Positive Speak - Beneficial for my students or me?

To be honest, I've known the power of speaking in almost 100% positive terms prior to teaching.

It's just natural that people feel better if we hear positive words. For the first part of the semester, I have to be honest, it was hard to think about outwardly giving this positive encouragement. My students knew that I expected a lot from them and that I believed in them, but it was all in their face "YOU CAN DO IT!"

I've now realized that it's super beneficial to my students to hear it out loud. When they're doing some independent work cheering them on saying "You don't need me, you've got this! You got that first one right, now you can do them all!" has become the norm.

Not only have I gotten my students believing in themselves, they're feeling better about getting things right because it was them, not me, that got it right!

But, I've noticed that this positive encouragement isn't only helpful for my students. When I walk back and forth in the room, cheering my students on and casually checking their work -- I FEEL EMPOWERED. I feel like I've gotten them on this train toward success. I feel a little bit better about what we're doing and how we're doing it.

This is the double-edged positive sword that I play with on the daily. Break the material down for my students and build my students attitudes up.

I dare you to use this tool in your work and life. Challenge accepted? Do it.

Raise your glass to a good week.

Sometimes it might be hard to look at the week ahead and be excited.

There are a lot of unknowns that drag us down. If the garbage man doesn't pick up my trash tomorrow my yard will smell; the mailman isn't giving my mail; my computer is acting funny... Who knows what it is that might come up.

The one thing we can do to prevent our anxieties when these things occur is to have a positive outlook. We all have hard days, but there is no need to have a depressed day.

As my Manager of Teacher Learning Development said to me, "When you start looking at what you did as a failure, you lose the ability to look at what happened critically and make the changes needed."

We have to look forward to our days this week and every week and then, when something does go wrong, look at what happened and why. Don't blame it on yourself as a 'failure', but look at it as a learning moment - that didn't work, so try something new.

I'm looking forward to this week. My students have a lot coming at them. There is another test this week that they need to be ready for, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure they get there.

This means that there is a lot of learning that has to happen in only 3 days, but we can do it and we will do it. I just have to remind them that we have our eyes set on success.

Tomorrow will be a strong day because the changes we make in the classroom every day as teachers increases the chances for our students to learn.

Super. Excited. Super. Positive.