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In the author's final note, she references "the most politically fragile, volatile, and terrifying time period of her life." I share those same feelings and thought about that exact thing as I read many of the chapters. As we were reading about how to be a resilient teacher, I also tried to take each chapter and put it into context of my personal life to see how and where I could grow and change. Without getting on a political high horse, our world can be a scary place right now. Needing strategies to be resilient is completely essential. I am so glad our community has supported the movement of emotions since I was little. Never did I ever have a counselor or any teacher come into my classrooms and talk to us about emotions the way our district does now. I think it is so great for our kids to learn about themselves in this way. I really appreciated this book and it definitely has given me a lot to think about! I plan on passing it on to our assistant principal, who is always looking for a good professional book recommendation. :)

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I think the biggest take-away from this chapter was that appreciation should be shown all year long. Why do I wait until the end of the year to get my para a thank you gift? Why do I wait until a holiday or birthday to show my colleagues how much they mean to me? I teach my students about acts of kindness and how a random act of kindness could make someone’s day when they need it most. I need to remember to slow down and show my appreciation in the little moments throughout the year. May/June definitely feel like a month long celebration (especially when standardized testing is over) but what if more of the school year were to feel that way? Showing my gratitude toward my students, their families, colleagues, etc. is so important for relationship building and that is what I am all about. I am going to make it a goal of mine to do a better job of putting in the time to show my gratitude for others and celebrate the small stuff all year long.

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After reading all the chapters and thinking of a conclusion there is too much to conclude on. What I know is I need to learn the meaning and the words of emotions. I need to coin phrases to my own children so they can understand what they are feeling and talk about it. Mostly the good feelings, but also the angry and frustrated types of emotions. I feel I am an emotional illiterate person. It was either happy, sad, or angry. I don' think my parents, teachers, or my friends ever talked about emotions. I must not have paid attention when we did learn them. If someone did talk about emotions it was always a negative connotations associated with the emotion. He is so emotional! What does that mean and what message is that sending to our kids? I need to do a vocabulary unit for myself to start to understand the emotions. The shame factor really started to hit home with me. I think I didn't try to do many things in life because of shame. Shame of being different, not succeeding, or having a positive outlook to try things. The shame section in the later chapters really hit home with me. It taught me I have no idea about how to talk about emotions. Time to learn. It might help me with my stress level to build resilience which is what this book is all about.

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The chapter was about the culmination of something worth sharing.  To celebrate is to share really with people in your circle and also to show the community I did something. I think back to how I view and maybe still view accomplishments.  Through reading this chapter I have a negative thought process when it comes to celebrations. I view most celebrations as now something else to have to do.  I viewed high school graduation as, now I get to study more difficult things in college, graduate from college all the fun is over, real life is starting.  Anyway the examples I am giving are finally making sense that as I achieve more levels of success I have a fear for the future.  I viewed these things as now more work to get done.  I have started to enjoy the process (learning and teaching) and try to be in the moments more.  I will try to celebrate more with my students in the classroom.  I do stay positive in the classroom and always say thanks to kids.  No matter what the positive is I try to acknowledge it.  If a student has not brought their book to class for 8 days in a row, the day they bring it I say thanks for bringing your book. I try to give up the control and the benefit of the doubt to kids, some of their lives are difficult. I have started to understand if I think and act like this in the classroom, the students start to model it and are thankful to their classmates.  Not always but a lot better than a yelling, no, no, no my way highway, type teaching style.

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This chapter seems to sum up a lot of what is going on with teachers and how they deal with the year. Change has been something I didn't understand, I was always optimistic about the overall outcome but would take the change personally. I would try to find what I did to get switched blocks, asked to be the lead of the group, asked to switch the way I teach. Then I discovered my own kids and my family dynamic was changing daily. My wife is good with change and can let go of all stuff that goes with change. I started to think, change is really a process and it wasn't that I didn't want to change I didn't want to go through the process. Camping with children really helped be realize how much change can happen and no matter how much you plan for possible outcomes during camping it doesn't always go as planned. I liked the story about the farmer and all that is happening to him and his family. I like his "maybe" comment about everything. You never know what might happen so always need to adapt to the situation. I have always had that same "maybe" thinking but people are starting to think I am pessimistic about things. I say "it could have been worse" and people are thinking I am always negative. Is this negative thinking?

