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| (c) Jessica Hagy |
- Not taking care of myself: coming to work tired, sick, or hungry only made me more tired, more sick, and more hungry.
- Poor Aim: not ensuring students know the learning target.
- I’ll do it later: not getting my materials ready ahead of time usually turned into a classroom management nightmare.
- Keep a Copy: By not keeping the plan, next year becomes a teaching guessing game including that awesome lesson with that neat video clip.
- Rush-Rush-Rush: not recognizing the importance of wait-time, think-time, time to reflect, time to process.
- Tossing it over my Shoulder: using a new strategy only ONCE because it didn’t work perfectly the first time.
- Kids These Days: after a lesson went poorly, I often blamed the kids as opposed to applying a different instructional strategy.
- Stern-face: forgetting to smile and greet kids (even when it starts to feel creepy) because this truly models respect.
- It’s Easy or You're so Smart: saying these words does not make something easy, nor does it help a struggling student suddenly figure it out.
- Who's Working Here? working harder than the students.
- Chin Up!: focusing more on my insecurities than on modeling confidence.
- They’ll Figure it Out: putting questions on a test that don’t have answers or are worded so poorly even I didn’t know what they meant.
- Why do we need to learn this stuff? Forgetting to make learning relevant to students' lives.
- But they’re Quiet: thinking students were engaged just because they were sitting nicely looking forward.
- The Quick Kick-Out: not giving students a chance to explain the situation before jumping to conclusions and kicking them out of the class.
- Shutting my Door: avoiding collaboration because...what if someone finds out I feel like a fraud sometimes?
- Not Being Myself: even if my colleagues give advice, keep my philosophy in mind when making decisions.
- Squirrel: getting easily distracted from the lesson through my own doing or through barely disguised student manipulation.
- Jumping on the Negative Pity-Party Bandwagon to Nowhere: self-explanatory.
- Seeing ALL the Kids in the Pool: not preparing for the kids who need a lifeguard because they don't get it.
- They're almost Adults: assuming that somehow a 16 year old would not have the mentality of a 16 year old.
- The Kids Don't Like Me: Trying to be every student's friend instead of being a role model/leader.
- Lesson Plan B: not being prepared when the lesson ends too early or when the technology craters.
- The Anything & Everything Volunteer: the school will be okay if I'm not on every committee they offer but instead focus on one that I'm passionate about.
- I TOLD THEM: not understanding the difference between students who were taught and students who learned.
- Get-em-out-the-Door: slow down, take a breath, pause, pay attention.
