Episode 393: Monday Mindset: “March Is Not for Reinventing Yourself”

March is not the month for reinventing yourself. It's the month for trusting what's already working. The routines feel heavy, testing looms ahead, and suddenly the urge to reinvent your classroom creeps in. But what if this isn’t the season for drastic change? In today’s Monday Mindset, we’re talking about why March isn’t about starting over — it’s about staying steady. If you’ve been tempted to overhaul your systems or try something completely new, this episode is your reminder to trust what’s already working and finish the year with clarity and confidence. 

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

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Well, hello teachers, and welcome to your Monday Mindset podcast episode. These are short little snippets of thoughts, reflections 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 Eeve Academics. Thanks so much for listening and let's dive into our Monday mindset. All right, you guys, so sorry that this Monday mindset episode is airing late. Um, I meant to record it over the weekend, and unfortunately, we had to put our dog Charlie down. He was 13, he lived a wonderful life. Um, I have been emotionally preparing for it for a long time, but it doesn't make it any easier. Um, and it's just been really hard for my son. He's obviously, you know, had a lot of loss in the last couple of years of his life, and he's just a little guy. Um, so I've been spending a lot of time just being his support system. So this episode is airing late, and I apologize for that. And also, it's okay. Nothing is an emergency, and everyone's gonna be fine. Okay, so what I want to talk about today is just this concept that as we get towards this part of the year, a lot of the times we can feel like we need to do something different, right? Testing is coming, doubt starts to creep in, you start thinking, my systems aren't working, maybe I need to try something completely different, right? All of that stuff starts messing with your head. And March is really not the month for bringing something totally new in and overhauling your systems. It's really not for reinventing yourself. It really is a time to simplify and stay steady. And I want you to think about this. When we start to panic and feel like things aren't working, and we do all of these different things and like try these different strategies and all of this stuff, and things still don't work, we actually don't know what impacted the end result. So I think about this like working out, right at the gym, it can start to get boring, right? If we're working to grow, let's just say, um, our back muscles, or let's just say our glutes, because that's just the easiest one for me to think of. Exercises. Well, there are certain exercises, four different movement patterns that I'm gonna do on a consistent basis, and you start to get bored and you're like, well, I don't, I don't really feel like I'm seeing results. It's only been a month, right? And I'm not seeing any change. Well, that's not really enough time to give yourself the opportunity to stay consistent and repeat those patterns so that you actually can see growth, right? Growth and success come in the consistency of repeating the same things over and over and over again. So with working out, we don't need all these different exercises. We don't need to be doing something different, you know, five times a week and changing it up all. That's not what we need to do. We need to stay consistent with what we know works to grow your glutes. Same thing is true with us as teachers as we get to the end of the school year. Stick with what we know works, right? Your students have spent six months, right? August, September, October, November, December, January, longer than that, seven, eight months in some cases. Students have spent that long learning how you teach, right? They know your routines, they understand your structures, they've gotten comfortable with your rhythm. And that familiarity in your classroom, that is not boring. That actually creates safety and stability in your classroom. And when students feel that psychological safety in your classroom, that is where real learning and growth can happen. So when March comes around and you are tempted to overhaul everything because testing is in your face and you're feeling stressed, and you only have two and a half months or three months left with these students, and oh my gosh, I haven't covered everything, and all of those things that start to swirl around in your head. Instead of leaning into that fear, I want you to take a pause and I want you to ask yourself, what is already working that I just need to do more of? Not what should I change, but what should I commit to? Because, like I said, growth doesn't come from constant novelty. Growth comes from structured repetition. So a student writing the same type of essay four times and getting better at it each time, that is growth. A discussion format so familiar that your students can focus on ideas instead of the structure of it, like a Socratic seminar, that is what I'm talking about. You showing up the same way day after day so that your students trust you, that creates the opportunity for students to actually grow. So, what I want you to do is I want you to pick two things in your classroom that you are doing well. And I want you to commit to continuing to do them, double down on what's working. One of those things, if it were me still in the classroom, would be evidence-based writing. 100% all day long, all the time. That is what I would commit to. Second thing would probably be Socratic Seminar if I had to choose. So when you do this, you allow your students to get really, really good at a few things as opposed to okay at a lot of things. We don't want them to be Jack and Jills of all trades, right? We want them to be able to master skills that really, if we think about it, what's really actually going to help them in life in the long run, outside of your classroom, right? Think about it from that lens: speaking and listening skills, being able to articulate their claims and provide evidence and justification to support their ideas. Those types of things are the things that I actually care about the most as a teacher. I actually don't care whether or not they remember what a gerund is, right? Although, yeah, we got to teach that. But what am I hoping that they leave my classroom with a memory implanted in their brains of what is going to have an impact on them for the rest of their lives? It is certainly evidence-based writing and it is certainly communication skills. It is not grammar principles. Even if we love grammar, right? I'm just being real with you. That's how I feel. And you can feel however you would like to feel, right? Everybody's different. Everyone has their own things. But that is just kind of my opinion on that. And I really believe that when you let your students get really good at a few things, that is how you finish the year strong with them. That is how they leave your classroom, feeling confident, feeling excited, feeling like they grew, that they had a great year with you. And you, for you as the teacher, when you start refining and focusing on a few things, something gets to shift in you too, right? You get to feel calmer, you get to feel more grounded, you get to feel more confident in what you're doing because you're not scattered and all over the place trying to do new things here and new things there because you feel a sense of urgency and fear, right? And your students pick up on that energy. Your students feel that. When you lean into this, they see a teacher who is convicted in what they are doing. And that belief is contagious, right? We've talked about this study on the podcast before from oh, John Hattie, I believe is his name. And the number one indicator of student success was a collective teacher belief that they could cause student learning. That's it. Not even that students believed that they could learn, but that teachers collectively believed that they could cause learning in their students. That is how powerful your confidence, your energy, your beliefs, your thoughts are on how you impact your students. So March is for trusting the teacher that you already are and finishing strong. All right, you've got this, and here's to another great week of living intentionally.