Purpose Teaching | Clearly Defined Goals

Photo Credit by johnthescone

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” Zig Ziglar

Stressed Out K – 12 Education Series 2.2

Danger Zone No Goal Ahead

How dangerous cannot having goals really be? Extremely. Well, lets say not having clearly defined goals and an effective action plan for your goals is extremely dangerous. Sometimes your colleagues will approach projects with cookie cutter strategies and others will lesson plan out of plain old ignorance. But the smarter teacher operates in a less stressed learning environment because she understands how teaching systems work. She gets help with her Individual Educational Plan (IEP) and seeks to understand her purpose behind delivering lessons to each student she serves.

Fundamental Basics

Not to suggest that you have to have a special education certification and do an IEP team meeting on every issue, but you do want to develop skill sets for meeting the basic needs of your students. You are more than able to develop extraordinary skills for meeting your student’s needs by following some of the concepts and ideas covered here in the Stressed Out K – 12 Education Series.

Who’s Listening

Elizabeth Gilbert was on point in her description of thinking differently about creative genius. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when working on your lesson plans. Of course you should always have the final decision of what goals to use in your program. But, don’t sleep on getting valuable input from your department, your students, and to a certain degree their immediate family for important goal setting. Think of it as the student being on loan. Your goal is to help the parents get their child across the finish line, preferably in first place. The way I see it you have two options. You can be an agent for change. Or you can be stressed out doing your own thing. Listen to what your clients are saying and watch great things happen.

Listen for Details

Listen to your students life’s stories for specific details that can help you to set some really meaningful goals. Details that allow you insider’s information is privileged intelligence that not only reduces classroom management stress, but creates leverage to your career success. Here’s where effective interviewing techniques are extremely important for Step 1 to Achieving Your Goals. Deciding on most important goals may be a little different from what you had in mind originally.

Case Study

I was facilitating Profound Impact vs. Stress and Frustration Workshops at a conference recently when a group of new school employees mind mapped ideas for their mission statement. The group identified things like student achievement and an inviting environment as their #1 mission statement goals. However, after further investigation through mock student and family interviews we discovered that for their case study student nutritional needs being met mad a stronger case for being their number one goal (Kendra Van Wagner).

Can you see where it was more important to feed the children before any learning could take place? This is the kind of smart investigating that will help you to get clear on which goals are most important.

In the next segment (2.3) I’ll shine light on why setting dates on measurable goals are so important.

This is a new series called Stressed Out K – 12 Education. Over the next several weeks we will explore classroom issues surrounding special needs, at-risk behaviors, student – teacher and teacher – parent relationships, and much more as it relates to reducing stress created from educational systems, narrow minded thinking of difficult colleagues, and the headaches of some one else’s undisciplined kids.

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Copyright © 2009 | LaRon A. Carter “The Guest Teacher”