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Play has been a topic I have discussed with many teachers during my science teaching time.  I have had the debate over weather to teach kids to play science or do science.  I know that I have to let the students design their own projects at times.  I need to let them socialize and work together, but how do I just let them play?  I have found some middle ground on this.  I recently worked with a new teacher from the elementary school and this teacher really got me to better understand the difference in play.  This teacher taught me that the kids just need to move around the room, and do little activities.  She was so right and got me to understand the first lab day is just play and mistakes, the second and third day just are focused play time. This has really helped me let go of the control of the kids not following along and now they are able to make mistakes and learn for themselves rather than hear it from the teacher.

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I would have to really agree with the author on this topic.  As students in college I felt I was always focusing on the content of my subject.  I really didn't think the art of teaching would really have much as an effect as a strong content.  I was in similar classes as pre-med majors so I really felt pressure to "understand" the topics.  Looking back I did want to learn, but never understood learning.  We had some psychology on learning and Maslow theory and Ericksson model of development, but I have never seen the ladder of conscious competence.  I know teachers can't paint pictures for every student, but I really wish I would have learned some basic science behind learning.  I was a Life Science Biology major and never really got on this track of learning.  I have really started to want to understand and read about feelings, thoughts, learning styles, and how to connect all this into hope for my kids in my classroom.  I don't think they think of themselves as lifelong learners.

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The buzz word this year and last year has been community for me. I have taken classes, read books, and now taking another class that a main chapter is about community. Community is really what we are all after, we want to fit in somewhere at all times. People want to be good citizens but don't really know how to. Compassion can really bring everyone together, teacher to teacher, student to student, and teacher to student. What I do know will not work is to expect kids to have compassion for you just because you are there teacher. A teacher needs to show compassion so the kids can let their fences down and trust the teacher. Then the kids will start to have compassion for one another.

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Change is maybe the area I have grown in the most during my ten years of teaching. I went from teaching first grade for two years, to third grade for five years, to fourth grade for two years, and now back to third grade for the past year. This has taken place in two different districts and was spent in a total of six different classrooms. And guess what? I have never dealt well with change, until I had no other choice. Change is inevitable and the change I have experienced has helped me grow more than I ever knew was possible. There were many days when I found out another big change was on the way and I just wanted to scream but now looking back, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The experiences I have had have helped shape me into the teacher I am. I learned a lot about what is in my control and what is not. Some of the change I have been through has been self inflicted and some has not. I have learned to save my energy when needed and accept change for what it is. I now look at it as an opportunity for growth. When I read the section about Leading Change, I kept thinking about the change our district has been and is going through. There will likely be another referendum this fall for an elementary building solution. For many reasons this is a controversial topic in our town. “Fear and the threat of shame are limited tools.” -pg 279. I found this statement powerful. Thinking about the upcoming challenges, this will be important to remember. Although fear and threat may bring people together, it generally doesn’t last for long. We need to keep the longevity of our district and the big picture in the forefront of our priorities as we move through this process.

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I recently attended an “Outdoor Nature Play” conference within our community and it was a great reminder to let our kids be kids. Sometimes, well many times, I feel like our society grows kids up too fast. No matter what age you teach, it is so important to provide opportunities for creativity and open discussion. People of any age do not benefit much from being treated like little robots. Play and creativity is where the memories are made for children. Yes, academics are obviously crucial but when we reach the last day of school and I have my students reflect on some of their favorite memories, they rarely revolve around curriculum.

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I have said for a long time now that I wish I had loved learning back in high school as much as I love to learn now. I had other priorities then. I was a three-sport athlete and being close with my friends was everything to me then. I always did my school work, studied and got good grades but I never felt joyful or inspired while doing it. I did it because I knew I had to. When it came to learning something new, I will fully admit I had a fixed mindset. If I didn’t acquire a new skill rather quickly or even instantly, I became frustrated and wanted to quit. Luckily I have overcome that part of my type A personality but it was a struggle for a long time. That is why I appreciated the Conscious Competence Ladder framework. The way the logic is laid out makes total sense. I was working on wording it to how a five year old might understand it because I see my same old tendencies in her already. She definitely acquired my type A and gets frustrated when she has to work at something. I am glad I am able to recognize the fixed mindset and have some strategies on how I may be able to help her. The other part of this chapter that really hit home with me is managing my time. Especially in the summer, it can be difficult. Going from being a full time teacher to a full time mom is both a blessing and a curse (lightly stated). I love every extra minute I get with my girls but it is also difficult to transition into a new routine. I feel like by the time we finally have our new routine down, it is almost time for school to start again and then the cycle starts all over again. The bold words “stop multitasking” were very important for me to see. Guilty!

