Keep Back-to-School PD Simple: One Thing at a Time
Keep Back-to-School PD Simple: One Thing at a Time
[00:00:00] Welcome to the eight to four teacher where we tackle the habits, routines, and mindset shifts that help teachers leave school at four without guilt. This is a space for teachers who wanna do meaningful work without working around the clock. I'm your host, Barb Flowers, and I believe you can be an amazing teacher and have a life outside of school.
Let's build a teaching life that feels sustainable and fulfilling. Let's make eight to four your new normal.
. Welcome to the eight to four teacher. Today we are talking about back to School PD and how to keep it simple. Have you ever left a back to school PD session feeling so inspired, but also completely overwhelmed? And I talk about this because this was me every time.
I'm a person who loves growth. I love continuing to learn and grow, but the problem with that is when I was a teacher. And I lacked confidence in what I was doing. I always felt like I had to be revamping everything that I was doing. I knew I was a good teacher, [00:01:00] but I would hear something at a PD or read a book and I would be like, oh, I have to do all those things instead.
That's better. , and it just kind of made me crazy. And so I learned over time. And then definitely as a principal, the great thing about being a principal was I had the opportunity to get in so many classrooms and see that every teacher took different things from PD and would do things differently.
And it worked for them and it was still very effective. So instead of there being a right way to do it, I had to think differently. So. Today what I wanna talk about is really keeping things simple when you have a back to school PD and just taking one or two things away from it, and that's it. So I wanna start by thinking about the pressure that we have to implement everything that we're taught.
And it depends on your personality. So , for me, I'm a people pleaser, right? , I'm someone who wants to do things well, I wanna do it right? And so when you're telling me that. I need to be doing, , I'm gonna use the science [00:02:00] of reading, and this is what's best for kids. And I'm not saying it's not, but , okay, I would be the person who would learn about it and go in my classroom and change everything the next day.
And what that did was it created so much stress and so much extra time that I would have to stay after school or be prepping things. Because every time you pivot and change what you're doing, you have to get all the materials ready and figure out what you're doing. And so I really want you to think about what if you just took that pressure off to implement everything you're taught right away and just take those one or two things away.
So when I gave PD to teachers, what I really tried to focus on is what are we already doing? That's good. And then what can you take away from this pd? And I think a lot of times we get stuck in this Pinterest perfect classroom trap. And I say Pinterest, but really it's Instagram, it's TikTok, right? We see people's classrooms and.
They're beautiful and we see something they're doing and we're like, that's amazing. That's way better than what I'm doing. I have to change everything. [00:03:00] And I just really wanna encourage you to think about what you're doing. , If you can stop and think about, you know that teaching isn't about chasing trends, but it's actually building mastery with my kids.
It's actually seeing them grow and watching them get better. And if you're seeing that happen. Then you know you're doing something right. And so I really encourage you to think about that and think about ways that you can look at what you're already doing and doing well, and then pick those one or two things.
I'm not saying don't change what you're doing, but pick one or two things and make those small changes because small changes always stick better. When you pick small things to implement, it's easier to implement them consistently. It's also easier to measure your impact and see actually what is different and what is making the impact on student instruction, and it's less disruptive to your current systems.
I think about when I was. A first year teacher. My kids, they were so amazing. I taught first grade and I would come in and be like, alright, we're doing this [00:04:00] completely different. And they just went with it, you know, I would teach the new routine or whatever I wanted to do different, and they were just like, okay.
Whatever. But you know, it's like The thing I was doing first was fine. It's just I thought when I read a book, oh, this sounds better. This is something I should be doing. That's actually better. When really when I read a book, I should just take one thing away that I could tweak in my classroom. I always look at it like a healthy lifestyle, right?
Like weight loss or. Just trying to be healthier. If you eat a lot of junk food and don't eat well and don't exercise, and then all of a sudden you're like, okay, I'm gonna only eat whole clean foods. I'm gonna work out every day for an hour and I'm gonna drink all this water.
That's just not gonna work for most people because you can't make change like that. You can't do this complete, , 180 of change and expect that things are gonna just. Stick and be easy to implement and you be consistent with it. And it's the same with implementing things in your classroom. The more you do small changes, the more you tweak things just a little bit, [00:05:00] it's going to be more realistic for you and for your kids, and it's gonna help you be consistent with the things that you wanna do.
This is one of the reasons that I created the Teacher's Custom Habit Tracker that I talked about in a previous episode, but it's the same idea when we implement small habits. Small routines of changes and things that we want to be better in our classroom. That's where the real change happens because if you just try to change everything all at once, it's not going to help you be successful.
