While we were gone over the break, I stumbled on this post about teachers who resist change. I was hoping it might give me some ideas for how to help teachers who are concerned about our shift to 1:1 next year. I don't know that I would say that we have teachers in the district who are resistant to change, but I know that some are more excited about it than others, which is probably par for the course. But I wanted to share my own thoughts about this to hopefully help everyone feel at ease (or even be super excited) about being a 1:1 district next year!
The article says that it appears that teachers who resist change fall into 1 of 4 categories:
- Those who resist change because they're not comfortable with their administrators
- Those who resist change because they don't have enough confidence in themselves
- Those who resist change because it is so much work
- Those who resist change because they just don't want to change
I've found myself at any given point in my career in any 1 of these 4 camps.
I've worked with admins in the past whose ideas I resisted simply because I didn't like who came up with the ideas. Sometimes the ideas really were lousy, but sometimes they were good and I was having a hard time separating the idea from the person. The way I manage to overcome this is to find a neutral third party to talk with. Often that person can help me see the idea for what it is rather than for who it's from, and this helps me embrace the change more easily.
I personally fight the lack of confidence in myself on a daily basis. I have this really great job that I really do love, yet when I find myself in the company of people who are so much better than I am at certain things, I can feel threatened and insecure and want to give up. I can come up with a great idea for something but sabotage myself by telling myself that it's too much for me and I'm not good enough to do it. What I do when I am feeling insecure or lack confidence is let other people push me right out of my comfort zone. I am surrounded by coworkers, family, and friends who tell me I CAN do the things I want to do -- I'm strong enough, I'm smart enough, and the hold me accountable. I don't want to let those people down, so whatever new thing I am trying to do, well, I step right off that high dive and do it.
Since I am a lazy person at my core, resisting change because it's just too much work is another constant battle for me. What I have to do to combat this is be focused on others. This new change -- will it be a good thing for the kids in this district? How about for the teachers? How excited will everyone be when this happens? What new things will happen once we do this? The answers to those questions are what push me to get moving and tackle the changes rather than let someone else do all the hard work (liking things done MY way helps with this, too).
As far as just not wanting to change, well, I'm pretty fortunate that at the times I've felt like just coasting for the rest of my career, they've been just phases, slumps. It's normal to feel like you just don't want to do anything new, like what you're doing is fine and there's no need to change things up. After all, we teachers ARE only human. The catch is that once you're in a slump like this, you don't stay there. Again, here I rely on others to help me. I find people that I can whine and gripe to, but then I try to remember why I became a teacher (it's actually because of a really awful teacher I had in high school -- but that's a whole other story) and that draws me out of my slump.
So it looks to me like the common thread that keeps me pushing forward though change after change is people -- people who support me, people who count on me, people who have high expectations for me.
So my challenge to you is to do some soul searching. We are almost done with this school year -- our first full year using Google. The first year we rolled out a LOT of new devices. How do you feel? Knowing it's going to be another big shift next year with a device in every kid's hands, how do you feel? I hope you're excited. I hope you're looking forward to keeping up that growth mindset. I hope what you've experienced this year gives you the confidence to do ever more next year. But if you're not feeling all that excited, if you're feeling anxious or even downright hostile, I hope you can pinpoint the source of your concern and then, if it's something that I can help with, come to me. We can plan lessons together, we can troubleshoot things together, we can find resources for you and your students. If not me, then hopefully there are others you can talk to -- building levels techs, other teachers in your building. Find the people who can help you be comfortable with change and then we can all enjoy the ride!
Great post Renee!
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