Being Reactive Is a Dead End.
I’ve been reactive in what I did and how I felt most of my life. Being reactive means feeling trapped by the situations and thinking you have no control of the outcome. It also means taking on the role of a victim of circumstances and practicing self-pity.
It’s hard not to be reactive. I get it. What could I do if they packed my classroom with 30 children that I need to differentiate for? How could I teach when in the 21st century everything I had was the blackboard and chalk in my classroom? How could I not complain if had neither resources no support of the administration when living through some rough time of my becoming a teacher?
As I grew to be more observant of my attitudes and the circumstances that may affect or shape my mood and behavior, I realized that very often reactiveness and being reactive feed on the environment of one-size-fits-all professional development. While strongly encouraging teachers to differentiate in classrooms, administration rarely takes any steps toward differentiating their PDs and their communication with teachers.
Very often school concerns are thrown at everyone and no one at the same time, situations are generalized, workshops are built to fit most teachers’ needs, achievements are described in terms of “overall,” “percentage-wise”, “numbers of teachers hired,” “growth in students’ attendance.” None of this speaks value to an individual teacher, and therefore teachers feel more and more isolated, detached, preoccupied with their own classroom problems that seem to be growing.
The shift to a proactive mindset for me happened out of desperation. I was grappling with a lack of life-work balance, was eager to shave off some workload, liberate my mind from anxiety, start feeling present in the moment with my family. Before that, I was extremely anxious, thinking how I am going to handle one more day of work with constant planning, documenting, copying, redesigning, scaffolding, accommodating, differentiating, searching.
Proactive thinking and behavior for me are knowing the end goal, focusing on one thing at a time, setting priorities, getting rid of expectations, taking responsibility only for the things in my zone of control, using the principle “less is more” in every job-related venture. By no means, proactive mindset magically transformed my classroom into something that it will never be. My kids didn’t drop misbehavior. I still have papers to grade and paperwork to submit. Once in a while for some reason a class turns into chaos with my freshmen trying to figure out who they are, why they are here with me, trying to balance Youtube obsession with the books on their desks. However, what has changed is how I react to things happening in my classroom and during my school day.
I wrote many posts about changes that I observe happening in my behavior and thinking as a teacher. The opportunity to shift to a proactive mindset allowed me to step back from the rat race I felt I was in and take a look at what feels right or wrong to me, question certain things and give myself a chance to seek answers to some questions that started popping up in my head. The fascinating thing that happened is that the questions I started pondering were way outside of my classroom. These questions and the search for answers pushed me into the uncomfortable zone of learning about the things I would never consider in the radar of my interest.
These questions are:
1) Is one stable job a necessity in a present-day life?
2) Is it possible to create other streams of income doing what I love?
3) Is it possible to develop MULTIPLE streams of income?
4) How could I use what I learn in online marketing to reach potential students online?
5) Can I have an online store?
6) Can I have an online classroom and teach from home?
7) Do I feel comfortable with what I do and if no, will I be a quitter to do what I think is best for me?
8) Are there other teachers who make leaving not teaching?
9) Are there teachers who are millionaires?
10) Can I have a 4-hour-work week, teach and make a leaving?
To be honest with yourself is a dreadful thing. To realize that you might lose your salary, benefits, stability to pursue your interests and be happier might seem like a delusion. However, job stability is not entirely guaranteed anyway, isn’t it? Any job is a trade between money and what fits your passion. People are becoming more mobile in the job market. Entrepreneurship is not a choice of the selected one but the free choice of anyone who is willing to take on an adventure to do one’s thing. Education has already entered the online word, and classroom education should follow the trend because conventional, archaic systems of teacher- students interaction are failing to work. But that’s a long-way jump.
Meanwhile, teachers all over the country are reconsidering their role in the educational system, the value they receive VS the value they give. And this tells me something. Of course, I knew teaching is a serious endeavor that is not for everyone. But I didn’t know teaching does not only mean being a classroom teacher. And most importantly, teaching no longer means being an employee. And that excites me. That gives me air to breathe while I am in my head working on my projects, envisioning more freedom for what I do and would like to do. I call it the calm before the fury. I’ve got a purpose now to discover who I am, what I want from my professional life, and how I can do it on my terms.
While writing this article, I didn’t want it to be a prelude to “I quit my job” post. In fact, it is not meant to encourage anyone to quit teaching. What I want for you as a reader is to start being honest with yourself and start asking scary questions about whether you are truly happy about what you do every day at work. And if not, maybe self-education is the point to start with to drag yourself out of the ditch called “this is the way it is, and I cannot change it.” Because it’s not true. Everything is changeable. Many people before you did it. They dropped it. Said no. Enough is enough. Time to start my own life.
So, if this post made you stop and think, share it with the colleague you care about, with the teacher next door who seemed trapped in teacher’s anxiety. Comment, connect with me via email. I will respond.
