Where Does Your Confidence Come From? Hooray for Monday

August 23, 2021

By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching

Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

Regular readers know of my obsession with Alan Alda’s podcast Clear+Vivid, the greatest tutorial I have found on how to be an effective communicator. At the end of each episode, guests are invited to answer some quick questions about communication. One of those questions is, “Where does your confidence come from?”

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question, and what my answer would be. Thoughtful planning and preparation would surely be on the list. So would age – half a century of learning from success and failure has taught me a lot and given me the confidence to keep putting myself out there and keep on learning. And, then there are the people who raised me. My parents, other elders in my family, and some caring teachers – these people believed in me. They interacted with me in a way that showed they thought I was capable of making decisions, navigating difficulty, and doing things that matter.

Preparation, reflection, and connection with people who instill confidence: these three ideas can lead to simple action steps we can all take to bolster our confidence during this challenging year.

Thorough preparation. Crafting a detailed, thoughtful, and thought-through plan for each lesson frees you up to listen to, and be responsive to, the needs and ideas of your students. When you start from this place of clarity, you’re able to recalibrate your plans in the moment to respond with confidence – not only to student input but also to external inputs like changes in public and school safety measures.
Focused reflection. Recalling your personal successes and failures and the lessons that go with them connects you with your personal wisdom. Whether you’re looking back and examining decades of classroom experience, your first or second year of teaching, or even your own experience as a student, there’s a wealth of knowledge in your personal journey. And that personal wisdom can inspire confidence as you navigate both the knowns and unknowns of this school year.
Connection to personal history. Remember the people who believe in you. Remember the times you proved to yourself that you were capable of doing hard things. And keep in mind that you are part of the personal history of your students. When you engage with students in a way that shows you have confidence in them, you let them know their minds are capable and their ideas are important. And you spark the continued growth of their confidence.

There’s a lot going on right now that can zap our confidence: concerns about the physical safety of our students and ourselves, unknowns about how and where we’ll teach as the school year progresses, and other factors that can make us feel shaky about getting our in-person teaching sea legs back.

So it’s worth spending time pinpointing the places where our confidence comes from. Tracking the path of our own confidence will not only keep us grounded, it will also set us up to teach our students to find, and build, their own confidence – while they are in our classrooms this year, and long after they move on.

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.