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There are good things going in everyone's classroom, but man are they hard to see day in day out.  I have been on a long journey to try to understand why kids can't understand procedures in my class.  I have tried many different ways and have had some success but then I find another problem to focus on. This chapter has taught me that there are good things going on in my class, I just might not see it all the time.  I could use an extra pair of eyes like Misha got from Elena Aguilar.  Sometimes I only focus on the negative which paralyzes all the positives going on in my class.  I think I need to write a list of what is going well each week. I can then use that list to trick my mind into thinking more positively.

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After reading this chapter I have a better understanding of what the areas of self care are. I have always know about sleep, healthy diet, and exercise. What I didn't know or think about is connections and actual physical touch. I don't consider seeking talking to people as part of my own self care but now it really makes sense. I really do crave talking with people once I don't have those connections. I am going to have to think about getting more sun also, need that vitamin D. I really think this touching piece is real. There are a few people at my work that do this consistently in a good way, and I really have remembered these encounters. I also just took a different class this summer that really talks about the lack of touching the kids do in high school. Some kids have reported not being touched in 5 years. I was really taken back by this. Now to actually start this process. I need a plan and a habit loop for this self-care to stick.

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Mindfulness is really a way to live by that will help in all parts of ones life. If I have more calm at school I should have more energy for my own kids and wife. If I can help serve students better I might be able to have more meaningful conversations with coworkers. I will understand why I feel the way I feel about some kids and parents. I will be able to have my classroom set up for more success using mindfulness. I have not done any meditation but have thought about using more redirecting in my classroom. I think the story of Mrs. K about having mindfulness and not reacting but redirecting is a great way to keep kids focused. I was taught this redirection technique by my wife with our children. When ever our kids want something or want to do something my wife will redirect them and never say no. So I tried this in my classroom and it has really worked. Also a long time ago I realized that there are many funny moments in teaching and a teacher has to use humor. I try to use it as much as I can, and most kids don't catch on to my humor right away, but with time they are laughing with me!

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I will openly admit that one of my biggest faults is filling my plate more and more to the point of becoming completely overwhelmed. I have a hard time saying no so I tend to overdue it until I reach my breaking point. This generally happens in the Jan-March time frame each school year. Each year I give myself the pep talk and tell myself I am not going to get wrapped up in the chaos but I always do. I know I need to find a better way to manage my stress, and learn to say no, when I become overwhelmed. This chapter was again therapeutic for me. The section on hitting my internal pause button was exactly what I needed to hear. With all of the hats I wear, I am guilty of not taking a moment to breath at times. It is important for me to be "in the moment", not just for me but for my loved ones and students too. I think I need to approach stress with a growth mindset just as I preach to my students to approach learning with a growth mindset. One of my biggest take-aways was the line "Slow down, sit down, learn to calm, and watch your own mind, and then get up and transform your school." It sounds so simple but slowing down and taking time to clear my mind are two tasks I have not learned to do well YET. :)

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This chapter really hit it home by stating it again and again that it is natural for us as humans to want a sense of belonging and respect. This translates straight into the classroom for students and educators. One of my all time biggest goals each year is to build a classroom community. I do this in a variety of ways but at the beginning of the year it starts out with teambuilding, hands-on activities. We continue getting to know each other and building that trust through our morning meetings and SEL. Our personalities shine and we get to know each other's backgrounds in those moments. I am a firm believer that building a classroom community is the foundation for so many things to be able flow well for the rest of the year. Preventing certain behaviors, building friendships, and fostering motivation are just a few of the benefits I see come out of building that community in my classroom. We work on simple things such as body language or how this chapter discussed good listening and communication skills. In our morning meetings is where I like to address conflict with our "problem jar". The action planned described as "hit the brakes" in this chapter reminds me a lot of our Second Step calming strategies. 1) stop 2) name your feeling 3) calm down. Then you are ready to react to a situation. I think all of this can then be rolled into a discussion on leadership and good role models. They are definitely a big part of building our classroom community.

