Teachers, Begin Your School Year with Regrets. (And Hope)

Begin your school year by looking backwards.

Teachers,

We should begin every school year with regret.  And hope.  But mostly regret.  However, it's not what you think.

My Goal Journal

Five or fix years ago, I started a simple Note on my phone.  Since this will be my eleventh year teaching, this year’s will be called “For Year 12.”  I follow three simple rules from August to May:

1. Outside of assignment-specific or lesson-specific feedback, which I keep elsewhere, whenever I have a terrific idea or a terrible regret, I start a simple entry.  I include the date, category labels, and a simple command.

For example, I’ve used timers for years as classroom management, but never for daily journals.  Last year I experimented embedding a timer, and I realized I needed to change a habit-process.  My entry went like this:

• 5/14. Journals. Timer. PPT. Embed YouTube timers into daily slides.

Here’s another one.  While I love giving feedback, I can only read and discuss so many drafts per class period.  So maybe a non-graded, mid-draft submission would help?  My entry went like this:

• 5/14. Writing Process. Canvas. Mandatory Mid-Draft Submissions.

2. As the year progresses, I selectively add items as they seem important, but I don’t reread them.  At least not yet.  And that’s it!  (“Selectively” here means not adding every little thing I can change.  Having 50+ items would prove far too many!)

3. When late summer rolls around, I return to this document.  Since I’ve already categorized my entries, grouping them doesn’t take long.  Many years I notice writing about the same thing, so duplicate or now-irrelevant entries get scrubbed in the sorted draft.  (Always keep the initial list!)  But rather than have daunting lists of major goals, I convert this list into action steps.

Before the school year starts, I staple these micro-goals to the bulletin board in front of my desk.  As I accomplish them, I cross them off with the date.  I don’t hit every goal every year, but facing them helps.

(I could write another entry about my adjacent bulletin board, where I’ve stapled acceptance and rejection letters over the years.)

What do I do year to year?  Do I trash prior lists?  Goodness no!  I keep them.  I let my board get just a tad messy.  Then curious things start to happen.

The Time-Lapse

This process started organically.  As the calendar turned, I stapled one list next to another.  As the calendar turned again, I stapled another list.  Then a curious thing happened: A time-lapse photo emerged.

While I don’t hit every goal every year (some things aren’t problems year to year), the goals become their own mosaic.  Across time, regrets transform to hope.  Goals connect through a messy web as my teaching style evolves.  If goals aren’t met now, I often meet them later without realizing it. This messy board, along with regular reflections, becomes course-correcting.

Since I don’t meet every goal every year, some observations connect from unrelated years.  That blows my mind.  Many years I write duplicate entries, attacking the same problem from different perspectives, but when otherwise unrelated observations provide new insights… that’s magic.  And best part?  It’s simple.

So as you start your year, wait a month, start a new Note, and build those regrets.  They make the best action steps!

✍️ How do you address improvement year to year? 

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Post Script:

Earlier drafts included an introduction and conclusion focusing on goal-setting in the classroom.  They didn’t quite fit here, so I published them as a stand-alone note (see below).  I might extend this one.  Ever since middle school I’ve been goal-driven, but because teaching has so many externalities, I’m not sure big, overarching goals always work well.

Instead, for years (at least in my own head) I’ve distinguished between content-specific (lessons or assignments to adjust) or process-specific (habits to adjust).  Those distinctions matter.  Some things are subject-specific, regardless of level, while other things are more grade or course-specific.

Maybe that’s neither here nor there, but given the dynamic nature of the classroom, the “micro-goal” works better in my mind.

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