After several years as a teacher in the public sector, I noticed myself and many of my colleagues were having difficulty maintaining a positive attitude at work. Generally, the school year would start off on a positive note, but after weeks of dealing with difficult students and other demands of the job, most of us would fall victim to low energy, a generally negative outlook, and were ultimately holding on for dear life until the end of each semester. Instead of continuing in this survivalist mindset, I decided to make a positive out of the situation and do something about it...write.
In schools throughout America, students are causing most of their teacher's undue stress which leads to chaos within classrooms and hallways. Teachers constantly complain about their student's behavior and their parent's lack of discipline or accountability.
When constantly focused on themselves, their evaluations, and students' test scores, teachers typically get stressed out and can lose sight of the impact their energy has on students' behavior, good or bad. What's often overlooked is that the problems teachers face may not always stem from external forces, like students' behavior, but rather it's most likely due to the chaos inside their own head!
Situations in life can easily get the best of us, and instead of continuing to complain about my experiences at work, I chose to write about them in hopes of finding practical solutions. Through that process I was able to focus on my own development while finding the peace of mind I had been lacking at the start of my teaching career. Hopefully, what I attempt to articulate in this book can penetrate the hearts of not only teachers and parents but anyone who's looking to improve their life.
Three groups of people-Teachers, Parents, and Students-are used to present universal challenges that everyone faces, no matter your life circumstance...
From the perspective of an American educator, The Future is Watching uses the tapestry of the public school system to provide a real-life take on common challenges, behavior patterns, and mindsets that are often developed when life happens, as well as practical solutions to breaking free from one's self-imposed limitations.
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