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Affective Teaching

I want to hear about your impact this school year!

Published about 1 month ago • 2 min read

Who's antsy for the school year to end? For some, your summer has begun. Others are in that frenetic final stretch where everyone -- parents, kids, teachers -- are like, "Aaaand why are we still doing this?"

Despite our exhaustion and brittle patience, the end of the year is great for anchoring positive emotions to school and reflecting on our real influence on students' lives.

I'm not talking about the growth or benchmark scores of our assessments, though those matter. I'm talking about the immeasurable impacts:

  • The child for whom your school or classroom was their safe place, an oasis of positive emotions in an otherwise callous world.
  • The student with a seed planted in their mind that may germinate into an entire career path.
  • The colleague who wasn't sure how they'd make it through the day, let alone the week or year, without your support and presence.
  • The parent who, because of you, was able to renew hope that their child's future would be okay.

I'm grateful I get to experience these impacts. To get the gratitude notes from students. To end this school year teaching alongside former students-turned-colleagues. To be the parent with renewed hope for his own children's futures.

I also know many of you don't get to see this evidence. You work with students who are too young to know the impact or who will never be able to express it. You might not ever get that gratitude note from a child or parent or colleague. But remember:

Your impact exists whether you see the evidence or not.

I want you to think about the positive influences you have made this year that won't show up in the data.

Here's my real ask: Could you take a few minutes this week and email me back your response to these prompts?

  • One thing I'm proud I accomplished this year is...
  • One challenge I faced that will help me grow is...
  • One way I know I made a difference is...

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Whitman poems (nerd alert). It's my compass to the influence we have and the lives we live beyond "charts and diagrams":

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Can't wait to read your responses to the reflection questions 🙂

Your nerd next door,

Chase Mielke

p.s. The Affective Teaching newsletter has grown so much that you may start seeing sponsorships like the one below. If you feel like clicking on a sponsorship, it supports me in building and sharing better resources for you all. Or you can treat it like those Better Help podcast ads we all skip 😂

I vetted some of the resources from Superhuman below. Although the ChatGPT prompts were meh, the "Cheat Sheets" resource is legit valuable for a person like me who uses minimal AI.

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Affective Teaching

Boosting the effectiveness of learning through the affectiveness of teaching

I'm Chase Mielke, a huge nerd about all things emotions. I'm an educator, nationally recognized speaker, and ASCD author dedicated to applying the science of positive emotion to prevent burnout, improve educator efficacy, and help teachers, parents, and students thrive.

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