Finding Your Missing Spark

U (not his real initial) and I had connected on LinkedIn a few days ago, and yesterday it was time for U to have a coaching session with me. U’s situation is a little bit different from what D, M, and other mid-to-late-career teachers are facing. U isn’t a brand-new teacher, but he’s at an inflection point, about a decade in. As we talked, I almost heard me in 2001 or so, when I had realized it was time for me to move on from That First School to Something Else, but I hadn’t yet clarified What or Where. Back then, I remember saying to a colleague that I felt like I was suffocating or drowning at That First School. U said he’s lost his spark and he doesn’t know where it’s gone.

Like me at the turn of the millennium, U wants his spark back. He wants to find it and follow it because he knows it’s out there somewhere. Can he do this by himself? Will he need me to help him more? We’ll see how U feels after his first day or so back with students.

E, who’s at a very different life-place but a somewhat similar career-point, told me she’s seething on the inside because it seems like she’s the Only One Who Cares about things that everyone – colleagues, parents, and students in particular – ought to care about. Things that they did care about in Old Normal times, things that were (and probably still are) important. E hasn’t exactly lost her spark, but that inner seething is an important sign, a sign she’s paying attention to.

With both E and U, we’ve talked about Robert Dilts and his model of NeuroLogical Levels or Levels of Change. But we haven’t talked about the different kinds of helpers that Dilts identifies – because different Levels of Change call for different kinds of help. And I realize we haven’t talked about them in this space, either.

Justin’s version of the “Dilts Levels” and Helpers Needed

Even when things are stable and good in the Physical and Social Environment, the Environment still needs a Caretaker to make sure things remain as they should be. Teachers tend to love the Caretaker role and excel at it, especially if you spend time thinking about how to rearrange The Classroom to make it the best possible learning environment. That was always my “summer is here and I’ve begun to recover” task in my Physical-World School days. I’d take a legal pad, draw a diagram of The Classroom, and spend a few hours (or more than a few) thinking about what should go where, what the flow of students and papers should be, how to build on the strengths of Last Year while hopefully eliminating That One Problem. But Caretaking is hard, maybe even impossible, when the Physical and Social Environment are rapidly shifting.

In a situation like that, you need a Guide to the new environment. Teachers are good at being Guides when we remember! But sometimes we forget. Sometimes we assume that “everybody knows” or “everybody should know” the Environment. We forget that what’s old and familiar for us is strange and new for our students … and when everything is strange and new for everyone, the way things have been since Old Normal went away overnight in 2020, we all need a Guide! But where do you find a Guide when it’s strange and new to everyone?

When that changed Environment leads to a shift in Behaviors, which it almost certainly will, a Caretaker or Guide isn’t the helper you need. That’s when you need what Dilts calls a “small-c coach,” someone who can help you analyze your behavior patterns and optimize them for the “different game” that you find yourself playing. Teachers tend to be good small-c coaches, but sometimes we forget to apply those skills. “THEY SHOULD KNOW HOW TO DO THAT!” we complain … and they (whoever “they” are) probably should, or should have in Old Normal. But they don’t. So they need a small-c coach to help them. And we need a small-c coach to help us when the Game We’re Playing shifts – when our Old Normal behaviors are no longer optimal for the Strange Emerging New.

But a profound shift, the kind we’re in the midst of, calls for a shift on other levels, too. When new capabilities are needed, Robert Dilts says, a teacher is required … but who will teach the teachers when everyone needs a new skill-set? And when our values and beliefs are suddenly misaligned or incongruent with a vastly altered environment, radically different behaviors, and significantly altered capabilities (both for ourselves and for our students), we need a mentor to help us sort things out. But again, who can mentor the mentors?

And maybe your whole professional identity is shifting and you really need a sponsor. Or you’re questioning your mission and purpose – your “What for?” and your “Who for?” – and you desperately seek what Dilts calls an awakener.

But the unique blend of helpers that U needs isn’t the same as the blend that E needs, and your unique blend is different too. That’s why you won’t find a prepackaged set of programs or a “Buy Now” button anywhere on this site: because one size kinda-sorta fits many isn’t what you’re seeking right now. You’re seeking to be seen and heard and understood and valued for exactly Where and Who you are right now, because only then will you be able to figure out your Next Right Steps and the support you need to take them.

