October 24, 2024

Dear Educator,

Research has shown that this is the hardest part of the year for new teachers and is often called the disillusionment phase. What many don’t realize is that this phase doesn’t go away after your first year of teaching or when you become an administrator (or run an education organization).

After six to eight weeks, the newness of the year wears off, the work gets messy, and we navigate the complexity of change. It is common to question commitment and feel worn down, but we must remember it is a common part of the process.

I want to acknowledge that it’s ok and even normal to feel this way, which is why this week I want to highlight the importance of checking in and making space for connection to bring out the best in all of us.

With Gratitude,

Creating Space to Be Our Best Selves

At LCC, we follow a simple principle: Connection before content. It shows up in many ways—internal meetings, how we design conference sessions, and coaching work with partners (just to name a few). I connected with our Learner-Centered Innovators this week for our monthly collaboration and we did a “Best of Me” Connector. I find this activity powerful when working with new teams, but it can also be a great opportunity to go deeper with existing teams and give permission and space to share what people need to be the best version of themselves.

While doing this activity, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Crossing the Unknown Seas by David Whyte: “You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest?…The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”

When the days get hard, I have found connecting with those who lift me up and push me to be better is well worth the investment. Educators are busy with life and work, and, no doubt, plates are full. But when we connect with others to engage, learn, and grow, we can be filled with a sense of “wholeheartedness.”

How do you keep your energy up during this time of year or other times when it's easy to lose momentum? Share your story here.

Resources to advance your learner-centered practice

📖 The Power of Student Voice: My Journey on the D11 District Accountability Committee. "...I took the floor and, using the example of my younger brother, let the 15 adults around me know what the data they were looking at was missing: the lived experience of students like myself." Read Carissa's Story.

👩‍💻 NEWLY UPDATED: Project-Based Learning Online Course. "Join our Project-Based Learning Course and learn how to design learning experiences that connect your learners to meaningful challenges in their community and beyond." Enroll in our PBL course today.

🖥️ RECORDING: Creating Coherence and Aligning Systems Towards a Learner-Centered Vision. "You're going to have to decide whether you're going to tinker or you're going to transform. If you're going to tinker, that's about reform. And typically, when people are doing that, it will revert back to what's comfortable. So one of the things we did is we committed to a system tear down and a system rebuild. So we've committed to transformation." Watch here.