Proactive vs. Reactive

So what does it mean to be a proactive teacher?

Let's start by defining "proactive". When you are proactive, you plan in advance. You take initiative. You make things happen. That's as opposed to being reactive, where you wait for things to happen and react.

What do the these two different mindsets look like in the classroom? Let's take planning for example. It's Sunday night...around 8 pm. You are staring at a blank plan book for your next week. You start saying to yourself, "I hate having to write plans! It's such a intrusion on my weekend!" Now you are in a bad mood and, not only still have plans to write, but will probably have the worst attitude during the process.  Are you in a proactive or reactive mindset?  Reactive of course. But I think most of us have been there at least once in our teaching career. The fact that we have waited until the last minute causes us to blame external causes.

Okay, so what does that situation look like when you are proactive? It's still Sunday night at 8pm. But instead of looking at a blank plan book you are looking at...plans! You knew you had a busy weekend ahead so last week you mapped out doing a little bit of your plans each day or during large blocks of time. All you need to do now is maybe finalize a few things and plan out your day tomorrow, or a list of copies you need to make in the morning. Is this idealistic? No, I don't think so. Is it what my life looks like every Sunday night at 8pm? No, not yet. But it's my goal, so I'm taking steps in the right direction.

You see, it's all about mindset. I can sit and stew about the fact that I have work to do over the weekend and place my annoyance about that on external factors. Or, I can take control of the situation. I spent too long being frustrated by that tired weekend feeling and an empty plan book.

Maybe you are WAY more organized than me and have been planning ahead for years. But I will write this just in case you are like me and you are juggling many work and home issues and find yourself too often having a hard time having a chance to catch your breath. If that is you, please keep reading.

It's a process to change a mindset. I've been in the process of a work mindset-sift for a couple of years now. I wanted to change my mindset about work stress and have more work-life balance. My first step in that direction was someone introducing me to Angela Watson and her resources. Her book "Awakened" and becoming a member of the 40 Hour Teacher Work Week Club were career changing for me, if not life changing. If you'd like to learn more about Angela and her resources, click here.

As I started making changes that she recommended, I began to find I had more time to breathe, and think more thoughtfully about my instruction. It's a process, and I'm still growing, but I'm excited to share some things that have helped if it will help you too.

One big change for me is unit planning as opposed to planning for a week. I have a little one at home, so big blocks of planning time are hard. But, when I can, I take my scope and sequence for a unit and plan the whole thing out. That way, my mind isn't jumping from subject to subject and I can think more "big picture" about the topic at hand.

Unit planning is just one way to be more proactive. What have you done to take more control of your lesson planning time? Please share.