And that’s where we come in, right?

… But what I’d really like …

It was New Year’s Day, 2024. My favorite coworking space “just happened” to have a social event, so I decided to go to that. And WOW! Talk about an amazing day full of connections and conversations and making new friends!

“Happy new year!” by Unhindered by Talent is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

A theme that showed up over and over again, in just about every conversation during the say, was the phrase that gave today’s post its title. “I’m a software developer,” said one new friend, “but what I’d really like to do is ….” In a long conversation, one of the manager of the space, whom I’ve had short conversations with before, told me what he’d really like to do with the space, with and for the surrounding community, in the next five years. A brand-new prospective member who “just happened” to show up – a person who grew up Here, traveled All Over, and came back because there’s something for her to do Here Soon – told us about what she would really to do in the next three months or so and in the longer term.

And then I had at least two more “what I’d really like” conversations after I left for the day.

Your New Year’s Day may have been less eventful and conversational than mine, but I bet, at some point, you thought about what you really want – from the year ahead, from the next step on your teaching and learning journey. Maybe you feel like T, who would really like a job where she gets to do the Work she loves with People who respect her as a professional, treat her fairly, and pay her well. T wishes she could find that kind of job as a teacher, but she’s ready to move on to Something Else if she can’t. Or maybe you feel more like N, who would really like to find, or maybe create, a teaching role and context where she can work with eager, happy learners, where it isn’t a forced march through curriculum, where the relationships between teachers and students and parents are collaborative, not adversarial. Maybe you’re like E’s mom, who finally found that kind of environment for her son … but now come the logistical challenges of moving to where it is.

Since you’re here, you’re probably seeking more abundance in your life, the kind that flows when you are genuinely seen and heard and understood and valued and appreciated. The kind that leads to (and flows from) joy and gratitude. The kind that promotes flow and peace and – let’s go ahead and say it – the kind that brings love and liberation and life. The kind that, believe it or not, is waiting for you on the other side of that seemingly unsolvable problem or get the seemingly unachievable result – the IT – that’s been blocking your way.

What’s my desire in this still-new year? To help you (more and more of you) solve the problem “IT” and gain the desired results “IT” so more and more of  you – of us – can have that abundance on the other side. To help you feel and be seen and heard and understood and valued and appreciated for Who you are right now and for Who you want to become. To increase the joy and gratitude, to help you find the flow and peace, to celebrate the growth of love and liberation and life as you connect ever more deeply with the People and Places and Purposes and Practices that make you come alive.

You know you’re ready for that, too. And you know how to reach me on Facebook or LinkedIn. So let’s do this thing!

Let’s Talk About Your IT

When people come to me for help, they sometimes show up a homeschooling parent whose child yearns to learn Latin but struggles with conventional, old-normal, textbook-based approaches. Sometimes they show up as an adult learner who yearns to learn Latin really well but has gotten stuck and frustrated, again, with the conventional, old-normal, textbook-based approaches, And sometimes they show up as a teacher who’s struggling, stuck, and frustrated, caught between an old-normal world where their old-normal approach to teaching worked pretty well and a strange new world where nothing seems to work anymore.

“Piled” by Todd Huffman is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

No matter how they show up, they’re wondering “Is IT Fixable?” or “Is IT Doable?” or, perhaps, “Is IT Achievable?”

So our first order of business is to figure out exactly what IT is. And that’s both easier and harder than it seems.

Your IT might be the seemingly unsolvable Problem or Situation that you can’t Fix, no matter how hard you try. Or your IT might be the seemingly unattainable set of Desired Results that you can’t seem to achieve. There was a time, not so very long ago, when IT wasn’t there and things were … in retrospect, they were Pretty Good. Not “perfect,” of course, but Pretty Good Indeed. A whole lot better than they’ve been since IT appeared.

Darnyelle Jervey Harmon, in her remarkable book Move to Millions, calls your IT your SPICE Problem – the seemingly unsolvable problem that (at least from your perspective) is

• Specific
• Pervasive
• Insurmountable
• Clear
• Expensive (not just in terms of money, but also in time and energy and attention)

As she says, an IT or SPICE Problem always has to do with something that you strongly desire to make, save, protect, reduce, or increase.

