Hello everyone! For the last few years, I have made new year resolutions for teachers episodes. I find it a great way to reset, refocus, and share some ideas with you all, one to one. It helps me stay focused, and many of you have reached out to say you appreciate these as well.

2020 resolutions can be found here. 

2021 resolutions can be found here. 

This year, it seems like we have all at once, much of the same and more chaos all at once. What’s the solution to it? How do we manage so much of what we can’t control with what we want and need to get done? What should we focus on as educators?

I have some thoughts. Let me know if you agree or disagree.

2022 resolutions for teachers:

1. Check fear at the door. We can no longer make decisions based on fear. 
   
   • Fear of Covid 
     
   • Fear of change 
     
   • Fear of failure
     
   • Fear of judgment
     
   • Fear of not fitting in
     
   • Fear of Sundays
     
   
   
2. Re-align with yourself and understand yourself. 
   
3. Humanize how you interact with others in your class, school, and community at large.
   
4. Fight for what you believe is right, but do it within reason and evidence.
   

This episode is sponsored by Heinemann—the leading publisher of professional books and resources for educators—and their professional book, Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices by Lorena Escoto Germán.

With Culturally Sustaining Practice as its foundation, Textured Teaching helps secondary teachers stop wondering and guessing how to implement teaching and learning that leads to social justice.  Lorena Germán shares her framework for creating a classroom environment that is highly rigorous and engaging, and that reflects the core traits of Textured Teaching: student-driven and community-centered, interdisciplinary, experiential, and flexible.  The actionable strategies Lorena uses to bring Textured Teaching values to life illuminate what is possible when we welcome all types of texts, all types of voices, and all forms of expression into the classroom.

Learn more about how to become a culturally sustaining educator. Visit Heinemann.com to download a sample from Textured Teaching.