By Liz Fox, Collaborative Teacher We all know that feeling in August (July?) when school supplies sections pop up everywhere, reminding us that another academic year is impending. This year felt different. What will this school year be like? How do I navigate these feelings of being overwhelmed and unprepared after the challenges we faced during the pandemic? As I wrestled with these questions, we received a letter from Mr. Lane welcoming us back to the 21-22 school year. He included a story by Stephen Covey about a man trying to saw down a tree. When this man was asked if he should sharpen his saw, he replied that he was too busy sawing to do so. Mr. Lane not only hoped we had “sharpened our saw” over the summer but also encouraged us to do so as the new school year began.
Two months later, one of my favorite bloggers, Dave Stuart, wrote about the concept of satisficing. He explains and gives credit to this strange word in this way: “It's Nobel winner Herbert Simon's. It means, ‘Doing something at the good-enough level, not the optimal level.’ Few skills are as critical to the well-lived teacher's life.” This stopped me dead in my tracks. I take pride in the amount of time, effort, and attention to detail I spend as a teacher. I, like so many of you, stay after school for many hours beyond our contract day, and then I go home and work some more. But I have noticed that sometimes my input doesn’t lead to the results I expect from my students. Enter satisficing. It was time for me to realize that just because my evenings and weekends are relatively free, spending hours and hours on planning, assessing, and more planning wasn’t necessarily productive for me or for my students. The concept of satisficing–albeit more authentic in theory than practice–was beginning to help me lead a more balanced life. I often agonize over lesson plans, making small adjustments and wholesale changes in hopes to meet student needs (and, unfortunately, frustrating those with whom I work). Satisficing has allowed me to–as hard as it is–let go of ruminating over every decision I make. I’m not perfect by any means, but learning how to “sharpen my saw” has led to more clarity and efficiency. Another blogpost by the same author reinforced my ideas. Doing a better job analyzing my inputs and outputs has allowed me to take stock of the times I was using and/or creating lessons that weren’t as helpful as I first thought they might be. Teaching has been quite a challenging journey this year, making the successes in and out of the classroom feel more precious than ever. I’m guessing I’m not alone in realizing feelings of burnout were creeping into my psyche. Reading a post entitled “Mechanics of Teacher Burnout” helped me get back on track. I have tried to take this advice: “The first priority, in my view, is depressurizing the self. This one's the most within my control and is the easiest to modify, and it enables me to do the harder work of workload simplification. The second priority, then, is making my workload behave—workload simplification, so that I can focus on what matters most.” Sounds like a good way to sharpen my saw.
4 Comments
Stephanie Radloff
3/16/2022 10:17:16 am
Thank you for sharing! This is just what I needed to read and know I'm not alone with feelings of being burnout and that it's an issue for many of us.
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Sarah Zbornik
3/16/2022 12:43:32 pm
Satisficing -- brilliant information. Thanks for the post, Liz!
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Jenn DeLaRosa
3/17/2022 07:06:56 am
I appreciate how the first step is acceptance. It reminds me of "acknowledgement." I believe if you can accept or acknowledge, you can begin!
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Carole E Sand
3/17/2022 12:37:47 pm
I've also been working on the "inputs and outputs" balance. My goal now is to give feedback to students in the middle of projects to steer them as they are learning and practicing new skills. At the end, I score the rubric and provide some positive comments. I make notes of skills they didn't master and provide additional instruction on those at a later time when they (and I!) are fresh. Thanks for the insightful post!
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