Chaos to Clarity

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-05-27T07:45:00.002-07:00

Truth About Givers

Inevitably, every teacher at their core is a giver. Even our roots tend to be cascaded down from a long lineage of givers. However, there seems to be an unsaid and ignored tragic flaw that we all poses that takes some form or another. To a fault, we always make more time for everyone else than ourselves. Our greatest strength also appears, at times, to be our greatest weakness.

As teachers, we tend to struggle with setting boundaries for ourselves. We struggle not to take work home with us (physically and of course emotionally). We all love what we do. We love our students and we are willing to make time for everyone else before ourselves. As a community of teachers, we have a tendency to neglect our own needs by forgetting to make time for ourselves to just relax and enjoy life outside of teaching.

Especially at the end of the year, I know I’m guilty of ignoring my own physical and emotional needs. My body usually shuts down on me and of course, I wind up getting sick which leads me to falling behind at work and having even less time to take care of myself. Let’s face it teachers, when we aren’t at our best, we can’t teach at our best.

Cheers to going home on time today. Cheers to not taking any work home tonight. Cheers to doing something just for you. Cheers to finding the balance and making ourselves a priority. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-05-20T08:01:00.002-07:00

Reality & Repercussions of Unpredictable Moments in our Classrooms...

Fellow teachers, let’s take a few moments and be completely honest with ourselves. We can’t control the random and insane situations we find ourselves in each and every day teaching our crazy, but oh so lovable, hooligans. We can’t control the ridiculously entertaining and sometimes frightening curiosity driven blurt outs, comments, observations, or questions our students asks us day in and day out throughout the school year.

At the end of the day, the reality is the only thing we can control is how we react to the often times unfiltered thoughts of our students. Do we choose to...

humiliate them further?

allow their interruption to detract us from our lesson?

ignore them?

give them the time to be heard?

take the time to answer their questions?

turn their contribution into a teachable moment?

Life is full of unpredictable moments and chances. Our love for teaching and our students is undeniably infinite or we wouldn’t keep on teaching. Grace under any circumstance is a reality we can choose to live by. Cheers to taking control and doing our best to handle those insanely unpredictable moments with as much grace as humanly possible. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-05-13T07:24:00.002-07:00

Living to Share

As teachers every word we say has an unknown expiration date. Our words make an immeasurable impact every single day and we will never be able to know how long our students will carry our words with them. We will never know what words we will say that will spark our students to feel inspired or motivated enough to lead their life down an untraveled road. As teachers, we live to share...

our thoughts...

our knowledge...

our life lessons...

our hearts...

We dedicate our lives trying to make a positive impact in the lives of our students. I’ve come to realize I easily underestimate the potential impact of my own words. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that my students are like sponges and they are constantly soaking up every word I say. They may all interpret my words in various ways and my words may impact them in different ways, but the reality is they are all impacted in some way by the words I say or don’t choose to say. That is a heavy realization to digest.

Cheers to choosing to be a teacher and choosing to keep on living to share. Cheers to realizing and accepting our words make an impact. Cheers to always being cognitive of our words and attempting to impact our students in a positive way. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-05-06T16:11:00.000-07:00

Seeking Truth From Our Students

The end of the school year offers us a somewhat nerve wracking but in reality amazing opportunity for a dose of truth. When we are completely honest with ourselves, the only people who can truly determine how effective we actually are as educators are our students. Our administrators and fellow colleagues only see glimpses of our craft of teaching and therefore their feedback is valuable, but it doesn’t provide us a full enough picture to evaluate who we are as teachers. On the other hand, our students hold a wealth of unique knowledge and insight into our teaching abilities if we are brave enough to give them the opportunity to share their thoughts.

If we want to improve as teachers, we must choose to not just listen to our students, but really hear their often times overly accurate and honest feedback. Our students have been with us every minute throughout the entire school year. Our students see us at our best and they see us at our worst.

