How can you build your confidence to advance in Education?

Remember the following: You’re not there to be the smartest one in the room, you’re there to help them figure themselves out. Don’t take anything personally, they’re not mad at you, they’re mad at everything Enjoy it. Force yourself to see how amazing it is. You’ll start to lean into the chaos and become part of it. I love teaching!

Don’t be afraid to admitting to not knowing the answer. Give yourself the capacity to learn and fill in any knowledge gap. When you realise you have the power to seek solutions and change, that’s when true confidence shines. Always be learning!

A valuable practice I've found is self-assessment, whether at the end of a day, week, or in a workplace context. Instead of blaming oneself by saying "You didn't do this, so I couldn't do that," I prefer to phrase it as "This didn't go as well as I hoped, here's what happened." The key to understanding our strengths and weaknesses is to view mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning, rather than taking them personally and feeling self-doubt.

The best way to build confidence is to know oneself in and out. It is very essential to know our strengths so that it can boost our morale. Moreover, working on overcoming our weaknesses helps us to build confidence. Additionally, being in a positive ambience too helps as encouraging well wishers help us a great deal to build confidence.

In my experience, the best way to identify strengths and weaknesses is your own performance is to ask for honest feedback, to actively seek out mentors - and not necessarily in a formal program. Find teachers or administrators whose work you admire. Simple conversations are the best way to gain insight on how they do what they do. One of the key elements of a great mentor is that they are not in a supervisory role over you - It gives you the freedom to make (and learn from) mistakes.

A practice that has greatly benefited me is keeping a record of my mistakes and reviewing them on a monthly basis. I assess how often I repeat these errors and whether I've successfully overcome them. To track my progress and boost productivity, I use a cross mark to highlight my improvements. Ultimately, it's all about recognizing that everyone has unique habits and finding personalized ways to address and improve them.

Sometimes the sting of a lesson not going well, or a perfectly-planned activity coming up short can be tough. But, it's really important to take a hard look at exactly what went wrong - and often that's best done after a little while - to give yourself time to come down off the adrenaline rush, but don't wait too long. I found that writing down some bulleted notes to myself are super helpful so I can come back with a clearer head and still remember my main ideas.

I believe that teaching school is pretty basic. They were doing it well 1000 years ago. That means you know your material, and you communicate it well. If you are concerned with knowledge, this is automatically what you would be focusing on--truth properly communicated. The problem is, the socialists want to change people into a new kind of people. So you've left the traditional world and moved into social engineering. The last century has shown what is possible in that new realm. I foolishly dream that we will go back to what is better, deeper, more enjoyable, which is, to learn interesting stuff about the world.

Celebrating even a small win acts as a wonderful motivation to build confidence. Building confidence is not a day's work. It takes constant nurturing to one's esteem to build confidence. Even a positive self talk to a mirror helps us a great deal. In my opinion, it is more about the inner journey where one has to learn to accept oneself unconditionally. That's where the real confidence comes from.

The truth about any profession is that no one is going to champion you with as much insight or purpose as you can for yourself. That's not to say that blind arrogance is the same as positive self-advocacy. You can't always expect to be noticed by supervisors if you're waiting for someone else to point out your successes. Plus, it gives the added sense that you are self-aware enough to know when things are really going well - because that means you know how to replicate that experience.

If you're a K-12 teacher, there are numerous opportunities to expand your skills and knowledge of how schools and school systems run. Seek out opportunities to join committees, sign up for extra duties (hopefully paid) that allow you to meet other educators within your school system, listen and learn.

Absolute must-do. If you don't try new roles, responsibilities, or targeted risks in your job, you're missing out on chances to find out what you're good at, what else you could be doing, and showing those around you that you are adaptable, and value personal and professional growth. Without making that clear, it's hard for others to see you as someone willing and able to take on greater responsibilities, and who would benefit from career advancement.

Problem now is that the Education Establishment wants to teach only a tiny trickle of information. I've just been thinking this week how much interesting information you could teach to first graders, with almost no effort. There are many wonderful photos and film of early attempts to fly ca. 1880 to 1900. Many of the attempts ended in accident and death. Very famous scientists said it was impossible to fly a heavier-than-air machine. Now, could anyone maintain that little children wouldn't be spellbound by watching such material? Then we meet the famous brothers who worked in a bicycle shop. Could their rickety contraption actually fly? There are many historical and social events that are fascinating, even for children.

While most people participate in affirmations in the morning, normalize using them any time in the day. Most days are filled with life competing for your attention. Affirmations give you the opportunity to slow down and reset your mind.

In general, I think that people who want to advance in education should focus on public speaking and on gaining a wide body of knowledge. Then you could move into almost any slot. But if we don't reform K-12, nobody will want to teach in a public school. I am just now pitching the idea that ordinary people should learn a little more about schools and a little more about what's wrong, and then try to fix it. The Education Establishment has to work constantly to keep its house of cards standing. I say, let it fall down, and then let's start doing this job correctly. (Episode 122 on my podcast Let's Fix Education is titled "Good school?? Bad school?? It's so obvious!")

And never forget as an educator - one of the most insightful, immediate, and most often bluntest, sources of feedback are from your students. Don't be quick to dismiss either their implicit or explicit feedback - keep an eye on their body language, attention spans, engagement, as well as what they say about your practice. And for my fellow middle school folks, be warned, middle schoolers sugar coat nothing - their feedback is super useful, and not for the faint of heart, ha!

If you're looking to advance in education, and as I see it, that generally means going into roles with managerial responsibilities such as principal, director, chief academic officer, chief financial officers, and more - try to assess whether others see you progressing in that manner. It can be difficult to know this about yourself (sometimes folks are too confident, other times too self-critical). You can do this by seeing if you're being encouraged into leadership by current leadership, or if your peers are suggesting to you to go into leadership roles.

Remember your 'why' as an educator. If you function from a secure place rooted in your values, you can't help but know that what you're doing is for the right reasons and set with the right intentions. Your confidence will flourish from those values that guide and direct your actions.