Reflections of an Instructional Coach

As New Year’s Day approached and I was scrolling through Twitter, I saw more and more educators posting their #OneWord2018.

I am not sure where the One Word concept originated (I’ve seen several websites and books on the topic), but lately I have been working to simplify my life. I was drawn to the idea of choosing a single word to guide me for the year instead of an entire “New Year’s Resolution.”  Seems easier to actually succeed.

I took a day to think about what word I might choose.  As an English teacher and avid reader, I LOVE words, and so many seemed like they would be good choices.  I looked at words other people were choosing because I didn’t want to pick something that everyone else was doing.  But then I decided I didn’t need to worry about that. I just needed to focus on me.

So while there are at least a dozen other words I could have chosen, I settled on “POSITIVE.”

I don’t think I’m a negative person, but I wanted to be more intentional about focusing on the positive no matter what the circumstances.  This does not mean being a “Polly Anna” or ignoring truly difficult situations.  But I know I want to look for the good in people and in situations.

Who knew my decision would be tested so early in 2018?  We returned to school/work on Jan 3rd to find no wifi available to students and limited teacher access to the internet.  Over the next 2 days, as the network team worked to get us back online, it pretty much ended up that almost no teachers, staff or students had internet access or printing access.

This was definitely a time that I could have chosen to focus on the negative (and I definitely had some frustrating moments), but I tried to keep in mind #OneWord2018 #Positive.  I was able to help teachers who needed alternate plans. I was able to teach a class for a teacher who had to leave.  I was able to shop for the items for our STEM Lock-in.  I was able to prepare the items for our District Magnet Fair.

Seems like POSITIVE was just the right word for me so far this year.  I plan to maintain that approach to work and my non-work life in 2018.

What’s your #OneWord2018?