The relationships we build with our students are so hard to describe to people who are not teachers. The level at which we get to know our students and the level at which they get to know us by the end of the school year is undeniably remarkable. I open up my heart and soul to my students on a daily basis. I openly confess that my students know me in a way that not even my own family and friends know me. It is such a unique relationship.

Every person in the classroom (teacher included) has to live in a state of vulnerability. We all must be willing to take risks and be willing to fail. To be a teacher you have to be secure with who you are. We teachers make fools out of ourselves every day in the name of furthering our students education. Those moments lead to developing honest and trusting relationship with our students. To become stronger teachers, we must be willing to let go of control and allow our students to become our teachers.

Cheers to realizing that the wise tea bag has it spot on, “Truth is everlasting”. Cheers to offering our students the opportunity to evaluate us as teachers. Cheers to learning from our students. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Below is the link the my TPT store. Feel free to download my FREE Teacher and Student Reflection Packet. I have been using this packet for years as a tool to open the conversation to have my students evaluate me as their teacher. I have found it to be extremely helpful in attempting to improve my own teaching abilities.

TPT Teacher and Student Reflection Packet

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-04-29T08:29:00.001-07:00

Keep Up!

It’s that time of year where we all need to make the decision do we keep up or give up? It is a daily choice we make as educators. Do we cave into the inevitable exhaustion? Do we lie to ourselves and say we haven’t given up and fake it until the end of the school year in a state of denial? Or do we muster up the seemingly nonexistent energy we have left and push through until summer? Of course none of us want to be “that teacher” that gives up or fakes it, but it is so much easier said than done.

Over these last six to eight weeks of school, we must stay genuinely engaged for our students so that they have a glimmering hope of not slipping into the dreaded “summer vacation mode” a month too early. Let’s be honest with ourselves, if we allow our students to slip into vacation mode we will have a nightmare on our hands and we will have to exert more energy than if we would have just kept on teaching. Our students “kid radar” is always in tuned and can sense if we are not on top of our game. Before we know it classroom management will become a colossal conundrum of pure chaos if we don't keep up. Let’s save our sanity and avoid the chaos so we don’t have to waste our summer vacation recovering from the end of the school year insanity!

Cheers to doing ourselves a favor and choosing to listen to the wise tea bag and, “Keep up”! Cheers to being the teacher we all want to be. Cheers to not letting our students give up. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Great Giveaway!

2014-04-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

I'm beyond excited to announce that I'm participating in my first giveaway! Click the link below to check out full details and to enter to win some great prizes! whathappensin27.blogspot.com

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-04-22T05:15:00.001-07:00

Be Resilient & Teach Resiliency

Why not be proud of who we are? Why not be proud to say we are teachers? Why not allow ourselves to take pride in our life’s work? We so easily forget that the occupation we all choose to stick with everyday is something to be proud of. All teachers know the hard part isn’t teaching our students endless academic skills. The hardest part of teaching is the emotional role we take on caring for our students. We know all too well, it is never an easy job. While we’re at it, let’s be honest and admit it is not always an easy lifestyle to choose either.

We can’t even pretend not take our work home. The lives some of our students lead will haunt us for a lifetime. We can’t help but to go home after a long day and worry about our students. Did they make it home safely? Are they even safe at home? Will they show up tomorrow? Will they show up with more bruises? Will they show up with more emotional scaring? Will they disappear again for weeks at a time? Will there be more teen pregnancies this year? Will they go hungry? Will they somehow get their homework done while babysitting their five younger siblings?

It is beyond devastating to me how many students feel their teachers are more supportive than their own families. It never ceases to amaze me at how resilient my students can be. Every year on the first day of school, I introduce myself to my high school students who all have various so called “disabilities” (I will get on my soap box about that subject another day). I tell them my favorite word in the entire world is resiliency. My main goal every year is to keep myself resilient in hopes of being able to model to my students how to become resilient human beings.

Some days it is nearly impossible to see the difference we are making in our students’ lives. There are so many uncontrollable hurdles placed in front of our students and ourselves every day. We must stay resilient. We must keep teaching. We must keep being proud of what we do and who we are. We must teach our students to be proud of who they are to help them survive and become resilient human beings.

