The tip I want to look at today is finding your “why” or finding your purpose. It is absolutely crucial that you know why you do what you do in the classroom so that you can effectively manage behavior even on the days when things feel like they are out of control.

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We are going to be looking at discovering your why or finding your purpose as a teacher but before we get into it I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by the Behavior Management Blueprint. This is my FREE e-book on the five key essentials of classroom management and it also comes with a free mini video course as well. You can download that by clicking the link at the end of the blog.

So firstly, when we look at our purpose, why is it even necessary to have a why ? Why should you even bother finding your purpose ? This is what I found with behaviour management; teaching is a stressful profession, there are good days and there are bad days. There are days when you do not want to get out of bed, there are nights when you can not go to sleep because you are imagining what happened that day or what might come the next day. There are days when you have confrontations with peers or with your students that make you feel less than and that make you feel like quitting, or that make you feel like you are no good at teaching.That is the reality of not only teaching but life. We all have bad days, we all have days when things do not turn out the way that we expected them to.

1. There will be bad days so your “Why” has to be more than just your pay cheque. 

So the first thing I want you to understand about finding your purpose as a teacher, especially if you want to effectively manage behavior, is this, you are going to have bad days. When you manage the behavior of children who come from a broad range of diverse family backgrounds and upbringings you are going to have days when they clash with you. Their value system or the way that they look at the world clashes with the way that you look at the world and you can come away feeling pretty discouraged about it; however, if you understand your purpose as a teacher, if you understand your why, you will be able to rise above those days that make you feel like quitting. 

You have got to understand that your “Why?” or purpose for being a teacher needs to be bigger than just financial reasons. You cannot be teaching just for money. I personally believe that in Australia, teachers get paid quite well. That is not always the case in other countries but at least here finance is not something that teachers have to worry about as much. However at the same time, I do not think you should be teaching just because of the money or just because of the holidays or just because of the way that the school system is structured. You need to have something more than tangible reward attached to why you are teaching because there will be a day that comes, if you have not had it already where you truly imagine yourself doing something else and where you ask yourself,  “Why am I a teacher?” What is the point of coming to this school or to this classroom day after day ? We all have that moment. If you have not had it already, you will probably have it more than once during your teaching career but there has got to be a reason that you come to school. There has got to be a reason that is bigger than financial reward because when that day comes, no amount of money will be a good enough reason to stay. 

If you are going to effectively manage children, especially their dysfunctional behavior, the money is not enough to deal with say, Jared who lost his mind, threw a desk across the classroom and called you every name under the sun. You have got to have another reason to get back to school the next day. You have got to have another reason to really be able to face that kind of behavior and still give them your best every day, so your “Why” is not about financial or tangible reward.

2. Your purpose needs to be bigger than individuals

The second thing is this, your purpose needs to be bigger than individuals. You can not say I am doing it because of my family or I am doing it because of my children or whoever it is you might be doing it for. Sometimes we attach the importance of what we do to other people. What if you are doing it for the kids in your classroom ? People are going to disappoint you and let you down, the people that we put our trust in, the people that keep us going will one day give us reason to doubt, will one day give us reason to question if that is enough to keep going. I am not trying to be pessimistic, I am not trying to cast aspersions on your family or anything else like that, all I am saying is the reality of life is that people let you down.

Sometimes we can put so much of our purpose and our grounding in other people that on the days they let us down it is not enough to keep us going in the areas that are tough, like teaching or managing behavior. So the two things I want to warn you about is that your why is not about financial or tangible reward, it is not about people, it is about YOU! You have got to understand why you as an individual do what you do, why you face what you face and why you put up with what you put up with. I am going to show you how to do that, I am going to give you what I call the “purpose formula”.

The Purpose Formula

So there are some very clear specific ways that you can identify your purpose but you are going to have to do a little bit of work to discover it. So now we know what purpose is and what it is not, there are two things you need to be aware of when you are seeking your purpose.

1. Have a Vision

The first thing is this, you have to take the time to have a vision for your life, for your career, your future and your personal direction. This is outside of other people, this is outside of what your principal might have said is your career pathway. This is about where you want to be in five years ? What does your life look like ? What does your teaching perfect career look like in five years or ten years time ? If you do not know what it looks like, you will not be able to take the steps towards having the teaching career you really want or becoming the teacher you really want to be. So you need to have a good idea of where you want to head, what life will look like when you achieve the kind of professional development that you are hoping for.

2. Have a Value System

The second thing you need to have is a value system that is rooted in something bigger than your feelings or your circumstance. Values can be rooted in all sorts of things. I am a person of faith so my value system stems from my religion or my faith and it’s a value system that keeps me in check even on the days when I do not feel good about myself or my circumstances;  for example, one of the values within my faith is that all human beings have an inherent value that is not about how they behave and it is not about what kind of person they are. They have an inherent value because they are human and so that keeps me going as a teacher on those days when I have kids that are difficult to deal with or hard to like. I lean on my value system that says you know what, this child has an inherent value that deserves your time, that deserves your respect regardless of how they are behaving.  So think about your value system. In what is your value system grounded?

