Teaching Middle School ELA
Welcome to the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast, where we are dedicated to helping English Language Arts teachers create dynamic and engaging lessons for their students, while also managing the day-to-day responsibilities that come with being a Middle School ELA teacher.
As educators ourselves, we understand the challenges of finding a work-life balance that allows us to pursue our passion for teaching while also enjoying our personal lives. That's why each Tuesday, hosts Caitlin Mitchell and Jessica Cannata share practical and innovative solutions for managing your workload and staying inspired in your teaching practice.
Whether you are looking for fresh ideas to inspire your students, strategies for improving your writing instruction, or tips for managing your time more effectively, this podcast is designed to provide you with the tools you need to thrive as a Middle School ELA teacher.
Join us each week for curriculum and lesson ideas, classroom stories, and interviews with fellow educators who are experts in the field. We believe that with the right support and resources, you can create a classroom environment that encourages students to become strong and passionate learners.
If you teach reading and writing to middle schoolers and want to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in ELA education, then this is the podcast for you! Tune in every week and let us help you make a difference in the lives of your students and in your own teaching career.
Teaching Middle School ELA
Mindset Favorite: Feeling Unmotivated
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What if staying motivated all year could be as simple as asking yourself one question: "Will your future self thank you for this choice?" Today we’re airing a past Monday Mindset episode where I discuss how forward-thinking can keep your drive alive, offering practical examples and personal stories that show how this mindset can help you stay committed to healthy habits, classroom goals, and positive daily decisions. Tune in for actionable advice to sustain motivation and create lasting positive change, both for yourself and your students!
Here’s to another day of living intentionally.
Caitlin
Well, hello teachers, and welcome to your Monday Mindset podcast episode. These are short, little snippets of thoughts, reflections that I share with you on a weekly basis, that are focused around mindset things that we can do to live our best lives, to live an intentional life, and I invite you to not just listen to these for yourself and how they apply to you in your life, but consider sharing them with other people too. Consider sharing them with your students every Monday and having a conversation about it and doing a reflection together, because I think a lot of these thoughts, these topics, these questions are just a part of being human, and sometimes being human can feel lonely and to know that other people are struggling through some of the same challenges that you are and are benefiting from having these types of conversations is hugely powerful in allowing us to get to be the best version of ourselves, to take who we are and who we be and who we show up in the world as to that next level. So I really hope that you enjoy these Monday Mindsets and, if you do, let us know over on our Instagram at Evie Academics. Thanks so much for listening and let's dive into our Monday Mindset.
Speaker 1:For today's Monday Mindset, I want to talk about motivation, especially as we head into a new year. You know we start the new year feeling motivated for perhaps a word that we've aligned to for the year, perhaps a New Year's resolution that we've decided for ourselves, and then, come February, march, april, we start to fall off a little bit, and this might not even be just the case with New Year's resolutions. It might be just in the classroom or working out or eating well, or whatever it might be. Is that motivation to keep going, especially when we aren't seeing results for what it is that we're going after, or especially when we're in a hard time or we're dealing with a difficult situation, to feel motivated to get up to go to work each day, or to feel motivated to make the right eating decision at dinner, or whatever it might be that you're working toward as a goal in your life? And one of the things that I really like to ask myself that really has worked for me and I invite you to consider, will this work for you is when I'm in a moment to make a decision as to whether or not I'm going to follow through with my plan or whether or not I'm going to wake up and be like, yes, I'm excited to go to school today, or whatever it might be the thought that I decide in that moment to offer to my brain.
Speaker 1:I ask myself the question of will my future self thank me for this thought, or will my future self thank me for this decision? And I'll give you just a silly example from real life. So, as the new year started, you know, I'm really motivated to get in great shape, and so I've been going to the gym a lot and trying to make smarter eating decisions, and a nutritionist that I've been working with told me that I was going to get to cut my daily chocolate milk out of my diet if I wanted to see the results that I wanted to see, and I love my chocolate milk. So this was a big deal for me to decide to do this, and it's been hard to not want to have my glass of chocolate milk every single morning. But I ask myself, when I have that thought of gosh, I'm feeling like I'm ready to fall off the bandwagon and have that glass of chocolate milk. I ask myself will my future self thank me for this decision? If I do decide to have that glass of chocolate milk, will my future self thank me for staying committed to what I said I was going to do. Will my future self be able to trust me in the future for following through on something that I say that I'm going to do?
Speaker 1:And this could be applicable to you know, feeling motivated to go to school.
Speaker 1:If you wake up and you're, you know, drudging through the morning and you don't want to go and you have this negative attitude and you're feeling really unmotivated to go, I invite you to ask yourself will your future self of the day thank you for starting your day that way, or will your future self thank you for saying you know, looking back and being like you know what?
Speaker 1:Thanks for turning it around, for changing your attitude, for taking a deep breath and thinking to yourself that you get to go, do this right, I get to have a job, I get to have my students in my classroom or I get to do whatever it is that you're going to do today in that classroom. So it's just a little thought and question that I've been offering to myself that's been really helpful in keeping me aligned to the goals that I have and to stay motivated toward those goals. So I invite you to try it on and, if it works for you, send me a message on Instagram at EB academics. I would love to hear from you and see if that works well for you. No-transcript.