Cheers to taking the advice of the wise tea bag, “Be proud of who you are”. Cheers to being resilient. Cheers to teaching our students to be resilient. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

TPT Store Launched!

2014-04-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

I am beyond excited to announce that I have finally launched my Teachers Pay Teachers store! Ever since I heard of TPT, I have been anxiously awaiting to make the time to create my own store. My goal is to share products with fellow teachers to help decrease their chaotic workload and bring a little clarity to their world of teaching!

Chaos to Clarity with Claire TPT Store

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-04-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

“All You Need is Love” ~The Beatles

Like all things in life, it is so easy to over complicate teaching. All too often, I find myself living in complete and total self-imposed chaos. I try to brush it off and call it organized chaos, but if I’m being completely honest, the reality is my organized chaos still feels like chaos. Hopefully I’m not alone in being guilty of being overly ambitious, a bit of a perfectionist, and becoming fixated on the least important mundane daily teacher tasks like...

aligning the student desks perfectly before each period...

organizing all my white board markers by color and upside down so they last longer...

rewriting learning targets and agendas on the white board until they look perfect...

need I go on...

I’m sure you get the full picture of my time consuming perfectionist tendencies...

It is a daily struggle to find the balance of having an organized, efficient, and sanitary classroom, but also not letting the little things take over your prep period to actually prepare to teach. I’m constantly attempting to learn how not to create my own self-imposed chaos.

When asked why do you teach, we usually all have a similar response because we love teaching. We go into this profession because we all want to make a difference. We all want to be the teacher that inspires the next generation. We all want to teach kids to love learning. How do we achieve such a goal? Like the wise tea bag advises, “Every smile is a direct achievement”. When our priority is to make learning enjoyable, we see a room full of smiles and magic happens!

Cheers to realizing The Beatles had it spot on, “All you need is love”. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-04-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Let your Creativity be Infinite

Over the years, I have noticed around this time of year I often find my teacher brain starts to get a bit frazzled and I allow myself to lose my creative edge. I hope I’m not alone in this spring time teacher phenomenon. But I have to admit that I start to get bogged down by the pressure of...

how many more lessons can I squeeze in before the end of the year...

have my students gained the skills they need for the next year...

how many minutes of my teaching time do I have to give up to administer tests...

going over data to see how much progress my kiddos actually made over the year...

my overly organized self feeling the need to start planning for next year...

My busy mind becomes like a ferocious fortress not allowing my creative self to make the most of the moments I have left with my students for the year. I hate to admit it but during this time of year, I have a tendency to become my own worst enemy. I find myself wasting valuable time worrying instead of continuing to truly keep teaching my students.

We all inevitably have an unlimited to do list to conquer before summer comes, but cheers to realizing we have a choice. We all have a choice on how we choose to get through the next few months. Cheers to allowing our creativity to be infinite. Cheers to realizing, “You are unlimited”. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-04-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Ignite your Intuition

It is just me or do teachers as a whole tend to be more in tune with their intuition than most? Is that what we all have in common? Do we all have a unique, yet universal, innate ability to listen to our intuition? Call me crazy or possibly a bit bias, but it’s beyond remarkable what teachers discover when they trust their gut and follow their intuition. Teachers notice when a student needs them to...

give them a little space...

push harder to knock down their wall of defense...

stop talking and just listen...

be forgiving...

tell them everything is going to be okay...

raise the bar and have higher expectations...

lower the bar and take a few steps backwards...

let them learn from their own mistakes...

As teachers, we are presented countless opportunities everyday to use this sixth sense of ours. At times we use it purely as a survival skill and during our best moments as our top teaching proactive tool. Our intuition allows us to truly connect with our students and meet their ever changing needs.

