Teacher's Ed with Edward DeShazer
In today's world, being a teacher and educator can be empowering, inspiring, and rewarding. Educating the next generation can also be exhausting, frustrating, and disheartening. Teacher's Ed was created to motivate, encourage, and uplift teachers and educators to inspire you for the week ahead.
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Teacher's Ed with Edward DeShazer
Embracing Effort over Perfection: Boosting Student Confidence and Educator Well-Being
What if shifting our focus from perfection to effort could transform the way students learn and thrive? Join me, Edward DeShazer, on the Teacher's Ed podcast as we explore the incredible impact of fostering student confidence through a supportive learning environment. We'll uncover powerful strategies like praising the process and setting attainable goals, enabling students to embrace risks and learn from mistakes. By prioritizing effort and nurturing a growth mindset, we can create a classroom culture buzzing with innovation and resilience.
Beyond enhancing student confidence, we'll also tackle the crucial topic of educator self-care. Learn actionable techniques for setting healthy boundaries to prevent burnout and maintain productivity. Discover the magic of peer recognition activities such as shout-out sessions and recognition boards that foster a stronger sense of community in classrooms. Let's redefine success in education by valuing effort, supporting one another, and building a connected school environment where both educators and students flourish.
www.EdwardDeShazer.org
We're not out here to give participation awards, like I hear. I can hear the bros in the background, even though they're not listening to this, but I can hear those bros. But perfection is often an unrealistic and stressful goal, especially for students who are still learning and growing. Welcome back to the Teacher's Ed podcast, the place where the best and brightest in education come to be inspired, to connect, to learn and to grow. I'm your host, edward DeShazer, excuse me, and today we're focusing on building confidence in our students. It is a critical aspect in education and today we're going to touch a little bit on it. Confidence isn't just a nice to have. It's a foundational element that really affects how students engage with learning, face challenges and grow academically and personally. You know, and as educators we have the unique opportunity to nurture this confidence every single day. So in this episode we're going to give you, or I'm going to give you, two impactful strategies to help boost student confidence, and then in the middle we will pause for our self-care segment, and today I'll tell you about it when we get there. But let's dive into our first tip. First thing that I want us to begin to do with our students is to encourage effort over perfection, and I know some of you are like we're not out here to get participation awards. I can hear the bros in the background, even though they're not listening to this, but I can hear those bros. But perfection is often an unrealistic and stressful goal, especially for students who are still learning and growing. And when we shift the focus from perfection to effort, we create a learning environment where students feel safe to take risks, they feel safe to make mistakes and ultimately, they learn more effectively. So a couple ways that you can encourage effort in your classroom. Number one is praise the process. When a student works hard on an assignment, acknowledge their dedication, regardless of the outcome. You know you can say things like I noticed how much effort you put into this and that's impressive. Although you may not have done as well, your effort was incredible or your hard work is really showing. And using stories of famous figures who faced setbacks but persisted through effort, we can discuss how athletes train, how scientists experiment. The biggest discoveries in science are realized because of the failures of past experiments and we can use those examples as another tip to help encourage effort in our classroom. Another tip is we can just set realistic goals, helping students set achievable short-term goals that help focus on efforts such as improving their study habits or participating more in the classroom discussions. And the last tip I would say for this is to just model it. Share your own experiences with effort. Perhaps you know, as a teacher, you're learning a new skill. Lord knows, you don't have time to do anything other than teach and breathe and grade papers, but let's just say that you're learning a new skill or taking on another challenging project outside of work. Let the students know that you're putting in effort and there's challenges that you're facing as a person outside of the classroom and for administrators.
Speaker 1:Fostering a culture that values effort over perfection starts with policies and attitudes that encourage growth, recognizing and celebrating teachers who try new methods or take innovative approaches, even if they don't always yield perfect results. This approach oftentimes can trickle down for the students. Why is this important? When students understand that their value isn't tied to being perfect, they're more likely to engage deeper with the learning, they become more resilient, they're more willing to face challenges, more open to feedback, and these are all essential qualities for lifelong learning.
Speaker 1:I want us to pause for reflection and think about a specific time, or think about an opportunity you have this week where you can emphasize effort over perfection? What language can you use with your students or use with your team that can encourage this mindset? Because, remember, the attitude towards effort is really what sets the tone for the students. So I want you to think about a time in your classroom this week where we can really emphasize our students just giving the best effort. So we think about that and, before we jump into our self-care tip, I want to share an opportunity for you to invest in your own well-being. As educators, we give so much of ourselves to our students and it is essential that we replenish our energy and nurture our own growth. So I want to introduce you to the Be Well Teacher Academy, an online community that is designed to support educators in their journey towards better self-care and wellness. We are a supportive network of educators who understand your challenges and can offer encouragement and advice. Not just advice and encouragement, but we're going to give you practical tips on how to be intentional with your self-care. And here's the exciting part the first 250 people that join get lifetime free access to all of these resources. It won't be free forever, so don't wait. Head to wwwbewellteachercom today to claim your spot. Remember, taking care of yourself isn't just beneficial for you. It's the best way to ensure that you're bringing your best self to your students.