Once you have those two things in mind- and you might have to write it down-  you might have to take some time to think it through. Then what you can do is start playing with the purpose formula. So here is how it goes…

Your gifts plus your passion plus the needs of others will help you discover your purpose.

1. Gifts

Let’s just start with gifts. Your gifts are the things that you are naturally good at. As a teacher there will be some aspects of what you do that you are naturally good at. As a teacher I was pretty good at speaking naturally, engaging with students, and building rapport and relationships with my students.  That was my gift.  What was not a gift for me was lesson planning, that is something I had to work hard at to develop. My pedagogy needed development but there were some things of my teaching practice that I was naturally good at and if you are a new teacher you will find that a lot of this lies in the area of your natural personality or your natural inclination towards the way that you work with other people. So that about your gifts. Ask yourself, “What am I good at in the sphere of teaching in the classroom?  What are my strengths that I bring to the table?”

2. Passion

The next thing to consider is, what are you passionate about ? That might sound funny. As an educator you know that we should all be passionate about the same things but honestly I do not think we are. Some people are really passionate about helping high achieving students, some people are really passionate about helping students with special needs, some people are very passionate about helping students who are from underprivileged or low socioeconomic backgrounds. We all have a passion for certain types of kids, certain types of demographic and so you need to ask yourself, “How do my passion and my gift fit together to serve the need that is presented to me?” So if you identify the group of people that you are passionate about, then you say, “What are the needs that these children have and how can my gift serve that need?” 

So in my case I was good at relationships and  building rapport. I had a deep compassion for kids that came from broken families or from dysfunctional families where they found it hard to work in the normal parameters of life because of the way that they had been raised. So I took that and said ok what are the needs ? I have a whole bunch of kids that lack adult role models, in particular there were boys that lacked male role models and were craving some input from a male teacher and that was me. That was something that came naturally to me. I also had children that found it difficult to work within the normal school system, so I had to find a way that I could help them engage and I taught them without making them feel stupid or alienated. So the need coupled with the passion, coupled with my gifts was what I focused on.  I did not necessarily have the skills to do great pedagogy around differentiation or helping kids with special needs but I did have a passion for building relationships. 

So that is what I focused on in terms of my “Why.” When I focused on the relationships, I knew that I could actually mentor rather than teach and when I mentored the kids they trusted me and then they actually started learning and engaging in the classroom. What I discovered was that my passion and my purpose is to help people achieve their full potential. That is where I landed. This is what you have got to really do. You have got to be able to articulate your purpose or your “Why” in a statement that is clear, succinct and that you can remind yourself of when you have those days that are tough. When Noah gives you a rough time and he is not doing what he should be doing in the classroom and he is making you feel discouraged, if you have got a purpose like I do, which says that every student has an inherent value and deserves my best and it is my job to help him reach his full potential, then, like me, you end up looking past the circumstance. I start looking past the infraction or the offense or the disrespect and I start saying, “What can I do to engage with this student at a level that is going to help him reach his potential?” For me, my relationship building is the key. I build positive relationships, I get them to trust me and then I start mentoring them because that is what I am passionate about. That results in them achieving more than they were able. If I am just an angry teacher or a teacher that is there for the money or a teacher that is there doing a job, I am not giving my students the opportunity to reach their potential. So I recalibrate myself even on the bad days, based on what I am passionate about. 

This is a big subject and I am probably not doing it justice in the short time we have but I want you to go away and take some time to really think about first and foremost, what is the vision for your career and for yourself personally ? What do you want to see yourself doing in five to ten years time ? What is your value system ? Is your value system strong enough to keep you going when the circumstances around you are less than ideal ? 

Once you have found your vision and your values then you ask yourself, What am I gifted at ? How can I use that gift to serve the purpose and the passion that I have for these kids ? Whether it is special needs kids or whether it is dysfunctional kids or high achieving kids, whatever it might be, what are the specific needs of that demographic so that I can make sure that I am directing my gift towards that need and I am fulfilling my passion which leads to me fulfilling my purpose. 

When you have purpose you can get out of bed even on a bad day; you can come back into the classroom and give everyone a fresh start even if they were diabolical the day before. When you have purpose you can forgive a student for wronging you even if you felt that you did not deserve what they did to you. What you will find is, you are less stressed and  calmer as a teacher. When you approach teaching like this,  it will help you to continue maintaining good positive relationships and boundaries with your students rather than letting them deteriorate because you lack purpose to keep you going. 

I hope that was really helpful for you, it is not the typical thing that we do as teachers but I recommend you take the time to actually self-reflect and think about your passion, think about your vision, write it down and find your purpose in what you do. If you would like to learn more about behaviour management, understanding and educating boys or  leadership, head to our website. We have a whole range of self-paced video courses that you can use to up skill yourself as a teacher and purpose is one of the aspects of my behaviour management essentials video, I hope to see you in one of those courses.

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