You know what yours is! And you know what you want to make, what you want to save, what you want to protect, what you want to reduce, what you want to increase. If you’re a teacher reading this, you probably want to make a difference, but it feels like you can’t anymore. You want to save the time, energy, attention, and money that you’ve been throwing at your IT, even though you already knew that the “solutions” wouldn’t work before you spent a second or a dime. You want to protect your Heart, because your Heart is almost broken, and you also want to protect your professional identity because that’s so closely connected to your personal identity and your core purpose in life. You definitely want to reduce the anxiety and overwhelm, the big scary emotions that have you questioning your professional identity and thinking about getting Just A Job, the kind where you can leave work at work, on a regular basis. (Hello, Sunday Scaries?) And you want to increase your satisfaction and your students’ satisfaction. And your sense of efficacy. And … let’s be honest … you want to increase your joy and freedom. You want the Freedom Bus that my First Principal talked about, and you want to stop feeling like a Misfit Toy.

Good news: once you’re clear on what IT is, you know what you’re looking for in a solution. Darnyelle Jervey Harmon says that SPICE Problems like an IT require SPICE Solutions, which are

• Specific
• Positive
• Intentional
• Clear
• Evident

And that’s why our first step, when we work together, isn’t a prepackaged Thing like a webinar or a “course” with some videos and worksheets. There is nothing wrong with webinars and courses! They are great for information, and when they’re well-designed, they can be great for application of things you already know or have been learning. If your Root Level Problem was on the visible side of Robert Dilts’s framework, at the level of Physical or Social Environment, Behavior, or Capabilities, you could solve it with information or application …. and you wouldn’t be reading this post because your problem wouldn’t be an IT.

Justin’s version of the “Dilts Pyramid”

But an IT or a SPICE problem isn’t solved by information or application. An IT or SPICE Problem requires transformation because an IT, at its core, is a misalignment or incongruence hiding – not in plain sight – somewhere in what Dilts calls the Values and Beliefs or the Identity. Since you and I are a good fit for each other (because if we weren’t, you wouldn’t be reading this post, right?), we know that it’s somewhere in the midst of all that: somewhere in the way that you’ve been expressing that identity through your persona, your role definitions, or the stances you take toward things.

Maybe, if you’re the homeschooling parent or the frustrated teacher, your IT was “… but I have to use a textbook and explain the concepts and have The Kid(s) do exercises first,” which works great for The Kids who like concrete-sequential approaches to learning but collapse completely for The Kids (more and more of The Kids every year, it seems) who are more abstract or more random thinkers or both. If that’s the case, you can solve your IT SPICE Problem and achieve your IT Desired Results if you find a pathway that plays to the strengths of The Kids instead.

Or maybe your IT was more like “… but I have to teach about Grammar and Vocabulary and Culture and History and So Many Other Topics, and there isn’t enough time or energy for that!” And you aren’t wrong, but you don’t see how Grammar and Vocabulary and Culture and History and All Those Other Things are aspects of a Larger Whole. And if that’s the case, solving your IT SPICE Problem and achieving your IT Desired Results will involve seeing that Larger Whole and finding ways to help your students see it, too.

Something amazing happens when we name and claim the IT. Several amazing things, really. First, the three questions that I ask about IT essentially answer themselves:

1. Can IT (the problem) actually be fixed? Can IT (the desired results) actually be achieved or done?
2. Do you want to?
3. Is it worth the investment of time and energy?

There’s no universally right answer for those questions, even though the answer to the first one is usually “at least theoretically yes.” You may realize, as I did in 2014, that you don’t want to or it isn’t worth the investment of time and energy or both! And now you have a different Problem framed and ready for a SPICE Solution. Or you may realize that you deeply desire to and it’s definitely worth the investment. And now the criteria for that SPICE Solution are obvious. Maybe you can implement it on your own. Maybe you need help. We’ll figure that out and get you started.

That’s why you won’t find a click here to buy button for “Fixable” or “Doable.” These are not the kinds of information or application level programs where a buy with a button solution will help. You need a conversation with someone who can help you at the transformation level … and you know in your heart that you desire that conversation yesterday if not sooner.

