I recently read this tweet from Joel Garza.
For all Ts stumbling along & feeling stupid while you try new things, while you look nervously at the calendar… you’re not alone, and your Ss—while they might never know—will be all the better for your frustration & self-doubt, your drafting & deleting
You / we got this 🤞🏽😬
— Joel /hō•ÉL/ Garza is cofounder of #THEBOOKCHAT 📓 (@JoelRGarza) August 3, 2022
Ever since, I have been thinking about the power and the freedom I have felt in failing forward, being given the chance to change the way I teach and who I am as a teacher through embracing new ways of teaching.
As I started to write this blog, I realized that almost a year ago, I wrote a blog about how embracing Project Based Learning made me a better teacher. While that is still 100% true, what I have been thinking about goes beyond shifting my thinking to a project based approach. I think the power and joy I find in PBL, has a lot to do with me embracing imperfection and iteration in myself because there is so much to learn from it.
When I think about the image of a classroom, I often think of that Pinterest perfect place, or maybe some straight out of Instagram. That’s not what my room looks like because for our community, learning can be messy and noisy. But that’s ok with me because it is so much more meaningful for learners to dive into a project with excitement, when is the last time a worksheet made you excited and proud?
How did I get there though? I have a support system in my coteachers, instructional coach and other former colleagues, people I could turn to and say, “Hey what if we did… What would happen if I changed this?” I also exchanged the need to control students, and tried empowering them. We collectively set a group plan, and practiced routines. I asked myself , what can I have students take responsibility for? Perhaps most importantly, I embraced trial and error, asking students, what do you like about what we are doing, what can I change?
Has everything I tried worked? No, there are systems that needed changing, days when I lost my cool and owed my class an apology, and projects that fizzled out or fell flat. Through all of this, the support I felt to fail forward, to not be a perfect teacher with perfect students, has made me more inquisitive, eager to try new projects with students and iterate some year 1 projects to make them better. So much so that this coming year my coteacher and I have started working with our new team to put together a plan for a year of wall to wall PBL, projects that go across the day and tie all of our curriculum together because of these big plans, I remain thankful for my support system who helps me dream big and fail forward.
I can’t wait to see what this school year creates!
Comments are disabled.