I recently saw the quote above while scrolling on Instagram. Greg McKeown is the author of a book called Essentialism (thanks for the book recommendation, Trice!). I want you to know that I view the role of a teacher as the role of a leader. Within your classroom, you are the leader in what happens. You set the conditions, you design the learning experiences, and you model reactions in both good and bad situations. Your students will learn so much more from you than reading, writing, and math.

Recently, I ran into a student that was in one of my first fifth-grade classrooms. We were talking about what he was up to, and then I asked him what he remembered from fifth grade. He shared a story that related to one of the character ed lessons that I did with students, and he also talked about the way the classroom felt. He didn’t bring up anything about our coursework.

A couple of weeks ago, I joined one of our fourth-grade classrooms and led them through an activity that revolved around the question “How do you want to be remembered?” I was trying to help them see that the students in their class were people that they would probably remember for the rest of their lives. And those classmates would probably remember them. So, we talked about how people wanted to be remembered by their peers. I still have yearbooks from my time as a student at Child’s Elementary School back home in Bloomington, IN, and on those occasions that I look through them, I have pieces of memory of many of the people in my class. Some of those memories are positive, but some are not. When I was with that fourth-grade class, I shared a few of those specific memories and how they made me feel.

In addition to the students, I also have memories of the teachers. I remember Miss Brown being so kind as my kindergarten teacher. I remember Mrs. Samuelson being much stricter when I had her in sixth grade than she was when I had her in first grade, but I also remember her being the teacher who developed in me a love of reading. I remember Mrs. Gromer as the teacher who made me want to be a teacher. The reality is though, not all my memories of teachers were positive. I point this out because someday when your students are as old as me, they will probably remember you too.

As teachers, I think we all strive to be the best we can be, but what I love about the quote above from Greg McKeown, he reminds us that we may not get it right every single day. When our goal is always to be right, then we create a very fixed mindset. In this fixed mindset, we hold the power, and we can never be wrong. If we can’t be wrong, we don’t allow ourselves to learn about how we impact the classroom environment and our students’ reactions to it.

On the other hand, if we focus on trying to get it right, we understand that there are times we will make mistakes. When those mistakes happen, we can reflect on why they may have happened and what we can learn. If you think about the learning process, the time to reflect is the point where the most learning happens. I try to find a few minutes to look over my calendar at the end of each day to assist me in that reflection. One of the things that I think about when doing this is “What did I learn today?” Some days the answer is easy, and some days it’s hard, but every day there is an answer.

As I reflect once again on the McKeown quote at the top, I’m thinking about the fact that teachers who spend more time in the “trying to get it right” mindset is probably more likely to be the teachers that have students remember them in a positive light. In a trying to get it right classroom, students feel heard. Students feel cared for.

All of this also has me thinking about student behaviors. When our students act out, that is generally a form of communication. But teaching is a very emotional gig, and it’s hard at times to not take behaviors personally. Sometimes it feels as though a student is doing “it” to us. Ans sometimes that behavior is kind of like the embers of a fire. What we do can either be the water to put it out, or the gas to accelerate it. But if the behavior is a form of communication, what are they trying to communicate? Generally, they aren’t trying to communicate their displeasure with you (as much as it may feel like they are). I encourage you to not take poor behavior in your class as a personal affront. I also encourage you to think about how your interactions with a student can

I like to use the analogy that oftentimes our students are like a puzzle. Each thing we learn about them is like a piece of that puzzle. Some puzzles are simple to put together, others are really challenging. Every time we come across new behaviors, they become a new piece of the puzzle, and we must figure out how it fits into the rest of the puzzle of that student.

Sometimes, we might feel a need to see our rules and a student’s behavior as a black and white scenario. In every school that I taught in, there was a rule that said that students were only allowed to eat in the cafeteria. I quickly figured out that keeping a stash of granola bars, or other similar snacks, in a drawer in my desk, could help alleviate many of the negative interactions that some had. My students might have seen me as the “cool teacher” because I gave out snacks or allowed them to bring drinks, but have you ever tried to concentrate when you were hungry? It’s darn near impossible. I know that when I was flexible with the rules when I could, my students were more willing to listen when I said that there was a rule that we couldn’t stretch. Again, this goes back to the conditions that create a good learning environment for our students.

When we strive to see our role as a teacher as being the leader of children and then take that leadership role as a learning opportunity, we are bound to create better conditions for learning for all our students. In turn, those conditions will impact how your students remember you. If you are currently struggling with behavior in your classroom, maybe take a moment to reflect on what you might be able to do differently with that child. Are you looking at things in a black and white, right and wrong format? Could you try to find the gray areas that always lie in the middle, and then bend the rules a little bit because you know it’s what your student(s) need? As the leader in a classroom, that is well within your rights. I always try to remind teachers that they probably know far more about their students than I could ever hope to know, so if they want to try something outside of the box with a student, I’m almost always game!

What are your thoughts on the connection between teaching and leading? How might that impact what you do in your classroom moving forward?