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For Your Head: Personal Mission Statements

From Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom, Kristin Souers

In her chapter, "Cement Shoes: Staying True to Who You Are", Kristin Souers (Fostering Resilient Learners) talks about the importance of self-awareness and the value of articulating your mission as a teacher. By engaging in such reflection, you are better equipped to remain grounded and centered on the things that are most important to you, especially during times when students are most challenging. She says, "We are most likely to make mistakes or say things we regret when we venture away from our sense of self." She uses the image of cement shoes as a way to speak about "staying true to your ideals, integrity, vision, beliefs and self."

One way to define your 'cement shoes' - your core values and beliefs as a teacher - and to help keep them on your feet, is to develop a personal mission statemet. Souers says, "When we get a clear understanding of what our mission is, it becomes easier for us to stay true to it. Our mission clarifies our core values, our unifying purpose - our true north. When we stay grounded in our truth, we not only serve as a role model for those students who are just setting out to define themselves but also will be less likely to compromise our integrity."

Here are just some of the benefits Souers notes of such a practice:

• rededicates us to our work
• reaffirms our inner selves
• helps us define our trigger points, areas of contention
• provides something tangible for us to hold on to and reflect on
• offers a way to get back on course when we feel we've our way

As you work to construct your own personal mission statement, Souers provides some suggestions & questions. She offers them as 'jumping-off' points and says that you may be able to recognize some over-arching themes emerge as you reflect on the questions. As you work to articulate your cement shoes, the things that drive you, draft and revise as you see fit - and as often as necessary.

• think about how you'd like to be seen and interpreted.
• if your students were to give you a tribute speech, what would you want it to include?
• how would you like to be described by your students?
• consider your awareness of self and how you can align that knowledge with how you act in your job.
• what do you love?
• why did you choose this profession?
• why do you continue to come to work every day?
• whom do you seek out as a partner in your career/life?
• what is your inspiration behind teaching?
• where do you lead others?
• what would you like to accomplish in your career/life?
• what do you believe about students?
• what are three core values that are important to you?
• what three words would you like others to use to describe you at your retirement dinner?

For Your Hands: Student-Led Classroom Vision Statements

From How Student-Led Vision Statements Can Nurture School Community, by Nimah Gobir ()

As we move closer to the end of first semester, it may be a good time to lay the groundwork for a strong start to second semester. Engaging students in discussions about the type of community and classroom that would allow them to thrive, could be a great place to start. In this article from Mind/Shift, you'll get one teacher's experience with guiding students through a process of developing a class vision statement and some really useful insight on the process. I'm including a few excerpts below, but click on the link at the bottom for the full article.

"...In recent years, fifth grade teacher Jess Lifshitz has used the co-creation of vision statements with her students to set expectations and get ahead of behavior, while creating the kind of school community they want. This has meant letting go of some of her power by including students in the process of setting expectations.

" 'The statement itself is a statement of the type of classroom that we want to work towards every day,' says Lifshitz, who teaches at Meadowbrook Elementary School in Illinois. 'We might not all contribute to that vision in the same way, but we're heading in the same direction.' Co-creating a class vision with her students also gave Lifshitz the opportunity to build relationships and get to know her learners in a way that’s easy to overlook at the start of the school year.

"...Lifshitz started the process by discussing the ways behavior impacts one’s community. By focusing on the community, the onus is on the classroom as a collective, instead of individual compliance with the teacher’s demands. 'One is really asking a child to fall in line, to follow my rules [and] to give up who you are because I said this is the way you should be, versus ‘I need you to make a shift or your community needs you to make a shift so we can all figure out how to coexist together so we can be successful.’ '

"There is a fear that given the agency to set classroom guidelines, students won’t take them seriously, like demanding everyday to be ice cream day or asking to install a classroom water slide. However, according to Lifshitz, students come up with thoughtful ways to coexist in the classroom alongside their classmates with the right scaffolding.

"...To make more room for authentic collaboration, Lifshitz began to start the school year with a conversation about rules. She wanted learners to think critically about how rules work in the world outside of their school, where rules come from and why we might choose to follow them or not follow them. She gives students prompts to think through as a class while she takes notes of the questions and comments that come up during the discussion. First, students are asked to define a rule. Next, she’ll ask students if they should follow rules. Then, she’ll ask why students need to follow rules.

"...When they deliberate on the next question, she says there’s a shift in the room: Are there other rules that treat people unfairly?...'From there, we then shift to this idea that maybe what we need is a vision that allows us all to thrive. That shifts us to this conversation around creating a class vision statement.' "

For Your Heart: How to Write a Mission Statement That Doesn't Suck (Dan Heath)

Dan Heath, author (Switch, Made to Stick)