Friday, August 23, 2013

Why Change?

Welcome to Instructional Fitness, Beth and I hope this blog helps inspire you to try new and creative ways to teach your students. Teachers are busy people.  We are parents, spouses, friends, caretakers, and much more.  We don't always have time to search for resources or plan for hours. We created this blog to serve as a resource to help teachers stay current in education.

You may also be wondering why this blog is entitled Instructional Fitness and what it has to do with education?  Let's think of how education and fitness are related.

How many of you rely on your old workout routines when trying to get back in shape?  I know I always start with walking and slowly begin to pick up the pace to a jog and eventually a run. I love knowing exactly what to expect, how long it will take and being in charge of my own routine. Running has been my passion for the last 15 years, but lately I started noticing that I'm getting bored, my knees are starting to ache (yes I'm getting older) and I am not getting the same satisfaction from running that I once did. Sure I feel better than if I was just laying around watching Bravo TV and eating ice cream, but am I really challenging my body or myself?  I think it's time to step out of my comfort zone and try a new routine. I still plan to run, but I also hope to try a little yoga, weight lifting and maybe even Zumba (this is way out of my comfort zone.. just ask my husband about my dance moves). My hope is that if I step out of my comfort zone, I will feel stronger and let's face it, my knees will last longer too!

You may still be thinking, how does this relate to education? Well, how many of you rely on last years lesson plans when planning for the start of the new school year?

Beth and I know we did.  We may have changed up themes or certain routines in our classrooms, but ultimately we used the same tools to teach year after year. It worked, our students showed growth and we felt confident in what we were teaching. But did we really push our students or ourselves to the next level? Did we challenge ourselves to try new teaching methods or did we find ourselves in a routine that we didn't feel needed to change?

Teaching is hard work, we come in early, stay late and work nights and weekends to plan the perfect lesson. Once we find what works we feel great, as we should, so we stick with it, after all we spent hours on hours organizing, creating and planning and the students loved it. Yes, success! So why change? The same reason we need to change up our work out routine, to stretch ourselves and our students further, to learn, grow and ultimately to give our students what they deserve, an education that isn't stagnate but one that is filled with excitement, challenges, and new opportunities to learn.

As with all new things we try, if we want to really see ourselves grow we have to be willing to take risk.  We may make mistakes, but if we don't try...will we really ever grow?  Our goal with this blog is to provide you with tools that help you to keep your instruction fit.