Goal: Explore a Past Reflection

Welcome to Cycle 7 of The 30 Goals Challenge: Make it Meaningful!

“Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead.” – Yvonne Woon

Goal: Explore past reflections and reflect on what they reveal about your growth, ideologies, and beliefs about teaching and learning.

Accomplish this goal: Look at past blog posts, journal entries, podcasts, or video reflections from last year or years ago. Find some of your earliest posts and repost it on your blog if you’d like. Feel free to share a past reflection you are proud of with our 30 Goals Community.

Consider the following when reading your archived reflections: How have you grown? Do you still believe what you expressed in those reflections? How do these reflections impact your teaching and the kind of teacher you want to be?

Reflection

Since I was 6 years-old, I have written in notebooks and I still have many of my journal entries from my teens. This year I moved to a new city and ran into some of these entries. I am always enlightened by my past writings. They take me back to obstacles, challenges, successes, and ideas. Many are emotional outpourings. These writings remind me of promises I made to myself. Sometimes, I realize I haven’t kept these promises and they urge me to take new steps towards those goals.

Lately, I’ve also looked at past blog posts. I have been blogging since 2009. These posts remind me of why I teach the way I do and give so much. Other entries remind me that if I have a struggle it will get better with time and that I have the strength to overcome because I have overcome obstacles in the past. My past posts also take me back to ideas that never came into fruition. My mind gets excited about seeing these ideas through with the newest resources I know about to make the outcomes better.

I believe reflecting through our past teaching selves reminds us of why we became teachers and what beliefs we have stuck with throughout the years. Our past reflections are powerful reminders of the struggles we faced and overcame. Past reflections excite us, empower us, and help us grow in the right direction.

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New to The 30 Goals Challenge? Each year, teachers worldwide aim to accomplish 1 to 30 goals that transform their teaching. Join the movement by accomplishing any goal from any of the cycles then letting us know through a blog reflection or status update on our Facebook community or on Twitter,@30GoalsEdu . At our official site, 30Goals.com, find all the goals, participant reflections, badges, and get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers: Small Steps to Transform Your Classroom workbook.