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: Accepting Honesty
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What if embracing honesty and vulnerability could transform your life? Let's listen one more time to one of our Monday Favorite episodes, I explore how truthfulness fosters self-love and personal growth. Learn how honest feedback—whether from yourself or others—can spark meaningful change and help you align with your true aspirations.
Dive into practical exercises and inspiring reflections to confront what holds you back and nurture what moves you forward.
Listen now and take the first step toward unlocking your full potential!
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. So I'm really excited for this Monday mindset, because this is one of my kind of most important values in life is is honesty. You know, if someone asked me what is the number one quality that you would want in a friend, and I would want someone to be honest with me, to be fully honest and fully open about how they feel, what they're going through any feedback. For me, it's really helpful for me to just know what people are thinking, what they're going through, what they're dealing with, what struggles they maybe even have in our relationship, as opposed to not being honest with me. And so this comes from.
Speaker 1:I saw a Facebook post, or an Instagram post rather, on Ad Milet's Instagram where he wrote that true self-love requires you to look inside yourself and be honest with yourself. That that is how you grow, and I love that, because so often the things that we don't maybe necessarily like about ourselves, the things that we want to change about ourselves, you know we don't look at why you know we're not really honest with. Why do we feel that way, like what's underneath that we're not really being fully honest with ourselves or fully accepting of self, or fully honest in the fact that maybe that is a part of ourselves that we get to change, right. Maybe that is something that's not serving us, that we get to let go of, that we get to release, and that might be something that is a negative part of who we are, you know. Know, for me, one of those things was just not not being vulnerable with people, not being having these deep connections with people, because I just didn't want to let people in, I didn't want people to get too close to me, and that wasn't something that was serving me, and so it was this part of myself that I didn't like right, and there are, of course, parts of ourselves that we don't like that. We also get to learn to love, ultimately, and there are parts of ourselves that it's okay if we don't like them and we want to change those things about ourselves. Right, it's a both and it's not either, or in any capacity. And so I wonder for you in your life, is there a way to be fully honest with yourself about hearing feedback from other people, to be the called into that next best version of who you are right? Maybe you hear from people you're lazy, you're lazy, you're lazy, and perhaps there's truth underneath that. Perhaps there's an honest conversation with yourself that you get to change if you want to right, if that's what you want in life. If it's not and it doesn't serve you, then don't. But I do think that there are aspects of who we are that we know, if we're being fully honest with self, that we know get to change because they're just not serving us and we get to release that part of who we are back into the world and invite in and receive the part of ourselves that we want to be.
Speaker 1:And if you listen to last week's Monday Mindset, I talked all about a receiving energy and perhaps that's something that you get to have in your life. You know, is there a conversation that you can have with self that is a hundred percent honest? That is realizing, gosh. I really I don't like this about the way in which I operate, the way in who I am, and that's okay. To want to change that, to want to get better, that's how we get to change and grow in the way in which we show up in the world.
Speaker 1:And I also wonder too as hard as it might be, especially in those close relationships with loved ones of when people are honest with us and they're giving feedback to us, and how we show up in the world. Perhaps there's some truth to that as well, perhaps there's not. Maybe that's their perception of us and perhaps there is right. Again, it's not this like black and white of an either, or it's a both and, and. So I invite you to consider what about yourself Do you want to be honest with yourself about in order to really want to grow, to be the next best version of who you are?
Speaker 1:Because that person exists. That person is out there waiting to be received by you, just like with my friends, like I talked about earlier that I didn't really let people in. The moment I realized how much I didn't want to continue to hold onto. That is the moment that I started to receive abundant and meaningful friendships in my life, and I'm so thankful that I got to take that honest look at self and have that true conversation with who I am and who I want to be. So here's to another wonderful week of living intentionally.