Teaching Middle School ELA
Welcome to the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast, where we are dedicated to helping English Language Arts teachers create dynamic and engaging lessons for their students, while also managing the day-to-day responsibilities that come with being a Middle School ELA teacher.
As educators ourselves, we understand the challenges of finding a work-life balance that allows us to pursue our passion for teaching while also enjoying our personal lives. That's why each Tuesday, hosts Caitlin Mitchell and Jessica Cannata share practical and innovative solutions for managing your workload and staying inspired in your teaching practice.
Whether you are looking for fresh ideas to inspire your students, strategies for improving your writing instruction, or tips for managing your time more effectively, this podcast is designed to provide you with the tools you need to thrive as a Middle School ELA teacher.
Join us each week for curriculum and lesson ideas, classroom stories, and interviews with fellow educators who are experts in the field. We believe that with the right support and resources, you can create a classroom environment that encourages students to become strong and passionate learners.
If you teach reading and writing to middle schoolers and want to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in ELA education, then this is the podcast for you! Tune in every week and let us help you make a difference in the lives of your students and in your own teaching career.
Teaching Middle School ELA
Monday Mindset: Lessons
What if every challenge you faced was actually a hidden opportunity for growth? In this Monday Mindset episode, I uncover how adopting a transformative mindset can turn any experience—whether uplifting or daunting—into a valuable lesson.
By shifting your perspective and asking, "What is this trying to teach me?" you can build resilience, take control of your reactions, and master your journey. I also highlight the power of staying open-minded and ready to learn from unexpected sources, using these insights to make better decisions and foster personal growth. Tune in for practical tips to incorporate this mindset into your daily life and become the best version of yourself.
Here's to another day of intentional living!
Well, hello teachers, and welcome to your Monday Mindset podcast episode. These are short, little snippets of thoughts, reflections that I share with you on a weekly basis, that are focused around mindset things that we can do to live our best lives, to live an intentional life, and I invite you to not just listen to these for yourself and how they apply to you in your life, but consider sharing them with other people too. Consider sharing them with your students every Monday and having a conversation about it and doing a reflection together, because I think a lot of these thoughts, these topics, these questions are just a part of being human, and sometimes being human can feel lonely and to know that other people are struggling through some of the same challenges that you are and are benefiting from having these types of conversations is hugely powerful in allowing us to get to be the best version of ourselves, to take who we are and who we be and who we show up in the world as to that next level. So I really hope that you enjoy these Monday mindsets and, if you do, let us know over on our Instagram at Evie academics. Thanks so much for listening and let's dive into our Monday mindset. Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to another Monday mindset. Today we are diving into a powerful mindset that can transform the way that you approach your life, as always. But I love this one so much because I use it all the time and hopefully, after this episode, you will start to use this kind of mindset shift all the time as well and that is the belief that there is a lesson in everything. Like there's a lesson in everything, and sometimes most of the time, when things don't go our way, it's actually so much better for us because we're learning the lesson. One of my mentors always says you're going to get what you want or the lesson that you need. You're going to get what you want or the lesson that you need. Oh my gosh. So what if you started viewing every single experience, good or bad, as an opportunity to learn and grow? And so today we're going to talk about how this idea can really be used to elevate your life.
Speaker 1:As we all know I said this to my son today, actually on the way to a birthday party like life will always continue to happen there are going to be bad days, there are going to be good days, there are going to be just mediocre days and to kind of frame this up for you. We're on our way to his friend's birthday party that he does not want to go to. It's a mud party and he doesn't want to get dirty, sounds very much like his mother and he just did not want to go to this birthday party. And he kind of always has a hard time whenever there's something new that he is nervous about. He just doesn't want to go and he just shuts down. And so one of the things I said to him which is hard to teach this, obviously, to a seven-year-old and in my mind I just want to be like but come on, just understand it. And also I'm like he's seven and hopefully at some point he'll pick up on the lessons that I'm trying to teach him. But I just said to him like look bud, like there are always going to be birthday parties, there are always going to be events, there is always going to be school All of these things are always going to happen, and so you get to decide how you want to go into that experience. You know that's a choice is do I? I want to have a bad attitude? This isn't how I said it to him, but really do I want to have a bad attitude as I go into this, or do I want to have a bad attitude around difficult experience? That's up to you. That is 100% on your decision.
Speaker 1:And I think because of that the fact that life is hard sometimes, the fact that life is great sometimes, or whatever we're so much a kind of puppet to our circumstances as opposed to really sitting in the driver's seat and being the creator of our lives, because sometimes things are not going to go the way that we expect them to. Sometimes they're not going to go the way that we want them to, and it can be very, very easy to go to the place of feeling frustrated, feeling disappointed, feeling angry, whatever emotion comes up to you when you're faced with challenges or faced with setbacks, or faced with things not going the way that you want them to go, and I think that we can absolutely feel those emotions, but then we get to decide how we're going to approach the situation from there. So what if, instead, we started asking ourselves you know, what is this trying to teach me? So what I find myself doing and hopefully this will be helpful for you is, when I'm faced with something difficult, with a life change or even something not going my way. I'm like what is the lesson I'm supposed to be learning? So, instead of going to like disappointment immediately, I go to like self-discovery. Right, so I? It can be really helpful, this mindset, for helping you build resilience. And when you approach life with the belief that every experience has something to teach you, you inherently start to become more adaptable and your capacity and your capability of handling whatever comes your way just inherently increases. So challenges just in and of themselves become less overwhelming, because now you see them as opportunities rather than setbacks.