You know how and where to reach me on Facebook or LinkedIn. You know you’re ready. Let’s do this thing so 2024 really is the Different Year you’re hoping for.

New Year, New You?

If you’re reading this post “live,” it’s December 29, the last weekday of 2023. In just a few days, 2024 will arrive. It’s a natural time to make all sorts of plans and resolutions for the upcoming year.

“(Outtake) 97 of 365: My New Year’s resolutions” by dumbledad is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

But we all know what happens with “typical” resolutions, no matter how well intended. And we all know a few things about changes that last. We also know you’ve been feeling like a Misfit Toy, maybe even a Broken And Discarded Toy, and you’ve been longing to find a Freedom Bus … or someone who can help you build one and figure out where to drive it.

I realize I’ve had a lot to say about Robert Dilts and his NeuroLogical Levels or Levels of Change in the past few weeks – mostly because I’ve found Dilts’s framework profoundly helpful both for me and for the Teachers and Learners that I serve. Dilts notes that a change at a “higher” level of the pyramid will have ripple effects down to the lower, more observable levels … and sometimes a change at a “lower” level will have ripple effects at higher levels, too. If you change your perceived Identity or your values and beliefs about something, those changes will definitely ripple down through your capacities and behaviors and have some effect on both the physical and social environment. On the other side, changes in environment are likely to change behaviors, and behavioral change sustained over time will have upstream ripple effects on your capacities or capabilities.

My “beautiful” attempt to recreate the Dilts Pyramid.

A decade ago, I might have quoted Deborah Frieze and Meg Wheatley’s Walk Out Walk On: “Start anywhere, follow it everywhere.” That quote still resonates.

You really can start anywhere – start where you feel called to start. And once you start, the follow it everywhere part is just as important.

Back in 2006 or so, when That Second School was still The Island of Misfit Toys and I was still happily helping the “Misfit Toys” find their Joyful Work and pursue it, I realized I wanted to be in better physical shape. It wasn’t a New Year’s resolution; it was a February or March resolution. So I joined a local gym and started going every weekday morning, before school, to work out. That was a behavioral change in Dilts terms, and to sustain it, I made some changes in the physical environment on one side and in my identity around physical health on the other. Downstream, at the environmental level, I picked out my clothes for the next day every evening, packed my workout bag, and put those things in the car before I went to bed … so it was actually easier to go to the gym than not to go. I got to know some of the other Early Workout folks – and discovered that I already knew some of them – so there was a community of support. We greeted each other and we checked in on each other (“Missed you yesterday! Good to see you!”). And at the identity level, I started defining myself as a person who cared about health and fitness, a person who was taking action because he did care about health and fitness.

And it worked. I was healthier and happier than I’d been in a very long time.

You’re reading this, and you’re a teacher, and you want the second half of the 2023-24 school year to be discontinuously better than the first half was. You want to solve the seemingly unsolvable problem “IT” and gain the seemingly unattainable desired results “IT.” You want to Reclaim Your Teaching Confidence for sure. You have a sense that there’s another step, maybe a few more steps, before you fully Reground Your Professional Identity and Rebuild Your Teaching Practice – and find a way to keep it grounded as the People and Place and Practices continue to change. You’ve got some hope but you’re afraid it’s more of a wish.

Good news: the second half of the school year can be different. You can solve the problem “IT” and you can gain the desired results “IT.”  If you still have a season or reason to be a teacher, you can move out of barely-surviving mode and do the Work you feel called to do, and do it well, until it’s time to finish strong. Yes, even if that season is short (“until the next right job comes along,” for example), you can still do the work well and finish strong … and yes, even if it’s a longer season like “until I can retire in X years” or “until I finish upskilling for that Next Right Career.”

It can be different, but it won’t be different if you keep on doing the Same Old Same Old. And there’s Better News: You can take the information here and apply it for yourself – or, probably better, find a community of practice and apply it together – or we can work together to find your solution and help you implement it.

You know how and where to reach me on Facebook or LinkedIn. You know you’re ready. Let’s do this thing so 2024 really is the Different Year you’re hoping for.

What’s the Hidden Gift?

E (different E from yesterday’s E) and I have been talking about the joys and frustrations of E’s current teaching context. E is a very experienced teacher who recently moved to a Very Different Place and started teaching at a Very Different School. She loves the students, the subject, and the support she gets from her administrators, but E is tired. And it’s not the kind of tired that a few days of Christmas vacation can fix.

