Rekindling Your Inspiration as a Teacher

What was it that most inspired you to enter the teaching profession? What did it feel like? When else do you feel that feeling? Has that feeling of inspiration for your teaching diminished over time?

As you consider your answers to these questions, consider what we know about inspiration: It’s not automatically consistent over time, it can be renewed by sparks we create or experience, and inspiration is contagious—students and colleagues can catch it from us!

In speaking with teachers whose inspiration has flagged at times, I have noticed that some feel more hopeful than others. It turns out that those who are hopeful are those that believe their inspiration can be renewed; others feel as if diminishment of their inspiration is a loss they can’t recover from. This may remind you of a growth versus fixed mindset, and it should. We can indeed become re-inspired, sometimes even more strongly than ever.

For example, filmmaker Steven Spielberg reports being inspired in his career by seeing the movie Lawrence of Arabia. When he questioned his inspiration at times, he found it renewed and strengthened by seeing David Lean’s innovative film. His thought was, “That movie just uplifted me… and got me excited about making movies someday.” As educators, we don’t know what specific experiences will be inspiring to us. It’s essential, though, that we be open to that inspiration and allow it to re-energize us.

Connect With Inspiring Colleagues and Students

Reflect for a moment on individuals you find inspiring. How do they inspire you? How do you experience them? If you are like most others, you probably find that not only their ideas, but their emotions and body language supercharge you. You come away feeling and thinking differently. You may have noticed this from colleagues, and you may be aware of students responding to you with similar inspiration.

I worked in one middle school where the implementation of a new social and emotional learning (SEL) and character development program, MOSAIC, fostered student engagement and discussions about their sense of positive purpose. Two key elements of the program opened up new windows of student-teacher relationships.

The first was an emphasis on leadership, where student ambassadors were elected to the Student Council from each homeroom. The second was that students engaged in an intervention process leading up to writing and sharing essays about their sense of positive purpose. The program led three teachers to be so inspired by their new interactions with students that they pulled back their retirement papers. In many ways, this is the jackpot we hope to hit as educators.

Another element of inspiration is being part of a mutually inspiring group. This can be a classroom of students, or it can be your colleagues in a school. Consider this old story about President John F. Kennedy. He was touring the NASA space center and met with three employees. He asked each of them what they did. The first, a scientist, said, “I do the calculations required to ensure that the spacecraft enters and leaves orbit.” The second, a mission control manager, said, “I make sure members of all teams are at their stations and attentive to all communication.” The third, a janitor, said, “I am helping to put a man on the moon.”

Inspiration of the kind that helps us plow through repetitive or seemingly pointless tasks often comes from understanding our “why.” This is fostered in any work group by initially having a discussion about what we are here to accomplish together.

Help Students Understand Why Learning Is Important

It’s empowering for students, especially in secondary grades, to verbalize why they are in class in a way that isn’t defined narrowly by learning their subject area. More salient, and inspiring, to them is what they are in class to accomplish. Are they there to develop their career potential? To learn things that will enable them to help others?

In Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, New Jersey, students participated in a closed-circuit television station that broadcast students teaching various subject areas to members of the community. That was one of their main purposes—to learn so that they could teach. They developed strong social and emotional skills and character not only by preparing and delivering the lessons but also by taking responsibility for creating the broadcast.

Seek to Innovate

Allison Holzer, Sandra Spataro, and Jen Grace Baron, in their book, Dare to Inspire, present what may seem like a counterintuitive approach to rekindling inspiration. In a word: innovate. Find a new way to do something familiar. Bring something into your teaching that you haven’t done before. For example, check out some SEL-focused ways to engage your students in classroom participation and discussion, such as yes-no-maybe, pair-share before group sharing, jigsaws, and similar active learning experiences. Bring your hobby into your teaching—theater arts, music, painting, woodworking, model-making, whatever feels right to you.

Reflect on 5 Key Questions

Finally, there are some questions you can ask yourself that will help kindle your spirit of inspiration.

1. What core values do I feel should characterize my classrooms, and how do I communicate those effectively to my students, so that they become guides for how we live together for 180 school days each year?
2. What parts of my role as a teacher are most fulfilling? How can I make sure that engaging in these parts of my role is a priority?
3. What do I most want students to learn from me? How do I want to inspire them? Why?
4. To whom do I turn when facing challenges or setbacks? Are there people I used to turn to in education that I might seek out once again? Are there people outside the field of education who are fans of mine and might provide me with useful perspectives? What is keeping me from reaching out to these sources of support?
5. Who in the education field still inspires me? How can I connect with them and their approaches, via video or written work, or live? What possibilities are there for regular mutual support meetings, either live or via video chat?

As noted earlier, none of these are one-and-done solutions. Inspiration will fluctuate, and we have to be ready with active steps to reclaim it. Keep these questions close for when you might need them.