Speaker 1:The thing that I love, too, about asking this question is let's say that the same thing continues to happen to me again and again, and again and again. Let's say I continue, just as an example, to hurt my shoulder doing whatever I don't know at the gym, and I just continue to have this shoulder injury, shoulder injury, shoulder injury. And as opposed to being like, oh, my shoulder always gets injured, I'm now asking myself what am I not paying attention to? What lesson am I supposed to be learning here? That it feels like I just continue to get hit with like a boulder by the universe or anything that you believe in or don't believe in, but like something is trying to get me to pay attention. So when I keep having the same thing pop up over and over and over again, it is a wake up call, like I'm clearly missing the lesson that I'm supposed to be learning from this.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I love about approaching life with this question of what is this trying to teach me, or what lesson am I supposed to be learning, is that it really fosters that personal growth within yourself from exactly what I just shared. So when you're open to learning from your own experiences, you have so much more self-awareness. You're not a victim to what's happening to you. Instead, you're constantly evolving and improving. So it's like, if I don't get the thing that I want, what is it about me that needs to change in order to get the thing that I want? So like I'm inherently just growing. I'm gaining new insights, I'm developing new skills, I'm becoming so much more self-aware, and that continuous growth really is a key to just living a fulfilling and meaningful life.
Speaker 1:The last thing that I'll say about this that I love about believing that there's a lesson in everything is that it really can bring just peace and acceptance into your life, like when you trust that there is a purpose behind every single experience. It is so much easier to let go of resentment and frustration and anger and all of those things because you can take a step back and you can start to see like a bigger picture and you can understand that the difficult moments have value. In fact, they might be more valuable as a part of your upgrade into the next identity of yourself. So how can you start to actually put this into practice, to embrace this idea that there's a lesson in everything? So I want to give you a few different strategies that can help you cultivate this mindset.
Speaker 1:So number one is just reflection, to really reflect on your own experiences. So at the end of each day, you could take time to reflect on the day's events, everything that came up for yourself, and just ask you know, what did I learn from today? What went awry, um in in today's experience of life? Right, and what lesson am I maybe supposed to be paying attention to? Or at less than, am I maybe supposed to be paying attention to, or at less than am I maybe supposed to be learning through that difficult experience? And you can even go back through like other experiences in your life that might serve you in this capacity and journaling. I don't do this, but journaling can be a great way to process your thoughts and uncover those lessons hidden in your experiences.
Speaker 1:You know I don't journal on a daily basis. I journal typically when I'll go to like a business retreat or something like that. And when I do journal it's like, oh my gosh, I am so tapped into my intuition of what I needed to hear that I knew inside my soul, inside my heart, but I wasn't able to bring it into like my present reality. Right. So one reflect Two embrace challenges. So, instead of avoiding or resisting challenges, approach them with the curiosity of you know, what is this going to teach me? What can this teach me? How will I use this as an opportunity to become better? And that shift in perspective can really help you see challenges as just these valuable learning opportunities. You know, one of the things that I say to myself when I'm in a difficult spot is you know, the only way to it is through it. And the only way to it right is through the lessons that I'm learning when I'm in the fire, right, when it's that very difficult time that I'm just in it, right. There are lots of things happening in my life right now, personally, and one of the things that I just have been dealing with and I'm like, oh, this is meant to teach me patience, like this is meant to teach me patience and compassion. And so it's like, okay, universe or whatever you believe in, source, god or nothing, self right, like I'm. Clearly I need to work on this part of myself still. I still have so much growth and patience and compassion and this is giving me an opportunity to work on that. So embrace challenges.
Speaker 1:Number three practice gratitude. Even in difficult situations, try to find something to be grateful for. Gratitude can help you recognize the positive aspect of your experiences and then the lessons that they bring. So it's about finding that silver lining. People always say that all the time, but, gosh, they say it for a reason, right? For those of you who don't know, I'm going through a separation right now and I keep trying to sit with gratitude. I'm like, gosh, I have so much to still be thankful for, right, and I sit at night every night, I close my eyes and I just name all of the things that I'm so thankful for in this moment in time.
Speaker 1:Number four is to stay open-minded. Be willing to accept that lessons might really come from unexpected places. Sometimes that is where the most profound insights come from, is from situations where we least expect them. So if you keep an open mind and you're ready to learn from anyone and anything and always be a student, you're going to receive just beautiful lessons from life on a consistent basis. And then the last one is you got to apply what you learn right. Learning these lessons is only valuable if you actually put them into practice. So take the lessons that you've learned and apply them to your life. Use them to make better decisions, to improve your relationships, to help you grow as a person.
Speaker 1:So I really, really hope that this concept is helpful for you, that there are lessons everywhere, all of the time, and if the same thing keeps happening to you over and over and over and over again, there is a lesson that you are just maybe not open and willing quite yet to receive, and maybe that's the opportunity to really start to pay attention. What is this experience trying to teach me right now? Because it can be so easy. Trust me, like I said, some of the things that I'm dealing with right now it's like oh my God, I'm so frustrated. Right, and take a step back 30,000 foot view of my life. What is this trying to teach me? How is this helping me become a better me? All right, you guys. Here's to another great week of living intentionally.