The move to online and distance learning has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions, feelings, and actions. I have simultaneously felt like I am not doing enough, and then in another moment, I am trying to tackle all of the things to make myself feel better, more productive. I am asking myself,

“Are you reading enough?”

“Are you writing enough?”

“Are you thinking enough about what matters? The work that has to be done when we go back?”

“Are you sleeping?”

All of these are check-ins with normal routines and behavior. However, we aren’t in a normal routine or behavior mode. This is something different. I have noticed that many of my first reactions to emails, news feeds, blog posts, and videos about distance learning come with “knee-jerk” reactions that make me feel well,...like a jerk. I started last week working purposefully to get myself out of negative reactions immediately, and then focus on the positive aspects of all situations.

During the course of the past month, I have watched other teachers and people in education take on distance learning with full force. What teachers are doing is powerful. The expectations and protocols to move online and the variances from district-to-district are also stifling. Some are being asked to do too much, other teachers not as much. The moral compass of all of this begs the question, what is right in all of this? My answer would be whatever is best for children and creates a positive response in both you and your online classroom. This blog post outlines how to use your journal to shift to positivity, and it uses many negative reactions as writing prompts to get you thinking about your own mindset.

Sometimes we need to make our own positivity.

...Her concepts of the growth mindset and fixed mindset were not new, but the way they were phrased was profound and interesting to the English educator giving feedback. I initially keyed in on the type of feedback I was giving students. I wanted to make sure I said more than "good job." I was also saying things like, "I love the way you added detail" and "great job revising your paper" to give specific feedback. This idea of rewards and feedback was just one single aspect of growth mindset studies; it does not capture the entire picture. The best way to describe growth mindset is how you build new pathways to learning...without giving up. I have adopted this mantra with the teaching of writing.  I mean...my blog is called writing MINDSET after all. How we think about teaching, writing, and learning. This is what matters. It would be negligent to not discuss growth mindset in my practice as it has directly impacted how I think about teaching outside of the classroom in meaningful and significant ways