How Do You Stay Motivated?

Photo by rosipaw used under a Creative Commons license

I am a K-12 educational technology specialist, but due to the nature of my job duties, I go through long
stretches where I do not have direct interaction with classroom teachers or students. My office is in an administrative building, not on a school campus. Often, I am working on district initiatives, such as supporting the use of iPads in classrooms or planning for staff development. Or I am researching solutions to technology needs our administrative staff have.

I find when I've been too long away from working with teachers and students I begin to lose momentum. When I am not in regular contact with the front lines of teaching and learning, I start to question what my purpose is and whether or not I am making a difference.

The good news is, I find that almost any opportunity I get to help teachers and/or students re-energizes me. Being with them for a training or learning event fills my tank and renews my understanding that the things I do in the background really do matter.

If you are in a position like mine, where you support teaching and learning but have to go through periods where direct interaction with your "customers" is minimal, do you have similar experiences? If so, what do you do to stay motivated?

If you are in a position where you are regularly engaged with teachers and/or students, what advice might you have for someone like me? How can I know if what I am doing is truly helping you and your students?

I appreciate anyone who takes time to share their ideas in the comments section below. :-)



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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Remember and Reflect on Your High Calling

Credit goes to Vicki Davis, the Cool Cat Teacher, for inspiring me to write this post. She posted the video below to her own blog this morning, and although I had seen it in the past, I was encouraged to revisit it. I'm so very glad I did, too. As someone who does not work directly with students very often, I need reminders like this to keep me mindful of why I do what I do and help me "keep on keepin' on" during tough or discouraging times.

I think this video is a very timely reminder in the States where we have just begun the second half of the school year. We've just come off of a bit of a break, but now we begin the push into high-stakes standardized testing season. Here in Texas, the stakes are even higher this year because our school ratings will stand for the next two years as our state testing system undergoes a dramatic revision. Adding to the stress right now are stories of the looming Texas state budget shortfall and school districts who are already making plans to reduce their teaching forces in the coming school year.

In multiple ways, it's a tough time to be an educator.

It's times like these when we need to remember why we are educators and why we got into education. We need to remember our students aren't just statistics on the next round of tests and our colleagues can be resources whom we can lean on. We need to remember, too, that every member of the school community - students, teachers, administrators, support staff - needs to encourage their peers as well as one another.

We need to remember our high calling.

Many of you here in the U.S. are off today in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Whether or not you are from the U.S. or you worked today, take five minutes to relax and refresh with the video below and allow it to recenter your focus on what is important.