E is tired because everything is so different. It’s a different textbook – one that she really likes, but she’s getting to a part that she’s never used before. The community is different. The students are different. Students’ patterns of strengths and weaknesses are different.

We were talking this morning about those patterns. Disorganization jumped out to E. Lack of executive function. Struggles with attention. Forgetfulness. You could probably make a similar list.

“The thing that’s starting to come together for me,” i told her, “is that the corresponding strengths of the kids are important. Because yes the disorganization / different conception of organization, yes the differences in attention, yes the different ways that they remember and don’t remember things – those are real. AND somewhere within that set of surface-level problems (problems from our perspective), there’s a set of gifts that we and they haven’t recognized and haven’t opened yet. Those gifts are what interests me.”

“Birthday gifts” by Droid Gingerbread is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

But I realize those gifts – the hidden gifts – always interest me. Helping people identify and unwrap the hidden gifts … that’s the core of the work I’ve always done. That’s why that First Principal, all those years ago, hired me to help him help his students with their Freedom Buses. It’s why that Other Principal, nine years later, “hired me away” to work with her Misfit Toys.

Maybe you have a calling to work with hidden gifts, too. Or maybe you’re feeling like your gifts – the really important ones, the ones that led you to become a teacher and sustained you in “old normal” hard times – are hidden or missing or worse.

When you’re working with hidden gifts, you’re working at the level of hope. Not the wishing kind of hope that we sometimes fall into, especially at this time of year. Not that “maybe just maybe I’ll Get Some Rest over Winter Break and things will Get Better” wish-fantasy. Hope, the real kind, isn’t like that at all.

Hope, the real kind, is the bridge that takes you from your current reality to that future desired state that seem so out of reach. It’s the deep, deep YES that you feel when you’ve identified “IT,” your seeming unsolvable problem or unachievable desired results, and you see that it isn’t impossible after all. “Do you want to?” YES! “Is it worth the investment of time and energy?” YES! Hope is that deep, deep YES.

And as you read this, there’s something you’re hoping for. U, who I just met this week, hopes he can rekindle the spark that had, Back Then, when he knew teaching was the only thing he ever wanted to do. E hopes she can find ways to bring the fun and joy back in ways that honor her current students’ strengths. M, who got hope from me in a Very Dark Time and then gave hope back to me in my own dark hour, hopes she can reground her professional identity and rebuild her teaching practice in ways that align with the current and emerging versions of the Place she works and the People she serves. K hopes the temporary job will turn into a permanent job … or maybe it will lead to one that’s an even better fit for her strengths as a teacher.

And you, dear reader. You have a hope, and you are almost afraid to name and admit it. Good news: I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know enough to be able to tell you this:

When you’re ready (and you know you’re ready), we’ll identify that “IT” of yours. We’ll find out if it can be fixed or done (and in your heart you already know or hope it can, right?) and we already know that you WANT TO and it’s WORTH IT. We’ll name and frame the Next Right Program after that, and the right price will be obvious to all of us. And then we’ll get started … and before too long, hope will bring the desired future into current reality. And then we can take the next step and the step after that.

When you’re ready, let’s do this thing!

But It’s My Calling

E isn’t a client of mine yet, but E’s Story is so much like the Story of my best-fit clients …. which means it’s so much like my story transposed to a different place and time. E is actually a second-career teacher, and he spent nearly twenty years loving the students and the work and feeling like he was fulfilling his calling by working as a teacher.

And then things changed. It seems like E can’t do the Calling-work anymore. So E is looking for other jobs … and WOW there are a lot of people who feel just like E. They feel just like I felt back in December 2013, a decade ago as I write. You can probably feel it right below the surface in my stories of Ms. X, Mr. Y, and the Giant Review Packets that they just knew they could Make Those Kids Do (“just a few questions a day”) over Winter Break.

“Who are these people?” I was silently asking. “And where is this Place? What happened to the People and Place I used to know and love, the Place Called School that was at this same address, in this same building? How can it be so totally different, so utterly changed, when it looks and sounds and even smells the same as it always did?”

