Attitude Adjustments, by Rick Wormeli

Cultivating and maintaining a healthy attitude may be all you need to keep you at the top of your game in the classroom...and beyond

Winning implies that someone or something must lose in order for us to achieve our goal. In this case, however, it's not a negative connotation because we're talking about winning over our own cynicism, apathy and adversity, not colleagues, students or parents. The attitude is one of professional and personal well-being – a confident, can-do feeling that permeates all of our interactions. Struggles are seen as opportunities, life is full of possibilities, not hurdles. As teachers, we cultivate such perspectives in our students every day. It's just as important, however, to do the same with ourselves. Here are seven ideas for what you can do to keep your mind, body and attitude in great shape!

1. Maintain physical fitness.
   This includes four factors: daily exercise, eight hours of sleep or more, drinking plenty of water and a proper diet. Don't forget that exercise can occur at school, not just at home or the health club (see box at left and throughout this month's features section). Determine a one-mile path through the hallways, join students in the gym or weight room if you have one, or start an after– or before– school exercise program for staff. How about a staff tennis or basketball roster of interested players? Drink water every hour, not just once a day, and drink it even when you're not thirsty, too. How about four smaller meals per day instead of three large ones? Snack on fruits, vegetables, proteins and a few simple carbohydrates all day. There is a direct correlation between a teacher's physical fitness and his or her students' achievement.

2. Participate in regular professional development.
   Teachers feel empowered when discovering fresh ideas and perspectives, especially with inspiring colleagues and leaders. They return to their students, ready to apply insightful practices and tackle difficult challenges. Teachers who wait for a half-day inservice provided by the district once a year aren't even treading water. In order to make a true difference in attitude, teachers need time (and money, as necessary) to do professional reading and reflection (professional journals, discussion, writing), attend regional or national multi-day conferences, conduct peer and self observations and analysis, and/or perhaps join a Critical Friends group.

3. Get organized.
   Ninety percent of differentiated instruction is what we do before students walk through the door. We're so well-planned, down to the last detail, we can be flexible with lessons as students' needs warrant. We have a menu of options as we present lessons, not one myopic route. It's the same with other strategies. We do the organization and footwork prior to the experience so that we remain effective no matter what happens. Winning attitudes are born from helpful filing systems with information at our fingertips, quick ways to grade papers, backup lesson plans in case the guest speaker gets the flu, interdisciplinary units in which students use one subject's skills to come to know another subject and Post-it® notes at our fingertips, ready for us to write the date, student and topic for mini-lessons later in the week as we observe the need.

4. Create and celebrate small successes.
   Nothing motivates like success. Set yourself up for successes every day by establishing small goals and recognizing them when they are achieved. Make checklists and cross off items as they are completed. Allow yourself 20 minutes of free reading or exercise time for every set of papers graded. When grading papers, identify two areas for improvement in each paper you grade, not all of them. Identify the individual aspects of a large problem you're having with a student and begin working on the individual pieces, not the whole problem.

5. Get your principal or supervisor to empower you.
   Ask whether or not you can determine the best disciplinary action regarding a poorly behaving student, rather than having to send the student to the principal. Seek the power to schedule your grade level or team's use of instructional time. Volunteer yourself and your students to build an on-site low ropes initiatives course. Join the steering committee for the school. Coordinate Field Day this year and make every event both an athletic and an academic experience. Give life to your own vision of schooling by asking for autonomy in some of your school's ventures.

6. Let your students' discoveries touch you personally.
   Listen to students' stories, ask them about their thinking and their lives, take the time to consider your responses to students before making them and write or discuss your observations with others. Teach a few constructivist lessons in which students determine the meaning of their lessons via your skillful facilitation. Get caught up in the excitement of their discoveries and be empathetic to their struggle to understand. Dr. William Purkey borrows a line from the L.L. Bean Company poster when, instead of "customer," he inserts "student" and reminds us, "A student is not an interruption of our work...the student is the purpose of it. We are not doing a favor by serving the student...the student is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so." Look at your subject(s) through your students' eyes, trying to reclaim some of the early epiphanies you made when you were studying these same ideas. Realize that what you teach is not nearly as important to students as who you are and how you participate in their lives. This means sharing humanity with them – the good as well as the frustrating elements. You will rediscover what brought you to the profession in the first place – making a difference, sharing your love for the subject, creating a positive future and finding meaning.

7. Maintain a file of all your accomplishments and all thank you cards, letters and pictures from students, parents and the community.
   It's affirmation, not vanity, to maintain such a file. We all need this. Sometimes the only feedback we get is lack of complaint. This is not enough to maintain perspective during frustrating times. Read the file once during a grading period, especially during times in which you lack self-confidence or in which you've made a blunder. Your accomplishment file will provide all the energy you'll need to get back on track.

Rick Wormeli is a classroom teacher, doctoral student and also the author of Day One & Beyond (Stenhouse, 2003).