The best rules for teaching aren’t found in a textbook, a teacher training class, or even the advice of older...
The best rules for teaching aren’t found in a textbook, a teacher training class, or even the advice of older colleagues. It’s found inside of you, in your gut, your instinct, your intuition. Here are ten rules no one will teach you, but will get you through the darkest times in your teaching career:
- I HODL which is nothing like Yodel. It’s an acronym for Hold On for Dear Life. If I hang a sign around my neck saying, I’m HODLing. Leave me alone, everyone knows to avoid me.
- When coloring between the lines doesn’t work, I try a bigger paintbrush. What I mean is, when those multitudinous rules about genre writing bog my story down, it’s time to try breaking the rules.
- If something that used to work no longer does, change it. My husband used to kill flies by snapping them with his fingers. Then he got old(er), tired of his miss rate, and switched to a dishrag.
- Every once in a while, I sit in a hard chair and reflect. I don’t do this one often.
- I pick carefully who I trust about my teaching. That’s also my attitude toward boneless fish.
- For difficult days, I don my I Am a Teacher t-shirt, take half a baby aspirin, and howl at the detractors.
- Don’t get tricked into measuring what you can’t define. Know the problem. Investigate solutions. Ask for help if necessary.
- Take advantage of the most important of human freedoms: You have the ability to choose your attitude in a given set of circumstances. If others are frustrated, you can be positive, others angry, you can smile.
- Figure out your North star and stick with it. It doesn’t move. Don’t pretend it does.
- Help students see around corners.
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“The content presented in this blog are the result of creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
