What is something that we can do to consistently bring our teaching game to a new level?
The answer may not be what you would expect…
It is not a teaching strategy.
It is not a behavior management idea.
It is not a communication idea for parents.
The thing that can bring our teaching game to another level is actually something that I started doing back in 2015. I am not somebody who is a reader and I know that’s a little bit sacrilegious for a teacher to say, but I don’t love to read books! However, I discovered it was because I wasn’t reading the right books for the right time in my life.
Some of you may be thinking, “I love a murder mystery! “ or “Oh, I love one of those romantic Nicholas Sparks books!” Although quite frankly, every single one of those is kind of the exact same thing. They are all in the South, something bad happens and then the star-crossed couple fall in love and it’s all good. I mean basically, right?
Whatever you read, if you have found some that’s your jam, that’s amazing! But if you are a teacher who is struggling in the classroom, I want to share with you something that I did that absolutely has been a game changer and has brought my teaching game to another level.
I have started reading one book every single month. This is a practice I have stuck with since the start of 2015. And I don’t just read the pages. What I do is, if I have ideas that strike me as I read, if there’s a quote that I love or if there’s something that kind of triggers synapses in my brain, I physically write in books. Some of you may have just had a heart attack. But…. I really do right all up in them! I highlight, I take notes, I will fold up pages. It’s a thing.
And at the end of the month I will go and I will write down all of the notes in a specific place. I have a blog that I don’t publicly release, but I have a blog that I’ve been keeping since 2015 that has the book notes or my book thoughts from every single book that I have written since January of 2015 and every single year I can see that there are 12 books.
I can see their title and I can see all of the notes that impacted me in some sort of way. And when I say read one book, I’m actually not talking about a teacher book each month. I’m talking about the type of book that you need in that moment. I’m talking about maybe you need a book about money management.
Maybe now is the time in your life where you need to read a book about leadership.
Maybe now is the time in your life where you need some books on spiritual direction.
Maybe it’s on parenting, maybe it’s on exercise.
Maybe it is on something that’s happening in your classroom.
Maybe it’s reading about ACEs or reading about instructional strategies.
But I want you to just pick a book each month, whatever it is that you need as a person and be open to the idea that maybe that book that you’re reading as a person can impact you also in the classroom.
So here’s the challenge that I want to issue you. I want you to find two books and I want you to commit to reading them during the next two months.
Then at the end of each month, if you’ve written in them, if you’ve highlighted, if you’ve marked pages, I want you to go back and I want you to reread those pages or look at your notes or check out what you’ve highlighted and see… Does that have a way to positively impact both my real life as a person, and also my teacher life within my classroom.
I am so very confident that this practice is something that is making a huge difference in my career as an educator. I have done this now for 60 books over the course of the past few years. That’s 60 books that I can look back to and find these motivational quotes or these ideas that really just grabbed onto me. I think those things are making me a better human and therefore making me a better teacher.
No you may be thinking…. when would I possibly have the time to read? “I got a million things I gotta do! I got to unload the dishwasher, I’ve got to do the laundry, I’ve got to pack my lunch for school, I’ve got to lesson plan, I’ve got a grade, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta….”
I get it.
I’ve got to do all of these things too. But what’s so cool is even if I’m taking five minutes each day to read a few pages, there are very few times that I look back on those five minutes and think, “what a waste of time.” I always come out of that time with more clarity, more positivity, more focus so I can tackle the things that I really do need to.
I think this is something that can absolutely bring your teaching game to another level. So my question to you is, what are the two books that you are going to commit to in order to really truly find a purpose on those pages?
Are teacher books what you are needing at this time in your life?
I’ve got three you may just love!
Check out www.monicagenta.com/shop