?

Imagine another conversation with a different assistant principal, this one only a year ago. I liked this leader very much, too. I knew I could trust him with the truth.

I confessed I was getting a little bored. I assured him I loved my job and our school. I just felt … squirmy. Our team had tackled and conquered serious issues and navigated our school through some of the weirdest and most troubling times we’d ever experienced, professionally, personally, and (honestly) globally. And yet, look. Our kids were thriving.

Still, I felt restless. Even a little glum. I thought less and less about what my kids needed and more about just doing what I had to. I often looked forward to the weekend first thing Monday morning. Not a good sign.

I wondered if it might be time for me to switch schools or leave education altogether.

But I wasn’t sure. The much-needed change, I felt, was me. Not my school or my projects, but rather my approach to teaching.

It was time to switch up my teacher type.

The 5 (very unscientific and completely made up) teacher types

Teacher type is a phrase I made up. It is backed by exactly zero professional research and is nothing more than a short-hand way for me to quickly categorize teachers. I do this in my brain alone, partly for fun, but mostly to better understand my colleagues’ approaches to teaching.

Teacher typing is a little bit like some of the goofy personality quizzes I used to make my journalism students take at the beginning of the year as part of our team-building process. “Oh, so you’re a blue paperclip! That makes so much sense! Me? Gold folder, thanks for asking.”

But teacher types are much more than a little mental silliness. I deeply respect, and am indeed envious of, teaching styles that are not my own. I look at my colleagues’ gifts with awe.

I also don’t think of teacher types as stereotypes. I understand them instead as instincts, the various ways teachers lean into reaching students. It is all about exactly that: reaching students.

In brief, here are the teacher types I’ve identified:

#1: Relational, as described above, and happily embraced for over eighteen years.

#2: Tech-savvy teachers have a near-savant ability to exploit digital resources up to and beyond their intended purposes. Consider a teacher I worked with a few years ago I’ll call Mrs. Vasquez. Her virtual learning management system was so gorgeous, interactive, and efficient that her students’ learning stayed completely on track during lockdown teaching (What?!)

When some students returned as others stayed at home, she quickly got hold of some kind of fancy voice-activated camera she attached to a tripod and set up in the middle of her room. That thing swiveled at the sound of voices. At-home kids were one-thousand percent engaged in her lessons because they felt like they were right there in the classroom.

#3: Professional teachers are all about improving their practice. They are the first ones to show up for professional development opportunities, whether offered in the teacher lounge or at a conference several hundred miles from home. Professional teachers can (and do!) tout the latest research about effective teaching strategies. They read professional books, blogs, and newsletters and are eager to try out what they’re learning … and enthusiastically tell their colleagues all about it.

#4: Community builders are a bit like relational teachers, except that they take all their warmth and concern outside the walls of their classroom. This kind of teacher understands the value of parental involvement and in fact, prioritizes home communication over nearly every other task on the agenda.

Community builders can be found partnering with organizations outside the school, too. A local ice cream shop brings treats to your school on Friday afternoons? Your community building teacher probably established that partnership, along with another one that resulted in a new floor in your school’s gym. Your community builders collaborate extremely effectively, and if your PLC is lucky enough to have this kind of teacher on your team, those meetings are one of the most rewarding hours of your week.

#5: Content area experts know and deeply love their curriculum. When I think of content area experts, Mr. Jones, a twelfth-grade English teacher, comes to mind. Man, does he know his Shakespeare. And the transcendentalists. And also the twelve (or is it thirteen?) literary theories, how iambic pentameter elevates speech to poetry, and the ways in which voices of protest shape literature. Mr. Jones doesn’t say pride, he says hubris, and he displays absolutely none. He simply adores English language arts, and his passion is contagious.

These approaches to our profession are instinctive and individual. While I naturally prefer the on-ramp of being relational, the teacher down the hall from me is a content area expert. We both love what we do, and we both get great results.

What happened when I tried switching up my teacher type

When I decided to explore a new teaching style, I knew I had the capacity to build another strength. I’m not exactly sure why, but during that conversation with my administrator, I instantly knew which teacher type to try out: professionalism.

For one year, I decided, I would say yes to every professional development opportunity that came my way. Every book that a colleague recommended, I’d read. Every class required by the district, I’d take right away instead of putting it off until the last minute. I would study teaching topics I’d been interested in but hadn’t found the time to explore, specifically teaching gifted kids and adding a reading endorsement to my license.

However, I knew that to make capacity for all this extra focus on professional activities, I’d have to ease up on my relational style. Under normal circumstances, that would never have been an option. A new teacher had just joined our team, though, and she is extremely relational. I could relax, knowing our kids would get all the emotional support they needed.

