S.M.A.R.T goals and mean teachers

After the frightening experience of sitting down in front of four administrators and being evaluated on my teaching performance thus far, my school decided our next (end of the year) evaluations would be more of a personal, self-evaluation. The first step was a professional development on creating SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic time-sensitive) goals for our self. The point of this is to identify any weaknesses and create a specific plan to improve.

My first goal is to increase my positive interactions with students, in return making me happier at work. I decided to begin by creating a baseline; which will be done through an observation of myself teaching (either recording myself or having someone observe me) and tallying my positive interactions and my negative interactions. I will revisit this baseline continuously until the end of the year, hoping to see a decrease in the negative interactions and an increase in the positive ones.

After my baseline is established, the next steps to help me become a more positive teacher are to: research positive behavior approaches, rethink the positive behavior systems I already have in place and continue going to the gym before school at least three times a week (creating this balance has been helping with my mood tremendously).

This goal is important to me because it is very easy to focus on the "problem students" and deal with their behaviors negatively (raising your voice, taking away recess time, etc.). However, I know from school and experience the best way to shape these students' behaviors is to use positive behavior plans. For example, praising the students who ARE doing the right thing, making positive phone calls when a child is successful and providing students with coping strategies when they are having a rough time. I will write about my other SMART goals at a later time and will keep you posted on my progress!

Cheers to become a happier teacher :)