Transcript

Hello listeners. We are excited to BLaST the Airwaves with you today and provide educational solutions for all. My name is Rebecca Gibboney and I am the Curriculum and Online Learning Specialist here at BLaST Intermediate Unit 17. I am thrilled to welcome you to this episode of BLaST the Airwaves.

Give up on perfection. Focus on growth.

I said it. Give up on perfection. Focus on growth.

That statement was probably hard for you to hear. Hard to swallow. I’ll admit it. It was hard for me to hear, to understand, to grasp and it still is. As an educator, I strive for perfection (and I know, that is both good and bad). But, I have learned that I need to learn to let perfection go and give myself permission to grow.

My teacher heart has been aching lately. I live in a world with educators. My family and friends are comprised of educators, my workplace echoes with teacher talk, and most times, my evening consists of something education. It swallows me and I every part about that! That is not what gives me heartache. No. My heart aches as I watch educators growing weary and I listen to sobs of exhaustion and frustration. They all have something in common…they cannot let go of perfection. They are stuck on what worked last year and the year before that. They are stuck in the old normal, but there is nothing normal about today and there won’t be anything normal about tomorrow. It’s time to let go of perfection.

Hear me out, allow yourself to grow. Embrace the change, the new, the unknown. Fail for the fun of it so you can improve tomorrow. It’s okay to not be perfect. Perfection is stagnant. Perfection is exhausting. Perfection…does not exist. In this game we are playing right now, all we can do is focus on becoming better tomorrow. How do we do that? We start by giving up the perfection and move towards growth. We design meaningful learning experiences for one another to learn and grow together.

Whether you are a 30-year teacher or a first-year teacher, we fall back in love with our art. Our art of teaching. We refine pedagogies, focus on best practices with a different perspective, and change. We change into what our students need and what we also need. We pivot with the times.

Your pedagogies, your instructional practices, they must evolve with the times. What worked last year, may work this year; but, more than likely, it will need to be adjusted in one way or another. Fisher, Frey, and Hattie explain an instructional framework that suits best for distance learning as a pinwheel. Picture it.

In the center of that pinwheel is the purpose or the intention of the lesson. It goes back to teacher clarity and it drives your lesson. It makes your pinwheel go! The blades of the wheel that spin around the purpose, the aspects of your lesson, all need to be considered as you plan for distance learning. These blades, representing demonstrating, collaborating, coaching, and facilitating, and practicing, all need to be strategically placed within your lesson and tied to your purpose.

These are the aspects in which we grow as educators. Collaborating looks different from in-person to hybrid to remote. So does practice. As does demonstrating and so on. We have to refine our skills, our art.

In the upcoming episodes, we will be diving into specific pedagogies that support these skills. We will be building off of what you did and thinking about taking a new approach.

We will learn.
We will grow.
We will embrace imperfection.

We would like to thank you for blasting the airwaves with us today. If you like the show, please subscribe or leave a review. If you want to know more. Check out www.iu17.org for further resources and show notes. As always, we want to thank you for what you do every single day. Remember, keep shining. We’ll be back next episodes to provide you another educational solution for all as we continue to transform lives and communities through educational services.

Additional/Suggested resources mentioned in the episode:

The Distance Learning Playbook by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie

BLaST Intermediate Unit 17 – www.iu17.org 

Professional Learning Opportunities at BLaST IU 17 – https://www.iu17.org/professional-learning/ 

Find BLaST the Airwaves on: