What Does It Mean To Be An Intentional Teacher?

Ready set go......

List 10 things as quickly as you can that we do as teachers in our classroom:

We are nurses

Counselors

Grades

Lesson Planning

Calling Home

Stopping kids from arguing

Cleaning up messes

Erasing things from books

Meetings

Lecturing

Let me count real fast.  Yup that was 10 things.  So here is the question of the 10 things you wrote down how many do you actually plan for and how many of them are connected to your overall goal for your classroom.  Let me explain. 

When I first started teaching I had this idea that my days would be filled with inspiring students to love history and that they would be hanging on my every word.  

That was 20 years ago and I know now that was just some crazy fantasy.  What I quickly realized was that most of my day was putting out fires and everything I had planned never came to be.  I was reacting more then I was implementing.  

And once I finally got my classroom management under control I then realized my lessons were just as chaotic as my classroom.  I did not have an over arching goal for my class or my lessons and more often than not my lessons were disorganized.  

In my latest video I share what it means to be an intentional teacher and what that looks like in my classroom.  

To watch the video click on the image above.