So I really want you to ask yourself, when you do some sort of professional development, what's one thing that really resonated with you from the PD and what is a realistic thing that you can give your time and energy to this year? As an elementary teacher, somebody gave me the advice once, and I always use this, was because I taught every subject I really had to focus.
On one subject at a time, getting better and refining that. Now, I have worked with principals and coach principals that their districts have, , implemented multiple curriculums, two different [00:06:00] curriculums in a year for two different subjects. Sometimes that happens and you really don't have a choice, , to focus on just one.
But if that happens again, you just make it realistic for you and you have to give yourself grace. You have to focus on just getting a little bit better each day and knowing that it can't just. I'll be perfect at once. You're not gonna just flip a switch. The new curriculum will work. Whatever you're trying will work.
And I'm using this even, let's say you are implementing a new curriculum and you're getting PD on that curriculum. Just follow the curriculum the best you can and give yourself grace on it. Because every school leader that I've ever talked to and is implementing a new curriculum, they should understand that teachers are learning, they're trying to implement this, and it's a growth process.
So you don't have to be an amazing teacher with that curriculum right away from day one. You're getting used to it. You're learning it. So give yourself grace on whatever professional development or learning you're doing. So again, just try one new instructional [00:07:00] strategy. Maybe if it's classroom management, like one new classroom management tweak, , a new tech tool, a new data system, whatever it is, just try that one or two things and see how that impacts instruction or classroom management or whatever you're trying to fix.
. And I want you to think about when you're deciding what to keep and what not to keep when it comes to professional development. Does this align with your teaching philosophy or goals? Now, there are some things that the district might say, you're doing this, you know, regardless. Hopefully it aligns with your teaching philosophy and goals, but there are some things that are just mandatory.
But thinking about that, does that align with your teaching philosophy or goals? Is it something you can sustain and that comes with systems and consistency? Can you sustain this and will it help your students right away? Again, this goes back to when you're implementing new things. If you make them complicated, it's really hard to make them sustainable.
So I always tell principals when they're thinking about their building, and teachers, when you're thinking about your classroom, [00:08:00] when you do something new, you want it to be simple and sustainable, because the more simple it is, you're gonna be consistent with it. Students will be consistent with it and it'll be easy for it to stick.
But if you do this complex system. It's not going to last because you don't have the time for it. So you have to be realistic on what you can sustain, what aligns with your teaching philosophy or goals. And if it is something that you have to do, I'm thinking, I'm in Ohio and , there's a lot of initiatives that are state initiatives that we had to do.
, As a principal I had to share with the teachers. I didn't have a choice. These are things we had to do, like a reading improvement plan. But there are ways that you can make the reading improvement plan. Fit to your teaching philosophy or goals. That's kind of an open-ended thing that, you make it work for your kids and find reading interventions that fit your, , your curriculum, your goals, all of that.
So try to decide what to keep. Think about does it align with your teaching philosophy? Is it something you can sustain and will it help students right away? [00:09:00] And just remember, mastery comes from repetition, not reinvention. That's when you really become a better teacher.
The more you get to do something, the better you become. I think about myself as a teacher. It just from experience and again, I just always thought it was gonna be reading the book or, learning some new professional development. And those things are all really good. I am not knocking any of that.
But your mastery really comes from repetition, which is your experience. It comes from you doing it over and over. That's why as a new teacher, I always volunteered for summer school. , And I say volunteer, but we got paid. But I always wanted to be a teacher who did it because not only did I get paid, but.
It was also an experience for me. Sometimes I got to teach a different grade level. , I taught a different curriculum. It, I just always looked at it like I'm learning as a teacher and I'm just gaining experience quicker by having opportunities to teach more. , Just remember , that it's.
That repetition, that practice. When you have a pd, what's one or [00:10:00] two things that really resonated with you that you can give time and energy to and really implement in your classroom? Because you wanna implement less things? Well then more things.
Okay. So as you're thinking about that, think about what can you implement? Well, instead of just how many new things I can implement. I talked a little bit about the Teacher's Custom Habit system earlier.
That's $7. It includes habit frameworks, classroom trackers, , goal tools, and self-care templates. So if you want to turn that one idea from PD into a habit, get that tracker for just $7. I'll put the link in the show notes, or you can go to barbed flowers coaching.com/courses. And I hope that you found this helpful.
If you have a friend that you could share it with, share this with a friend. If you found it helpful, leave a review. That's how other people find the podcast, and so I appreciate. If you could leave a review and just remember, you don't have to do everything. You just have to do the right things.
Well, I hope you have a great week, and I will see you next [00:11:00] time.
