Confident and resilient teachers
Fifty percent of teachers leave the profession in the first five years. In order to stick with teaching long enough to get good at it, educators need to develop confidence and emotional resilience.
Managing the daily student scrimmages in the confines of a classroom can test a new teacher’s confidence. The state of mind of a teacher dramatically influences the amount and quality of student work that gets done during class.
When people believe they have a chance for success, they feel confident. When one’s efforts result in a good outcome, then confidence is built. Henry Ford put it, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t — you’re right.” If teachers think they can accomplish amazing results, then they often do.
The demands of teaching are many such as preparing lessons, managing behavior and grading papers. The recent push to learn new pedagogical approaches while creating more rigorous curriculum can feel like it’s too much. Instructional coaches were hired to assist with the implementation of new strategies that would enhance student outcomes.
Teachers new to the profession are often open to being coached. They want to be successful and know that they have a lot to learn. Many veteran teachers frustrated with poor student results also enjoy collaborating to enhance outcomes.
Vicki, author of My Coaches’ Couch blog, wrote that sometimes instructional coaches model new strategies to help teachers see that those practices will work with their students. Observing them succeed, can inspire teachers to try the new approach.
Coaches need to have the autonomy to pick strategies that are likely to be successful with individual teachers because stretching them too far can lead to disappointing outcomes that undermine confidence. Once teachers are successful with a new approach, it will likely increase their motivation to try another.
Teachers who try a new strategy for the first time often benefit from a recommendation or two. When a suggestion is used and it goes well, teachers make a difference in student outcomes which encourages them to try more.
Coaches can strengthen teacher’s confidence by affirming that they possess the necessary capabilities to do the new activity. This works best with accurate and realistic assessments of competencies because teachers that don’t see the results they want, take a hit to their confidence level.
Supporting success through modeling, making recommendations that lead to successes, and affirming instructional decisions all boost confidence, which improves teaching, and increases students’ learning.
In order to stick with this incredibly important work, teachers also need to cultivate habits that build their emotional resilience. Elena Aguilar, a coach of coaches, has a new book out called Onward that teaches twelve habits for enhancing emotional resilience.
One habit is to notice that emotions are like the weather because they come and go so it’s important to be flexible and utilize them as a resource. When a potentially charged event happens like a student rolling their eyes, there’s this very tiny space of time before the teacher interprets that event, applies some meaning and reacts.
Perhaps the eye roll was taken to mean that the student isn’t respectful and is in fact rude. Another interpretation is that this is typical behavior for teens who are exploring their own power and actually it demonstrated a self-regulating behavior because no cursing ensued.
Hundreds of such events take place each day which makes this type of discernment more taxing. When teachers hone in on the ability to expand the space between the thing that happens and the interpretation that’s made, this helps cultivate the power of emotional resilience.
Another habit to build resilience is to actively pursue connections. According to a recent study, isolation is more dangerous to human health than smoking. Teaching can be a lonely experience. Building stronger bonds with colleagues, students, parents and the community help to bridge those connections, build empathy and strengthen resilience.
Surviving and thriving in this complex and demanding profession requires that teachers become confident. Those that make it learn how to persevere and develop emotional resilience. Good instructional coaches make themselves available to help boost confidence and bolster emotional resilience.