Speaker 1:The self-care practice that we have today is one that is essential but often overlooked setting healthy boundaries. Setting boundaries is about defining what is acceptable and necessary for your well-being. It is recognizing your limits and communicating them effectively to others. Why boundaries are important? Number one the most important in my opinion it prevents burnout. Without boundaries, it is easy to overextend yourself, it is easy to end up being exhausted and it is easy to end up burnt out. Second reason that boundaries are important it improves relationships. Clear boundaries help manage expectations and reduce misunderstandings that you may have with a colleague, that you may have with a student or even a family member. And the last is that it enhances productivity. When you set boundaries around your time and energy, you can focus more effectively on the priorities that you have.
Speaker 1:The tips that I'm going to give you today number one identify your limits. Reflect on what drains your energy and causes stress. Is it staying late at work every day? Is it constantly checking your emails? Is it social media? Is it something that's going on with your family? You have to identify your limits. That is number one. Number two you have to communicate things clearly. We often some people in their head. They set boundaries, but they don't clearly communicate them to the people around them. Let others know your boundaries in a respectful manner. For example, I won't be available for emails after 6 pm, but I will respond first thing or as soon as I can in the morning.
Speaker 1:The next thing is be consistent. You have to stick to the boundaries that you set. Consistency is what's going to help others understand and respect your limits. And the last one is give yourself permission. I need you to understand that it's okay to say no and that doing so doesn't make you any less dedicated to being a teacher. It doesn't make you any less strong of a teacher and it sure does not make you any less caring. You are trying to prioritize your boundaries and set healthy parameters so you can improve your relationships, prevent your burnout and enhance your productivity. Setting boundaries is about knowing when to say no and being okay with it. It's recognizing that you can't be everything for everyone and that is okay. You cannot pour from an empty cup. Boundaries allow you to keep giving your best self without losing yourself in the process, and remember that setting boundaries is an act of self-respect and self-care. It's essential for sustaining your passion and effectiveness as an educator.
Speaker 1:Now we're in transition. That was a rough transition. We're in transition. That was a rough transition. We're transitioning into our final tip. I hope you are feeling empowered and ready to start setting some healthy boundaries in your classrooms, in your schools, with your school people, with your family. But now we need to nurture ourselves and we need to nurture back to our student, back to nurturing our confidence that our students have. So I want us to move to our final tip and that is encouraging peer recognition in the classroom. I need us to create a classroom culture where students recognize and celebrate each other's efforts, because it can boost individual and it can boost the collective confidence of your entire class.
Speaker 1:Ways that you can encourage peer recognition shout out sessions A lot of time each week where students can give shout outs to their classmates. One of the things our principal, melissa Rada, shout out to our principal, melissa Rada Every morning we have an email that goes out at 7 o'clock on the dot in my drop top. Cruising the streets, I had this pretty little email that was in my email box waiting for me, but one of the things she does every morning. In that email there's a staff shout out, where staff are able to shout out and highlight the other things that other staff members are doing or the great things we're seeing around the building, so these are just great. To encourage peer recognition, another thing you can do is arrange a compliment circle. Arrange the class in a circle and have each student share something positive about the person next to them. Now, this is not something you'll be able to jump into right away. This is something that takes time, because I know you're going to be worried that someone's going to say something disrespectful about the person next to them, but this is a skill that we have to slowly nurture and grow in our students.
Speaker 1:The next one is peer feedback During group projects or group work, teaching students how to give constructive and positive feedback to their peers. And then, last, is recognition boards. We talked about this before, but having a board where students can post notes and recognize their classmates' achievements, whether they are big or whether they're small. Peer recognition is effective because it helps build community, it helps enhance self-esteem and it helps develop social skills. And for administrators, I would consider implementing peer recognition among the staff. Encourage teachers to acknowledge each other's successes during staff meetings or through the internal communications, like I talked about with our email. This not only boosts morale, but also strengthens professional relationships.
Speaker 1:Now pause for reflection. How might you incorporate peer recognition into your classroom or school? What systems or activities could you introduce to make recognizing each other's efforts a regular practice? This shouldn't be a bonus. It should be something that's taking place on a daily basis. And as I get ready to land the plane and close out, I just want to take a second to thank you for joining me on this conversation about confidence and how we can build our students' confidence, but also how we can build our peers' and our staff's confidence, and I want you to remember, as I close, that when you take care of yourself and those around you, you are building a stronger, more connected school community. I need you to keep believing in yourself, keep believing in your colleagues and keep believing in your students. Until next time, stay inspired, stay connected and keep growing.