The Learners Snuggery Weekly Digest

How is Teaching like Running a Business?

Things teacher-authors/ business owners struggle with.

by Tawanna on February 08

Teachers are amazingly hard workers, but so are small business owners. Teacher-authors and small business owners are CEOs of bottom-up companies with no business typically with little to no experience at all. I am amazed by any small business entrepreneur.  Amazed by how they learn on the go, all while making their businesses successful. Kudos to all CEOs of small and medium-sized companies! Kudos to those in my position: Teacher-Author!

Needless to say, it is difficult to get a business up and running these days without a brick-and-mortar store or handheld goods without technological know-how. Teachers have some expertise in technology given the number of tools, tailoring, and detailing that are needed to make a functioning lesson or unit plan.  However, it is the same process for running a small business. We need extensive lesson plans, calendars and bulletin board posts, even social media posts for some of us. Running a classroom can be just like running a sale for your store. I think for some teacher-authors it’s easier for us to treat our businesses like a unit plan or a classroom. You have a set number of weeks to get a task done, a list to do in order with plenty of details to make sure that the transfer of information is clear and concise.  All ending in a culminating project: the product, a sale, the stores opening. Even then with months of planning, it may still be necessary for revisions, see previous post, Work: It’s Hard for more information. All in all, I a Teacher-authors might be better prepared for running a small business than I initially thought. Who woulda thunk it?

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Work: It's Hard

  

Work: It's Hard

    Lately, I tried launching my teaching business: The Learners Snuggery on the website Teachers pay Teachers (a great website). The website has a lot of resources, but I noticed a lack of lesson plans for more, controversial or obscure topics. Some topics included social-emotional learning for children with other emotional behaviors, race topics, language difficulties; you know the type of stuff that is already hard to teach normally. I thought I would create a few lesson plan overviews for ideas on how to create their detailed lesson plans. The idea was to empower educators to make their own choices in how to teach said controversial topics. 

    What I had not anticipated was 1. No one knew or understood my bare-bones overviews. 2. Giving a person who is already struggling with a difficult topic carte blanche is not helpful. 3. The best thing is to include as much information as possible, and then let the person tweak the lesson to their liking afterward.  

I now need to revamp everything that I have put together for launch, was ready to launch, or need to relaunch on the website. Personally, for me, that is a lot of hard work gone and coming. I knew it was going to be hard work to get a viable and profitable store up and running. However, never have I questioned my lessons plans or abilities to prepare educational materials in the past as I always had others to bounce ideas off of. The constant thought I have is am I was also a questionable teacher? This is my current struggle, the actual Hard work. I need to Work on myself as a classroom educator; that is no longer in the classroom and in need of that reconnection, is it true that saying about losing it if you don't use it?

    Have I lost it, and if so, how do I get it back? I think this is not only a personal struggle but also a struggle for other educators who are trying to adjust to the new climate of hybrid teaching. I am looking for some feedback via this blog post. Please check out the store to get your free phone wallpaper and comment back. I am looking for a garden amongst the weeds to learn how to be keep growing during the hard times.

Just the Bit Extra

 

The Frizz By Tawanna 

Ode to the"Magic School Bus"

Oh to be young again when all one had to do was just watch television, go to school, and come home to finish homework. These days the just enough is not enough. Everything requires "Just the bit Extra."  This new year, as it encroaches upon us, is no different. COVID-19, and its multiple variations, are making us work a bit harder. Our students are forced to pull their weight more, both emotionally, and intellectually. It is hard to just be oneself and say: Yes I am enough. But like, the FRIZZ, who always manages to bring that little bit more so brilliantly, so cleanly, I say she figured it out. Whether it was in her outfit, or the field trip, or leaving the students to problem solve, the FRIZZ she figured out what level of MORE was in fact enough. It is difficult for us as educators, or parents, and just as people to feel like we are doing enough. What is often forgotten is maybe we did enough for someone else and that was all the was needed. That bit extra may not be for us as adults but for the children, adolescents, and strugglers in our lives. So my lesson learned from the FRIZZ this year: BE as MUCH as you can TODAY Just the BIT EXTRA.

Changing our Teacher Mindset

 Changing the Teacher Mind Set

    As educators, we often begin planning our lessons with the activities in mind and not the objectives of studies. Asking ourselves what we are trying to teach our students might help us determine our actions. Listening to our student's interests and concerns will guide us in our teachings but requires a change in our mindset and our thought patterns. I have been reading up again on UbD, Understanding by Design which teaches instructional planning from the lesson objectives to the activities, in other words, backward.

    First, we figure out what we want to teach, our outputs. Then what the students are interested in to gain that understanding and lastly the best activities, inputs for those Outputs. The students are still our focus, but our questions are all student and objectives-based. For instance, I want my Second language learners to become more proficient in reading English; this is my new output or goal, the whole point of my lesson. My second step is to figure out what will engage my students in helping me do this.

    Looking to my students will assist me in answering all my input and questions, letting them have the best possible setup for success in this lesson. My students' current interests are video games, one in particular. Ding light bulb moment, let's gear my activity to replicate this as much as possible in this game. Now the hard part is the why? Why do my students need to know more about reading English? The easy answer is because it is everywhere, and we need it for testing. However, students don't care about this. Returning to the game idea gives it a story intro tie your output to your input; your protagonist needs to defeat the new boss who he can't understand and only speaks with words that must be read. Read the sentences with precision and deal a blow to the big boss more words right the higher the damage dealt. Simple. You have your input activity right there. Get those authentic texts to read, gaming articles, comics, alphabet soup cans, whatever your students want, and read on for English literacy proficiency. 

    Your teacher's mind has also learned a new thing. Our activities aren't ours to make and plan they are our students' own. The more involved the students are, the more they understand and retain. Retention, knowledge, and understanding are the true goal of all lessons.

Snuggle on, Snugglers!

Welcome to the Snuggery

Hello, fellow Snugglers,

     Welcome to the Snuggery! We are so glad to have you here! We appreciate your visiting our teachers' store and hanging with us here on the Blog. As a young company, we aim to please and reach as many like-minded people as possible. Each Snuggery update will include a list of new products from the store and some information, maybe even some inspiration on what sparked them. 

    As a monthly, perhaps random bi-weekly Newsletter, it is essential to point out that we are well-educated teacher professionals with too many ideas for our day jobs and too little time to get them into the classroom. We created the Snuggery for those who want education to be equitable and not just equal. We want our students to have access to all types of materials, ideas, and fun programs without meeting particular guidelines to get them. We are a "no fence around the ballpark" thinker. Equity for all! 

    However, with all our love for our students, there may be times our students' disadvantages spark a lesson or an activity as we teach differentiated learning. This means that our students may need more or less information and assistance to complete a task. We must try to reach all types of learners. 

   

 We welcome you again to the Snuggery, and please be on the lookout for more fun activities for students, teachers, and parents.

PS Snuggery means Cozy and Warm as we are here ready to educate warmly and wholeheartedly.

New Items at The Learners Snuggery

1.    Poppies phone Wall Paper

2.    Be Simply You Skull Wall Paper

3.    Two Languages Lesson Plan Overview with Easel activity

4.     Printable Classroom Schedules

5.    Lesson Evaluation included with wallpapers