The Gratitude Journal
The Gratitude Journal
Schools are busy places. So many things can happen over the course of a school day, week, and month. The highs and lows can be emotionally and physically overwhelming, especially for newer teachers. According to the research, we humans are significantly more likely to remember the negative things that happen to us rather than the positive things.[1] This prevents us from going extinct as a species and helps as individuals to make it to old age. Mistakes help us learn and improve. However, they also sow doubt in our own abilities, make us second guess ourselves, and make us wonder if we are even making a difference. Therefore, after a day of ups and downs we can come away feeling the lows more than the highs, making it harder for us to exercise resilience and enjoy our professional journeys.
Enter the Gratitude Journal. One way to keep believing in the work and in ourselves is to keep a journal in which we write or draw positive things that happens to us each day at school. This helps shift the focus on the positive aspects of our day, in which we were victorious, strong, empathetic, responsive and warm. Even a “hi” from a student, who usually says nothing, can feel like a huge win and release a flood of positive emotions in teacher who has consistently worked to engage them. The life of an educator is full of pride, worry, planning, and consideration. When we relive positive moments, they are what remind us from the outside in and the inside out, that we are doing the right thing and having a real impact on our students.
If you are a coach, mentor, or supervisor, I encourage you to keep a school gratitude journal of your own and see what it does for you. Notice how the shifts in perspective, attitude, and positivity influence your time in school and your conversations and interactions with others. As a coach and mentor, I found that introducing the gratitude journal can be a hit with new teachers. At first, I asked teachers just to write in the journals, but teachers took initiative to share from their journals during our meetings, making it a part of our regular practice. Reliving these positive moments with teachers helped me see their situation more clearly and brought me to empathize with them on a deeper level. Empathy builds trust and strengthens relationships. For teachers, sharing these moments helps educators to participate in coaching conversations from a place of strength, reinforcing their narratives of success and resilience.
I do want to add that being grateful benefits us is many ways.[2] I would strongly recommend that you keep a physical or electronic journal in which you write, type, or draw your recollections of those sweet moments. Keeping mental notes is nice but keeping so many things in mind is difficult and often the positive memories go first to make room for more memories. I wish that I had started doing the gratitude journal my first year as a teacher, as I remember very little from that year, and over a decade later, I would like to reflect on the start of my journey.
[1] Jennifer Warner, Bad Memories Easier to Remember, https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20070829/bad-memories-easier-to-remember, August 29, 2007
[2] Misty Pratt, The Science of Gratitude, https://www.mindful.org/the-science-of-gratitude/, February 17, 2022