The real pickle appears to be deciphering and determining our own intuition versus making faulty assumptions. We make so many quick decisions and form false opinions which quickly sends us down the dreaded road to “Assumption Ville”. The challenge of teaching for me is finding the balance of trusting and following my intuition without making false assumptions. Finding the balance is a daily challenge, but the days where you find the balance... magic happens!

Maybe following our intuition is the true art of what we call teaching. Maybe the more we hone in and refine our intuitive abilities, the stronger a teacher we will become. Cheers to realizing, “Your intuition is your best friend”. Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-03-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Perceptive Creatures

Far too often, I catch myself underestimating my students. They are some of the most perceptive creatures to walk the planet. I think kids have an innocence about them that allows them to easily determine how genuine humans are. It is truly remarkable what they pick up on. They are constantly taking in their surroundings and forming opinions about how others make them feel. As teachers, our everyday manners truly impact their perception of us as a teacher and a human being. We must be cognitive of...

the words we say...

the words we fail to say...

the words we regret saying...

the smiles we share...

the smiles we don’t make time to give...

the non-filtered cranky teacher looks we wear too often...

the sarcastic comments that accidentally slip out...

the way we listen to their words...

the way we interrupt their thoughts...

We make an ever evolving impression everyday. We all have those beyond frustrating moments when we feel like our students aren’t even listening to a word we say. Which in all reality, often times our student’s aren’t listening to the content directed words we spew out at them 180 days a year (sometimes less due to beloved budget cuts). But they are always listening to the words we say and watching the signals our body language sends out. Our manners form their opinion of how we make them feel.

Students must know we respect them and care about them. They must feel valued before they will be ready to learn. It is so easy to get too comfortable in our classrooms. They become a second home for us. We will never be perfect, but we must attempt to always be aware of how our words and body language impact and resonate in our student’s minds. Cheers to always trying to do as the tea bag recommends, “Let your manners speak for you”.

Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-03-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

Connection Chaos...

Sometimes I think our job title would be depicted more accurately if they titled us as “connectors” rather than teachers. It is beyond insane how many connections we attempt to make in a day, let alone an entire school year. The connection chaos begins the moment we start prepping for our lessons. We attempt to connect all of our material to our students’ world which inevitably means we must be in tune with their world. This means we must take the time to ponder and connect their world to what our students believe is an archaic world. As if that isn’t exhausting enough, those connections are just the tip of the iceberg in the connection chaos we call teaching. On a daily basis we attempt to...

connect content to students...

connect students to content...

form the teacher and student connection...

form the teacher, student, and parent connection...

connect with ourselves as human beings outside of the classroom...

discover we live in connection chaos...

accept that our job is officially being “master connectors”.

Before we can form any sort of academic connection, we must attempt to connect with each student and begin to understand their world. Since we don’t live in “Cookie Cutter Ville” where all of our students have the exact same interests, needs, and prior knowledge base... it is a never ending process of attempting to reach an understanding to be able to draw meaningful connections.

It is truly remarkable how much we learn about our students in a school day. This is not to mention how many details accumulate in our minds about each student by the end of the school year...

their favorite sports team...

what days they are at their dad’s...

which weekends they see their mom...

if you take a few minutes before class to ask how they are doing, they will work all period...

if you mention dinosaurs, they will be intrigued for the rest of the day...

if you let them partner with their friend they will do their best work...

if you let them partner with their friend they will do their worst work...

If only we could transfer all that sometimes seemingly meaningless, but in reality, the most crucial information to pass onto their next teacher. Those tiny connections we make are critical in the process of developing the most important connection we must make at teachers, the personal connection we make with each individual. As my wise professor, Dr. R in college, always said, “Kids need to know you care, before they care what you know”. Cheers to taking more time to connect with your students!

Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-03-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

Quality Versus Quantity...

Far too often, I’ve caught myself wrapped up feeling the undeniable pressure of trying to teach my students every single learning objective and skill they need to...

pass the next test...

pass my class...

pass the state tests...

graduate...

end up becoming successful...

contributing members of society.

