Blog - A Teacher's Best Friend

4 Steps to a Better School Year

September 28, 2019

It’s back-to-school season yet again. And all teachers are planning and preparing to make this a better school year than last year. You want more balance, peace, and happiness. But you know that the busyness of the school year will start with a bang – like a gun at the starting line – and you fear that once the school year starts, it will be a full sprint until Christmas break and you won’t be able to have the balance you crave. (Am I right?!) So here are some tips – 4 steps to be exact – to making this year a better one than last year.

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Manage Back to School Anxiety

July 31, 2019

You are on the downward slope of summer and each day you are thinking more and more of the school year ahead. You see school supplies in stores. You are starting to surf Pinterest again for classroom ideas. And you may also be feeling a mix of emotions: excitement, hope, dread, resentment, fear, and insecurity to name a few. You are not alone!! Here are some of the tips I give my teacher clients…

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Summer Reflection as a Teacher

June 1, 2019

Most all teachers are now on summer break, and it’s natural to want to just let down your hair and relax. And I don’t blame you. That is exactly what you should do. And while you are floating in the pool with a margarita in hand, let your mind wander back to this past school year and do a little reflecting. Here are my tips for effectively digesting the school year.

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Teachers: The Struggle Is Real

May 7, 2019

Frustration, negativity, and struggle are part of the teaching profession. Teachers: The Struggle is REAL. These are emotions we all have to deal with as teachers. So how do you deal with them in a wholehearted way without burying them or coming completely unglued and consumed by the struggle??

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10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Renew Your Teaching Contract

March 1, 2019

10 Questions to ask yourself before renewing your teaching contract | A Teacher's Best Friend | Life Coaching for Teachers

“I’m so exhausted,” she said through tears, “I just don’t know if I can do it another year.” This came from one of the teachers I coach this week in our session. She is fried crispy, overwhelmed, and just ‘done’. And she is also trying to decide whether or not to sign her teaching contract for next year. So – want to know what I asked her? I’m going to share with you 10 questions that you can consider if you find yourself in this predicament.

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Cultivating a Grateful Heart as a Teacher

October 15, 2018

There is only one thing that can absolutely stop negativity, stress, overwhelm, insecurity, fear and disconnection dead in their tracks – gratitude. Gratitude is one of the most powerful mindset choices we can make in our day-to-day lives.

That’s why cultivating a grateful heart as a teacher is one of the foundational habits of wholehearted teaching. [Read more…]

Organizing Your Teacher Desk Workspace

August 15, 2018

What happens to you when your teacher desk/workspace is cluttered and disorganized? Chaos? Time wasted trying to find things? Duplication of efforts? (Finding a pile of copies you made last week that you just re-copied) Frustration? Aggravation? Here are my tips for organizing your teacher desk / workspace.

Having an organized workspace takes three easy steps. First, you have to reflect on how you need your workspace to function. Second, you have to be intentional about your workspace. These two steps will help you create a workspace that works. And finally, you have to maintain it daily.

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How to Plan Ahead for a Stress-Free School Year

August 8, 2018

I am notorious for creating brilliant ideas that I want to do in class tomorrow. Not a great strategy unless money and sleep-deprivation are no object. I remember a time while preparing for a lesson on ‘questioning’, I wanted to make laminated cards on rings that were color coded and had leveled question-starter-stems on them.

Of course, our laminating machine at school was broken (as was the case frequently), and I wanted to use the cards for a lesson the following day. I had put time and effort into creating the cards and my options were, (a) let the students use them without laminating (i.e. they would get ruined and I would have to redo them once the laminator was back up) or (b) take them to Kinkos to be laminated.

Now for any teacher who has never paid her own money to get things laminated at Kinkos, you will have no idea just how excited I was to get these cards done. I was dead set on it – despite it costing me $98.34. Yup. That happened. I remember as soon as he told me the cost, my stomach sank. But I really wanted those pretty, laminated, fancy cards – and wouldn’t it make my students realized how much I loved them and cared about their education?!

Maybe – but it still hurt financially for the entire rest of the month! And PS – we used those dang cards so much the kids knew all the questions by heart (not a bad side-effect).

But with a little pre-planning, I could have saved myself a lot of money, that sinking feeling, a late night in Kinkos, and a lot of stress. Okay – so titling this post “how to plan ahead for a stress-free school year” is a little misleading – I admit it. We all know that no school year is absolutely stress-FREE no matter how much planning ahead you do. But it can be less stressful and you can do more of the things that you want to do for your students with a little planning ahead.

Let me explain. [Read more…]

Getting Organized for Back to School

July 30, 2018

I’m a self-proclaimed organization ‘geek’. Nothing makes me more happy than school supplies on sale this time of year. In fact, when I was little, I would save up my money to go to the office supply store and buy folders, pens, and sticky-notes. I know…I was a teacher in the making for sure!

But the good news about all that is that creating organization systems is something that comes relatively easy for me. And since I get some (geeky) satisfaction out of labeling and organizing, my systems are always being examined and retooled (or….that may just be a justification for buying more office supplies…)

As we get ready to go back to school, I wanted to share some of my tips (those systems that have been tooled, retooled, examined, and reexamined throughout my life). These are my tips for getting organized for going back to school:

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Setting Goals for Going Back to School

July 25, 2018

It’s that time of year – or will be soon – for newly purchased notebooks, sharpened pencils all accounted for, the thin lines of new whiteboard markers, washed desks awaiting handprints and chairs awaiting new friends. The time of year that is crisp with newness. The time of year that is so promising and idealic. The time of year when students return to your classroom – bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with chlorine and sun streaked through their hair, and smiles on their faces as they see their friends and teachers again.

Teachers all over the country are beginning to think about going back to school. And even if you aren’t going back for a while, the summer unwind has taken place, you are recharged, and you are now able to start thinking about what you want to do differently next school year.

You may have gone to a fantastic professional development session this summer, participated in some amazing twitter chats from your professional learning network, gone to a conference, or visited a teacher friend from across the country. All giving you new ideas and things to try for next year.

How do you sort through all you want to do this year? How do you set, maintain, and sustain your goals for going back to school?

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