Welcome to the All Star Planning podcast. My name is Kelsey, and this is the place where I talk all things teacher lesson plans. Today, I am talking about comparing yourself this year to yourself last year.
Don’t Compare Yourself to the 2019-2020 school year
In the 2020-2021 school year. Um, I honestly don’t recommend it.
This sounds a little bit crazy because in any other circumstance I would tell you absolutely, yes. Compare yourself to last year. Make sure that you are happy with the changes you’re making and the growth that you’re seeing. Because you want to be growing and changing in a positive way. But the 2019-2020 school year was crazy. And there is absolutely no way that you now, first day of school in the new 2020 school year, are at all the same teacher that you were this time last year.
You’re Basically Unrecognizable Now
Every single one of us has changed. We have been thrown into the lion’s den. And we’ve come out stronger and with a new skill set. And it’s important to realize that none of us are the same. And as much as the 2019-2020 school year was sad and disappointing and didn’t end the way that we wanted it to it – I like to think of it as a forced training. We were all given this insane training.
- We transitioned,
- we figured it out
- we got our kids online
- we got them to communicate with us online and outside of school
- we learned how to do video calls
- we learned Google classroom
- we learned Schoolology
- we learned a new way to contact parents
- we were having parades for the kids and it’s…
We did a lot. Okay? And all of that changed us. And I think that it has made us stronger and it has made us better. And as much as I wish it never happened, um, I think that there are good things coming. So when it comes to comparisons, I think it’s important to recognize that we are not the same teachers now first day of school than we were last year, first day of school.
Nobody Really Knows What’s Coming
It is important also to realize that this upcoming school year has a lot of mystery to it. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Um, Some of us are going back to school buildings, some of us are doing hybrid models. Some of us are staying home entirely. There’s really no way that we know right now, how this is going to end, and how is going to turn out. what’s going to happen? What is the result of this very drastic change? We don’t know yet. And we probably won’t know for a very long time.
I would tell you under any other circumstances. Yes, please compare yourself this time, this year, to this time last year, because I think that is the best way to see how you have grown.
Compare Yourself to Last Year with a Grain of Salt
You will see this when you look at lesson plans from last year. Specifically, if you are in the earlier stages of your career or. Um, you’ve been teaching a new subject or new standards or new grade or something, and this is maybe your second or third year at it. And you go back and you look at lesson plans from this time last year. So let’s say it’s your second year of teaching. You’re looking at your very first lesson plans from your first days of school as a first year teacher. I would hope that you look back at those and go, “whew, those needs some work.” And that’s a good thing because it’s telling you right off the bat, that you’ve grown, that you’ve gotten better, that you’ve improved, and that is.
Annoying for sure. To have to look at lesson plans and feel like you need to completely rewrite them, but it means that you have made leaps and bounds, and that is something to be proud of.
Setting Goals
They say that you should set smart goals, which are like small, measurable, achievable, realistic, and whatever. I’m not down with that. I set crazy astronomical goals. And the reason for that is because I would rather. Have a gigantic goal and only reach the 50% mark. And then be able to look back and say, wow, I made it halfway to my outrageous, disgustingly large goal. That makes me happy. I would rather do that than have teeny tiny little achievable goals and be like, “yup. I did that. Yes, I did that. Yeah, totally. I did that too. I’m so great.”
In my life. In my career in my, everything, I set gigantic goals. I think there is so much more pleasure in setting a gigantic goal and reaching the 60% mark than there is in setting a mediocre goal and hitting the 100% mark.
I Prefer to Set Unrealistic Goals
Maybe that’s just my personality type, but for me, I don’t feel like I need to set tiny goals. Because I know I’m going to meet them. It’s just a matter of time. I don’t need something that’s just a matter of time for me to meet, I need something that is going to push me. I need something huge that is going to rock my world that is going to change the way that I operate. It’s something that is going to dramatically transform me. Those are the kinds of goals that I like to set. So for me, when it comes to comparing myself. Typically these goals especially the ones over a school year. They are so big that I don’t hit the 100% mark.
I’ll hit the 70% mark. And then the next year I still have in my brain that I want to hit the 100% mark, but then I look and say, I’ve hit the 80% mark this year. So I have made 10% growth. Does that kind of, sort of make sense?
I would rather slowly, but surely work on a gigantic goal and curtail my behavior and my general tasks and the way that I operate in a way that gets me closer to my goal every single year. Than to say “here’s a mediocre goal. I want to meet it. Here’s another medium goal. I want to meet it.” I’m down with the big goals, baby.
My Biggest Goal as a Teacher
I say set crazy goals. Set crazy outrageous goals. So for me. Um, I have a goal in my career. That I want to eliminate worksheets by my 10th year of teaching.
I just want them gone. I don’t want to do worksheets. I want to do my interactive notebook and then I want everything else to be a hands on activity. I want it to be an escape room, a card, sort, a board game, a lab activity. I want the kids doing something air quotes fun every single day. That is not a worksheet by the time I hit year 10. I think that’s a kind of crazy, outrageous goal. I don’t know if there’s any teacher out there. That can do it.
I want to be that teacher. So for me, when it comes to comparisons with my gigantic goal, I can say in year one, 10% of my activities were not worksheets in year two, 25% were not worksheets. So then I can literally subtract the difference. And determined that I had gained 15% of my overall goal in one year. And that for me, I would so much rather do then set these tiny little goals of “10% check mark.” I made it simply because when I have a goal like that and I hit the 10% mark.
Let’s say I hit the 10% mark in December. I probably honestly would have just stopped there. Instead of pushing forward when the goal is so big and so astronomically large. It drives me and it pushes me to move forward.
Figure out What Goal Setting Method Works Best For You
And I know that’s not the way that everybody works. And I know that everybody’s brain is different. Everybody has a different take on it. That’s okay. You don’t need to compare your goal setting technique to mine. Just compare you now to you in the past, make sure that you are moving in a direction that improves your expertise as a teacher.
No matter how you do it, just make sure that you are moving in a direction that you can be proud of from one year to the next. That’s all I have for you in terms of making comparisons, please only compare yourself to yourself and never the teacher next door, or the teacher across the hall or the teacher on Pinterest or Instagram, because they’re living different lives in than you. It’s that simple.
So, if you haven’t already, please sign up for the All Star Planning, introductory masterclass. It is where I show you how the five pieces of my curriculum planning method come together, make your lesson plans easy. Gives you more time to plan big activities for your kids. And maybe you can set an astronomical goal like me to eliminate worksheets or get worksheets to be like 50% of your curriculum. That would be cool too.
Regardless, you can find the masterclass at plan.kelseyreavy.com. Please make sure to subscribe to the podcast. New episodes come out every Tuesday. I know you don’t want to miss my planning tips. I will see you the next one. Bye.
Watch the podcast instead of listening: Compare Yourself & Goal Setting
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