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There were many meaningful and powerful points made in this chapter. One of the biggest take-aways for me was "If you want to shift the way you feel, you must shift the way you think. Our stories are our thought and we can craft thoughts that serve us." Those words really spoke to me and I like how the author stated it as our words serve us. It is true... what we say becomes who we are in the eyes of others. I think the only way to learn this is through experience. With our fast-paced, high-stress job, it is easy to let our emotions get the best of us at times. Sometimes we speak from a place of emotional stress. Instead, we need to go through the steps of reflecting on where our words are coming from and why. Also, who do they affect? Once those angles have been considered, the steps of storytelling can begin. I myself am often guilty of the distorted thought of emotional reasoning. (At least my husband would say so.) I also tend to be stubborn so when the author described this form of storytelling, I knew right away this is something I need to work on.

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Building community is a large topic but I seem to always think it is so easy.  Kids and teachers should be a part of groups, committees, go to parks, and play on teams right?  I think I thought it was this easy, but really building community is about each individual understanding their place in the community or how they add to the culture.  Are the people adding to the toxic and gossip or are the people trying to have healthy conflict with people.  I could pick 5 other parts of building community to talk about, but I really didn't think about community this way before. The individual has a lot more stake than I had figured before.

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After reading chapter 3 so many good and bad memories about teaching started to fire in my picture generating part of my brain. Teaching has a mixture of pros and cons but most of the cons are mental fixed mindsets. I struggle with this kind of mindset everyday. I have time periods that I swing from telling good stories to telling or only talking about the bad students. So, hopefully I can swing my stories all to the optimist side. After reading the optimism questions or statements I can answer yes to a lot of the beginning questions. Some examples are look at the big picture, see opportunity in adversity, search for root causes, look for solutions and don' t complain. These are the optimistic questions or statement I said yes to. Here are the questions or statements I am close to mastering, 1. Enjoy the journey and see everything as part of the journey, 2. recognize struggles are outside them, ARE TEMPORARY, 3. use positive self talk, 4. Let go and forgive. The four questions or statements are so close to mastery I think this book will get me over the top on these. I have tried to avoid negative people all my life, but sometime misery needs company. So I am realizing I need to latch on to the positive people in order to change my story. Good info in this chapter and very close and personal, which I am working to improve, and now I found purpose because of this chapter.

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I have started to read self help books to try to be more understanding of my emotions and also the emotions of my own children.  I have learned so much the past two years that I feel so undeserved in emotional training in my own schooling.  I really think this chapter is the basis where most teachers start their own path to their own stories. If teachers don't understand why they are frustrated in teaching or at specific students then they start to blame anything and everyone. I started down this path 5 years ago but quickly understood it was how I was not dealing with the problem.  I was the problem, my emotions were changed due to my lack of sleep with our new child.  I used the books I read about emotions and habits to start to understand how I can make a difference.  This chapter really goes in depth with the emotion cycle.  I will especially use the burnout button- exercise, sleep, time off, and all this leads to building resilience.  Also the part about body language is something I have never tried to look for in people or look at my own.  I have thought about IEP meetings though and have used those to try to be as nonreactive in all meetings like the special education people are in their meetings.  Another tip I learned from the book is to use the anger, don't let it control you.  Growth is what we are all after so any info on SEL curriculum a teacher can get across in the classroom is a great bonus to the kids we are teaching!

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This chapter was good therapy for me. I found the six events of emotions to be very relatable. I will be the first to admit that I am as patient as can be with children but I have a hard time being patient with adults. Therefore, the “action” stage is something I can relate to. It doesn’t happen often but the example of sending of an email in the heat of an emotion has happened to me before. It doesn’t feel good when you realize you acted in the moment and should have given yourself time to think about it.
I also really appreciated the section on how different cultures interpret and accept emotions. This is such important knowledge for us as educators to have about our students.
I feel fortunate our school allows our counselors to come into our class once a week to teach our SEL curriculum, Second Step. The counselors teach our kids to 1) stop 2) name your feelings 3) calm down. This reminds me a lot of the emotional intelligences described in this chapter. If you pause and identify your own feelings, you will naturally be able to be in better control of your response to a certain situation. This is so important for kids to learn at a young age! I am a huge fan of SEL in elementary classrooms. I do my best to squeeze as much SEL and Growth Mindset into my morning meetings as I can. I understand how important it is for students to identify their own emotions but I am curious how important it is for third graders to report their emotions to me? This is something I did more frequently as the first grade age but for some reason got away from when I moved up to third grade. I talk a lot about our feelings and emotions but might need to get back to doing emotion check-ins with my students.

