Hopeful

So, first week of term 2 – it is all go.

I’ve jumped onto the #hackyrclass feed, and am going to try the suggestions as they fit. I really liked the one from week one – developing a growth mind set – and I think it is very important for myself and other staff at my school as well as my students. It reminded me of a whole lot of cool PD I have had and cool articles I read on this topic that just get shelved as soon as any real or imagined excuse came along.

So while I will take bits and pieces of the whole task, I think I am going to focus on growth mindsets for the term. And I need to start with me. I was re-inspired by @MissDtheTeachers blog post on how she is going to learn Te Reo, and what it was like to be the ‘worst’ in the room. I am going to kick start my guitar – again excuses kept coming up, but I do want to get better at it, so I am going to.

I am also going to try and be more open about things I try that don’t work. My school has recently updated the appraisal documents to try and reflect this also.

My challenge will be to not let the attitude of others stop me doing what I do. I am hopeful that if I keep quietly chipping away others will see that it is not threatening, horrifically time consuming or hard. I am hopeful that the students won’t think I am the crazy teacher that does things differently and start to see some success. I am hopeful that I will stop letting excuses get in the way, and I will learn from failures.

I tried to get my yr 9’s to have some hope too, we talked about growth mindsets and how just because they aren’t good at something doesn’t mean they can’t get better. They had a tough week and so they will be my priority for the term – and if they see being not afraid to mistakes and try new things, maybe, just maybe, some of them will get the confidence to try new things too. We started by making a tree of things we are good at, and what we can do to get better.

I think I am going to make a box on my white board of my goal for the week and see a) how long it takes them to notice and b) how they react and comment on it.

So, I am full of hope

With the other blogging hat on, I am off to a microsoft 365 course tomorrow and tuesday – I am looking forward to it, but also slightly amused I’ll be rocking up with my Mac 🙂 Downside was writing relief – this might be another goal I work towards.

The staff survey I put together on IT usage has shown up some good results. But sadly of the 75 or so full and part time teaching staff, only 40 or so had bothered to replied. But the ones that have had some great comments and suggestions, so it was a really worthwhile exercise, and the IT group will meet and talk some things over, and move on from there.

And now I’m off to bed, the wee man has been asleep for an hour in the strange motel bed, so again I am full of hope for a full nights sleep

Wish me luck