I despise the days when the bell rings, the period is over, and I know I rushed through yet another lesson in an attempt to teach quantity over quality. I’m stricken with the guilt of knowing that I’m the one to blame for wasting a period and not the usual couple of culprit students for being off task and attempting to cause a ruckus to avoid learning. I know I need to admit to myself that I attempted to rush my students to reach a new level of understanding without giving them the scaffolding and framework they needed to truly get there. Those are the days when I feel I am my own worst enemy when it comes to teaching.

The days I am able to ignore the pressure and just let my students guide me on their time table of learning... magic happens! We all have those days when we allow ourselves to really listen and hear what they are getting or more often not getting. These are the days when we make the choice to slow down and dive deeper to help them each reach their own “ah ha” moments. These are the days we take the time to explain it in straight forward kid language. We relate the concept to something meaningful in their world and we find ourselves smiling because they are actually engaged (not just doing the dreaded polite fake bobble head nod)! Those are the days that make the challenge of teaching so worth every moment of chaos. The days of clarity.

Cheers to more days of us all allowing ourselves to listen to the insightful Yogi tea bag and, “Say it straight, simple, and with a smile”.

Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Tuesday Tea Time with Claire

2014-03-04T05:18:00.001-08:00

“If you love what you do for a living, you will never work a day in your life...”

Growing up, my “Gido” (Ukrainian for grandfather) with a sparkle in his wise eyes would often say to me, “If you love what you do for a living, you will never work a day in your life.” With each passing day of being a special education teacher, those words of wisdom carry a heavier and deeper meaning.

How could anyone stick with being a teacher unless they truly love it?

It’s far too easy to get wrapped up in all the obstacles that are put in front of us on a daily basis as educators. The true challenge is allowing ourselves to keep the joy of teaching our priority to enable us to let those nagging obstacles fade away. Every day we expect our students to be resilient creatures that can persevere under all conditions. Everyday we must show them how to become resilient human beings so they can have the chance to find what they love to do in this world because as the insightful tea bag states, “joy is the essence of success”.

Take a few moments to relax and enjoy your tea. You deserve it.

Why Chaos to Clarity?

2014-03-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

Let’s be utterly honest with ourselves fellow teachers... Isn’t our job description taking a whole lot of chaos and magically turning it into some form of clarity?!

The words “chaos to clarity” symbolizes so many aspects of who I am as a teacher and a human being. It represents the overwhelming feeling I have each time my students and I are working together to reach the next level of understanding a concept that seems impossible to master. Each time we break through the seemingly impossible invisible wall of understanding, through a lot of time and energy, we conquer it together and we reach the all mighty level of clarity (aka the students each have their own “ah ha” moment!).

Far too often, I find myself willingly diving head first into a state of complete chaos. I’m not just referring to my 4th period filled with high school students who are counting down the minutes for the torture of learning to be over for the day. They eagerly wait for the bell to ring so they can text openly and freely without having to ask for a bathroom pass to sneak in a mini texting session with their latest crush. I’m referring to our other life students don’t believe we have (and in all honesty sometimes we forget ourselves), our life outside of school where we frequently find ourselves living life in a different type of vicious tornado of chaos. I’m starting to think I have an addiction to chaos purely based on the fact that I love the challenge of turning any sort of chaotic situation into a manageable and even enjoyable environment.

Perhaps I’m an adrenaline junky.

Perhaps I have a savior complex.

Perhaps I thrive in perceived controlled chaos.

Perhaps that is why I teach.

I am in love with challenges.

Three weeks after I graduated from college with my teaching degree, this Midwestern grown girl decided she had to live in Oregon. Something you will quickly discover about me is that I’m a bit of an outdoor adventure seeker. When I’m not teaching, I’m outside (hiking, backpacking, running, skiing, you name it, I’ll try it). So, of course Oregon sounded like the perfect state to live in and go gallivanting on the weekends around the Pacific Northwest as much as humanly possible.

