A Teacher's Ruminations

I have a confession to make. I want to write a book.  A professional book.  I think I have a lot to say.  I think others could benefit from my experience. After all, I have been an educator for over 30 years. But, what could I possibly say that hasn't been said before? What new knowledge could I add to the table? Who would even bother to read what I have to say? These are questions borne of fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not being able to complete such a daunting project.  (At least, that's what it feels like to me right now.) Fear that I won't make time. Fear that I'll run out of time. But, over the last couple of days, I've gotten some encouraging words of support from the Innovative Teaching Academy -  #ITA17 Facebook group.  You can do it! Write for yourself. But the message that is propelling me forward is this one:  It doesn't matter how many times something has been said...each time someone else says i...

Disclosure:  I am enrolled in the Innovative Teaching Academy . Although enrollment for this first round is closed, you might be interested in going to the link above to get detailed information about the Academy; it might entice you to join when it opens up again in six months! This post is about something I've been thinking about today as a result of required reading for the Academy. In one of the #ITA17 lectures, A.J. Juliani talked about the importance of setting goals, which I agree with, but then he said something that completely threw me into left field. He said that recent research has uncovered that we do better at accomplishing our goals if we keep them private. Boom! In the classroom, allow kids to set goals and keep them private. Apparently, when we make individual goals public, we are less likely to achieve them. Not so with classroom goals. These should be made public and shared among all members of the classroom community. OK. I need to pause for a moment in o...