Last spring, while I was cleaning out my old classroom in preparation for the move to the new school, I threw out ALL of my old motivational posters. They were pretty dirty and curling up at the corners, so throwing them out made perfect sense.
However, as I spent some time today setting up my new classroom, the one with lots of white empty space on the walls, I panicked. I thought, 'What is wrong with me?! Why the heck did I toss all of that stuff? Now I'm stuck!' And what with our local teacher store closing after a zillion years of business, I now had no place to go and get-more-POSTERS! And on top of that, I had already spent far too much money on new classroom materials anyway. Then I got an idea. I could just make my own motivational posters. Duh! So, I came home, got on the computer, and made my first poster with this exact text:
You CAN achieve!
Just remember to:
1. Believe in yourself even when things get difficult.
2. Show up and do your best.
3. Refuse to compare yourself to others.
(I also added a little picture of the sillouette of a man holding his arms high above his head as if he'd just won a basketball championship.)
Freaking amazing, right? OK, maybe not. However, I realized that my creation was in some ways better than buying a generic poster from a teacher store. No, my poster didn't have the cool graphics and designs that its manufactured counterparts possess. It was actually a little boring to the eye. But it did have something infinitely more valuable: a sentiment written in my own language and one that I am striving for in my own life, so much so that I dedicated this entire blog to achieving more success and happiness at work.
That has to count for something when it comes to kids, right? They can smell sincerity (or the lack thereof) a mile away.
So now I'm going to crank out more posters whenever the inspiration hits me. In the meantime, feel free to use the text above for your own classroom posters. Add to it! Improve it! Then share it with others! We need each other in this business of teaching!
Happy poster making!
Ms. J