I packed my bags, hopped in my car with my hairy four legged leading lady and drove from Michigan to Oregon to take the first job I could get half way through the school year as a middle school special education teacher. I didn’t know a soul in the entire state besides my chocolate lab, Jada. I knowingly threw myself into a world of chaos being so far away from my loved ones, but unknowingly became the department head of five special education departments, managed a caseload of over 50 students, taught 5 subjects, and only had one prep all before my 22nd birthday. Can you say recipe for chaos? I’m going to leave you with a bit of a cliffhanger and I will save that full length story for another time. Let just say I did my best to at least mask the chaos as controlled chaos. Gotta love first teaching positions horror stories. How else would we appreciate the good ones?

If you haven’t guessed it already, I’m the teacher at your school that desperately struggles not to take on too much and truly believes my superhero power is that I’m invincible (I understand that that is just a farce dream, but a girl can dream, right?). I blame my lovable parents for constantly telling me I can do anything. So for now, I continue to try to find the balance between taking risks, living life in controlled chaos, and taking the time to find true clarity to discover my own “ah ha” moments.

“I’m five years old and I could be a better teacher...”

2014-03-01T13:33:00.001-08:00

Being a younger sister, I couldn’t wait to finally be able to go to kindergarten. I had heard countless tales of how magical school was because supposedly your teachers take you on amazing adventures all day. The rumor was you spend the day learning, playing, laughing, and making new friends. What could be better? Who wouldn’t want to go? I was pumped. The anticipation was over, I was finally about to be a real kindergartener!

Lies. All lies.

Sadly, my kindergarten experience was dreadful. Being the smallest kid in the class didn’t help my chances of surviving the chaos that I was living in five days a week. My social ranking in the class quickly became “Frightful Franny’s Rag Doll”. Frightful Franny would literally drag me around the classroom on my butt forcing me to play with her like I was her rag doll. I was not impressed with my new school life. I have vivid memories of trying to escape her, but wherever I went she would find me. There are only so many places to hide in a classroom and clearly I was lacking essential self defense skills. Quickly I realized my evil kindergarten teacher, Mrs. V who must have had checked out of her job at least a decade before, was not going to save me from my misery.

With streams of tears cascading down my cheeks on the way home from school, in a confident and stubborn voice I declared to my mom, “I’m five years old and I could be a better teacher!”. My mother being the lovable ball buster of a woman that she is said, “I’m sure you can be, so go become one”.

That one thought...

lead to that one statement...

that lead to an idea that would forever live in my mind...

I will be a better teacher.

Unlike most kids, I hung on to that dream throughout my entire childhood. I was able to survive my kindergarten year with evil Mrs. V after my principal switched me out of Frightful Franny’s class due to the bullying. Fortunately, my luck began to change in first grade. I had a gem of a teacher who I will call “Magical Mrs. S”. She was truly magical. That year, Magical Mrs. S not only taught me how to read, but she even inspired me to fall in love with writing. Best of all, I stopped being seen as a rag doll and was finally seen as a human being again. Life was good.

As the years went on, most days my parents would ask the age old question, “Honey, what did you learn at school today?”. There started to be an obvious pattern to my responses. My comments were rarely about the content. Instead, it became evident that I was spending all my school days critiquing my teacher’s teaching styles. No joke. Looking back, I am able to admit now that I was probably a bit of an odd kid. At that time, I thought it was what every kid did during the school day. I would make statements like, “My teacher needs to work on her time management skills… she sure didn’t explain the directions enough… Mrs. Z knows we aren’t robots so she let’s us dance to Elvis music when she can tell we are getting antsy”. My list of critiques went on and on, day after day, year after year. In true rock solid parenting form they kept pushing, “But what are you learning?”. My reply would always be the same, “I’m learning how to be a better teacher”.

I have created this blog in an attempt to keep pushing myself to become a better teacher. As I’m sure all of you other teachers have come to realize, the truth is we can always do better. At the end of the day we all hope to be a “Magical Mrs. S” versus an “Evil Mrs. V”. My hope is we can inspire each other along the way of living life as a teacher and attempting to live life as a balanced human being.