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Teaching the first few years really taught me that I have to review what I do daily, monthly, and then yearly for my overall purpose in teaching.  I used to write the most detailed lesson plans because we didn't have a book when I first started teaching.  Talk about a curriculum nightmare, but we got through it by taking the steps to be successful.  I then found out that detailed lesson plans were great but I never could really get my class to do what I wanted them to do in Science labs.  I found out that I was doing everything wrong and not giving enough responsibility to the kids.  I then was able to have some procedures set up in class to help students follow along better in class.  I discuss this because I needed to understand my teaching and my perceptions of the class like chapter one tells us.  I needed to find what I was doing wrong, and most teachers and people don't do this.  The book talks about how peoples perceptions don't really change from childhood, well an educator has to change or the profession and kids will get the better of the teacher. Another example of resilience would be to understand the overall problem and have a solution to the problem.  Like chapter one says our mental and physical values, or beliefs really have to be consistent to our beliefs or people can be trusted.  I feel administration always has to have the answers and it is ok to not have the answers.  I would like to better conversations about our problems in our school.  I think most teachers understand the overall problems in the classroom, but creating a habit to make change in the most difficult part I believe.  I know what I need to change, but sometime can't get there because I need to understand how my sociopolitical identity has been effecting my pedagogy of my classroom.  I am guessing that will be talked about later!!

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Introduction- I guess after reading the introduction to the book the only way to help teachers is to help themselves.  I feel this is what is happening and what has happened to me as an educator.  I have finally felt like I can handle what is thrown at me in the classroom, but I can't handle all the other stuff that goes with teaching.  I can't control the hallways, or the busy and disruptive bathrooms by my classroom, the teachers that complain about everything and don't ever put in extra time to change, or all our budget reductions,  but maybe I can.  The author really lays out the education profession and why it is do difficult to succeed, year in and year out personally.  If I have extra time and energy to try to succeed then maybe our Science department, grade levels, and school could change our attitudes and habits to help the culture in our buildings.  If this were the case then more people might put in the extra time to coach, attend local educational meetings such as school board, the teachers might want to have a staff meeting to discuss items to make our overall stress level decrease.  Nobody likes a toxic work environment, especially when the classroom is difficult enough to deal with.

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My biggest take away from this chapter is that resilience happens by the way we think and from what we do. Our thoughts and actions about ourselves directly impact our level of resilience. It was a good reminder to read that positive thoughts equate to a positive reaction. Being honest with yourself and staying reflective are two keys to be effective for the people around you. Sometimes the greatest way to get to know yourself is to put yourself out there. Being vulnerable helps create self-confidence and courage. That is the basis for that whole saying, "what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger."
Finding your purpose in your career requires some consistent reflecting. This section got me thinking about connection to a TED talk I heard one time. There were some key things truly happy people could identify with because they knew their purpose. I can't remember them all in order but the ones I do remember and stuck out to me were they knew who they were, what they did, why they did it, and what they personally got out of helping others. I think that can be related to the facts in this section and teaching in general.
Finally, I appreciated reading about the reliability we should all carry in our lives. Not only is it important to be reliable for others, it is important to have reliable people for yourself.

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Wow, this book is already speaking to me. I instantly could identify with that moment Aguilar was describing as she spoke about cultivating resiliency. It is that moment my heart starts beating a little faster and I am mentally telling myself to take a deep breath before responding to a given situation. I am naturally a processor and have trained my brain with "wait time" before responding to a situation. I can see how this creates resilience. I thought the author's statement was powerful about it is HOW we interpret a situation that creates an opportunity for resilience.
Another section I appreciated is the 3-ring focus on a healthy teaching environment. So many times I have heard how important it is to keep yourself mentally healthy but I appreciated Aguilar's honestly about school's unable to make a change unless the organizational and systematic conditions are healthy too. After working in two different districts, I can see the substantial difference in climate. Leadership and administration make such a difference in the way teachers operate on a daily basis. This is a fact I have grown to appreciate more and more.
I found the conceptual framework both accurate and alarming. It appears that so many things need to be in place have a less-stressful career. Just as soon as an educator finds their rhythm and comfort at school, something could come up in their personal life and throw everything off again. What is important is staying reflective and giving yourself opportunities to yet again become resilient.