Have you fallen out of love with teaching?

I know that title is a little corny, but if you are in a place right now where you are having to drag yourself out of bed and into your classroom, you need to keep reading.

How Did This Happen?

You might be wondering how you got to this place. When you first started your career you were passionate, energetic, and couldn’t wait to change the world through education. You spoke up in meetings, shared inspirational quotes about learning and student achievement on social media, and wanted to make a difference.

Reality changes things quickly, though. As you realized that teaching is more than just working with students, but also dealing with the bureaucracy of education and things like evaluations, management issues, low funding, decreased parent involvement, increasing class sizes, and the constant requests to do more with less. All these things can take the shine of the once esteemed and beautiful profession.

What You Can Do About It.

Luckily, it’s going to be ok and there are things you can do to fix this. I know you might be frustrated, burnt out, and down to your last little bit of strength to deal with another week. And that’s okay, we’ll get through this.

When I had the worst teaching year of my career, that’s how I felt every day. I realized very quickly that something had to change. Here are 3 things that I did to Love teaching again and helped put me on the path to saving my teaching career.

1. Focus On Learning Again

One of the primary reasons we start to get frustrated as teachers is because, instead of spending our days doing what we LOVE, (helping students learn and grow) we get bogged down with the day-to-day weight of the current educational system. Something you may forget is that whether you realize it or not, you control what happens in your classroom.

If you can start focusing on your student’s learning today, instead of planning for tomorrow or the growing to-do list you have, you will start to find your love for teaching again. Trying things like Mastery Learning, competency-based learning, and problem based learning can help make your classroom more student-centered and focused on learning.

If you make the decision and the commitment to care more about learning than pace, testing, or your next evaluation, other things will start to fall into place. You will begin to find the reasons you love doing this again.

2. Stop Lecturing

I don’t mean never talk to your students, but seriously…can we just all agree that lecturing is not only ineffective, but boring for everyone involved including YOU!? (if you don’t agree read this)

Create activities, opportunities, and instructional systems that allow you to facilitate learning instead of tyrannically controlling every piece of information that your students receive. When you lecture or instruct directly with students sometimes management is easier because you can usually keep a class quiet as long as you’re talking.

BUT, engagement, learning, and let’s be honest, fun all go way down! Watching your students’ eyes glaze over or having them frantically copy pages of notes as you speak isn’t what will make them stand on desks and yell: “Oh Captain My Captain!” (Proud “Dead Poet’s Society” reference)

That’s what the love of teaching is made of. Making that connection, seeing that lightbulb go off, and changing a student’s life forever.

3. Get to Know Your Students (again)

When this job is at its toughest, it is easy to forget how much of an impact your your students can have on you. I remember when I was at my lowest; I realized that I hadn’t asked how a student’s day was going or laughed and made a joke with them in days.

I was so consumed by the negativity and my frustration, I completely forgot why I was a teacher (the KIDS!).

So I did something about it. I started smiling at them more, dishing out fist bumps, and just talking to my students again. Believe it or not, this was one of the biggest reasons I started wanting to go into work again. By having random conversations about “Jordans,” video games, new movies, or whatever else came up, I was connecting with them on a HUMAN level. This not only made me care for them more as students, but it allowed me to connect with them in a way that made them trust me again and learn better when they were in my classroom.

So I challenge you: Find your love for teaching again.

I found mine and I try to share it with teachers whenever I can. This is an amazing profession that I am proud to be a part of. You’re an amazing educator with the gift to change the lives of thousands of students. Don’t ever let the weight of this profession change your passion for what you do. Stay awesome. And always strive to Teach Better.