Off I went into the land of professional development, not exactly excited, but at least curious.

One thing happened that didn’t surprise me: my teaching got better. All the practices, strategies, and ideas I was learning about went straight into my classroom. My lessons improved as I polished up my instructional practices.

But something else happened that surprised me enormously.

My passion came back. My energy and enthusiasm for teaching bubbled up over. I thought constantly about, well, teaching.

In particular, I found myself thinking — a lot — about how to help my colleagues. I began daydreaming about professional development sessions I could create and new ways to communicate with my PLC members. I wanted to co-host an internal podcast for my consortium of schools. Almost every day on my way to school, I left voice messages for our area’s curriculum resource teacher, with one idea after another.

I felt my excitement for teaching return. It was a sensation I hadn’t had in years, but it was expressing itself in wholly new ways. Instead of dreaming up lesson plans, I was dreaming about ways our entire school system could grow.

My principal noticed. One day, he walked into my classroom and offered me a job. He had seen my focus expand from my classroom to our whole school, and he was impressed. One year after I decided to focus on professionalism, I became an instructional coach.

Am I suggesting you switch up your teaching type or explore a career change? Well sure, if that’s what you want.

But the big idea here is that leaning into a new teaching style can have enormous implications for your passion and your energy. And in these days of wild uncertainty and rampant burn-out, what could be more important than re-invigorating your love of education?

Want to try out a different teaching style?

Here are a few suggestions for ways you might lean into a new teaching style if you want to try out something different:

Relational

• Read a book that discusses early childhood trauma and how that impacts student learning.
• Attend an event that students specifically invited you to.
• Explore social emotional leaning and inject what you find into a lesson. This can look as simple as students pointing to a smiley face, sad face, or angry face to let you know how they’re feeling.
• Add class meetings to your daily routines.

Tech Savvy

A word about this before I dive into ideas. It is easy to get completely overwhelmed by the plethora of available resources and completely shut down. This has been my experience, anyhow. If this is you, too, focus on small, incremental steps.

• Befriend a tech-savvy teacher and ask them to tell you all about a favorite digital tool.
• Use the technology you are already familiar with in a new way. Think about phones, social media, or software applications you already use, and ask yourself how you can bring one of those tools into a lesson.
• Commit to trying one new digital app with your students per quarter. Just one.
• Move a paper-based tool you already use (interactive journals, dry-erase boards, planners) into its digital counterpart. Not sure how? The Internet will be more than happy to help you—or that tech-savvy teacher you eat lunch with.

Professional

• Sign up for virtual classes that present innovative teaching practices. You’ll know them when you see them, I promise.
• Read a book or two that address issues around learning, such as why kids don’t like school or how the adolescent years affect concentration.
• Been thinking about adding a subject or endorsement to your license? This is the year to do it. Be sure to ask your administrator about getting reimbursed for the cost.
• Volunteer to lead a professional development activity at your school. Better yet, pair up with a colleague to lighten the load.

Community Builder

• Seek out volunteers for your classroom.
• Communicate more frequently with parents — in a way that doesn’t keep you working nights and weekends. Ask an administrator at your school if you have access to email or auto-phone message lists for your students’ families.
• Have your students create a parent newsletter showcasing the activities in your class.
• Speak with neighborhood businesses about your school. Keep it casual. Be ready with contacts or ideas if a business owner asks how they can become involved.

Content Expert

• Find (or create!) a group of teachers who love your shared content area. Commit to meeting monthly.
• Take a college class or attend a conference on a topic within your curriculum. Again, ask about reimbursement.
• Subscribe to a professional journal for your subject.
• Take a personal field trip to enrich your own learning.
• Let your administrator know you’d like to be considered for teaching advanced students.

It’s important to recognize that it is our responsibility as educators to pay attention to all five of the teacher types. We can’t ignore technology or get loose with our content area just because those are not our strengths.

But with all the priorities clamoring for our attention, we cannot be fabulous at everything, all the time, either. It makes sense to rely on our innate abilities where we can because doing so is efficient and also feels great.

And listen, I am not suggesting that you give this a go if you’re a brand new teacher or your administrator just moved you from earth science to marine biology. Your plate is full.

But if you’re a little bored, kind of restless, or even wondering if teaching is still right for you, consider a shift in your approach to teaching. What a gift this could be to your students, your school, and most importantly, to yourself.

The post Feeling restless? Try switching up your teaching style into one of these 5 types. appeared first on Truth For Teachers.