Happy New Year! I found this little stinker hiding in my blog drafts this morning...I thought I'd published it, but in the chaos of pre-Christmas teaching, I neglected to double-check. Enjoy!
Don't take it personally.
These four little words used to make my blood boil. Truth be told, I used to be one of the most emotional, reactive, and sensitive teachers ever. Anything, EVERYTHING that happened in my classroom used to send me over the edge or melt me down. We're talking the good and the bad, here. You used a period after 6 months of run on sentences? I'm crying. You continue a disruptive behavior I've repeatedly asked you to fix? I'm yelling. Let's get honest, folks. I made my students' behaviors about me. Every choice they made was a reflection of me, of my instructional skills, of my worth as a teacher and as a person. So when colleagues told me "don't take it personally," I just couldn't understand.
Over the years, I developed rationalizations for my distorted thinking. I told myself that it was okay to take my students' behaviors personally. I excused the ups and downs because "Hey, I wear my heart on my sleeve, and that's real." Other times, I told myself that "Nobody wants a Miss Mary Sunshine Teacher all the time, especially if she's faking it." At the end of every day I'd mentally assign myself a grade based on the choices my students made. The grades were almost always negative because there was NO way all 24 of my students would do everything I wanted them to do every day.
Let's get real, people. This is NO way to live, professionally or personally. I was torturing my fragile teacher ego on a daily basis. And like I've said before, my teaching and personal life is so deeply intertwined, there was no way to keep this habit from affecting my personal life. I'd cry on my drive to school, while my kids ate lunch, on my way home. Somehow, I had managed to break my own teaching spirit. (The negative environments I taught in didn't help, either.) The saddest part is, I'm not alone. Many teachers feel and act this way!
Luckily, I've turned things around this year. As I've been reading Awakened: Change Your Mindset to Transform Your Teaching, I'm reassessing some of the behaviors I've written off or rationalized. And although the advice this book offers is geared towards teachers, I feel like it's beneficial for anyone and everyone. The author, Angela Watson, writes:
"Recognize that the way people treat you is mostly a reflection of how they feel about themselves and their own lives."
This set me free! It gave me permission to stop judging, grading, hurting myself. Now, I'm also blessed with a wonderful class and school environment, but I have to give myself some credit. I try not to take things personally anymore. I don't make student behaviors about me. I make their behaviors about them. This in no way means that I'm tougher or meaner, rather, I'm more efficient. My students understand that I am here to help them. Ultimately, I realize that not taking things personally benefits me and my students' progress.
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