Like E, I had a strong sense of calling or mission, of what for and who for, that influenced my professional identity and the persona and role definitions and stances that I took towards things. My very first principal, at That First School, talked about “helping kids build and board their Freedom Bus and figure out where they want to drive it.”

“Ancient School Bus-2” by dok1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The principal who hired me away to That Second School … she talked about creating “the Island of Misfit Toys,” where bright, quirky kids (“who would have gotten themselves killed at a Great Big High School”) were free to find themselves and thrive as who they were. My what for and who for resonated with those visions. I loved those visions and I loved the People and Places and Practices that clustered around those visions.

“December 2015 Art Challenge Photo ‘Misfit Toys’” by COLORED PENCIL magazine is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

But visions change. Very First Principal retired, and his successors – capable administrators and good, kind people though they were – had a different vision for That First School. The “Island of Misfit Toys” principal got an offer she couldn’t refuse to lead a much larger school, with salary (and effects on her finances in retirement) to match. Her successors, who were also capable administrators and good, kind people, also had a different vision for That Second School.

By December 2013, I didn’t have words for it, but I was ungrounded from the People and Place around me, and my Practices were more grounded in what had been true Before than in what was true in the moment or what was emerging. And that was “just” from the inevitable slow changes in People and Places.

If you’re reading this, and if you’re a teacher, the changes that started in March 2020 were drastic and overnight. All of a sudden, you were forcibly ungrounded from the People and Place you knew. The Practices that had worked perfectly well or well enough on Thursday or Friday were suddenly impossible to implement in a world of Remote School. You still had your sense of Purpose, and you had a faint hope that maybe, just maybe, the closures would end after the promised two to three weeks and Good Old Normal would return. “And we’ll appreciate it more,” you thought, “because of All Of This.”

We know the rest of the story.

Weeks turned to months. Even when schools did reopen, things were Different. If you’re a middle-school or high-school teacher, none of your current students ever experienced Good Old Normal School at the level you teach … and when you stop and think about it, you realize that Good Old Normal is gone and it isn’t coming back.

My what for hasn’t really changed, and neither has my who for. I still love helping people build and board their Freedom Bus and figure out where to drive it; I’ve just added teachers whose world has changed to my list of People who might be needing a Freedom Bus. And I still love helping the Misfit Toys flourish as Who they actually are; I’ve just added teachers who suddenly feel like a Misfit Toy to that list. But the joyful freedom focus and the process where we recraft the Stories together … that would be recognizable to students of mine from 2013, 2003, and even maybe 1993.

If you’re reading this, and you’re wondering whether your IT is FIXABLE or DOABLE, the answer is “It depends.” It’s almost certainly true that your Seemingly Unsolvable Problem could in theory be solved, and your Seemingly Unattainable Desired Result could in theory be achieved. Do you still want to? And is it worth the time and energy investment? And can you do it alone, or do you need help?

You know where to reach me when it’s time. Let’s do this thing!

… but is it DOABLE?

Some of us, reading the current series of posts, are thinking, “This is so close to what I need, but my issue is a little bit different.” If that’s you, your big question isn’t really “Is IT FIXable?” There may be some things that need to be fixed; there probably are. But they aren’t the things that are keeping you awake at night and threatening to ruin your Winter Break again, just like they ruined your Thanksgiving Break and your Summer Break and all the other breaks since they started to show up.

Your question is different because you’re not really focused on the seemingly unsolvable problem. You’re focused on the seemingly unattainable result that you’ve been desiring to achieve for such a long time.

Maybe you’re a teacher, or maybe you’re a homeschooling parent or an adult who’s been trying to learn That Language and hitting a wall. Or maybe you work with teachers, parents, or learners outside of school. Maybe you have a formal title like Curriculum Specialist or Supervisor or Instructional Coach. Maybe your title is informal or “It’s Complicated.” There are lots of different ways you might show up, but just below the surface is your Question, which isn’t “Is it FIXable?”

Your question is, “Is IT DOable?”

Your IT isn’t exactly a Problem. Your IT is a Goal or a Desired Result that you’ve been wanting to achieve, either for yourself or for the learners (and maybe teachers) that you love and support … a Goal or Desired Result, BUT it seems unattainable or unachievable. It could be, “My child desperately wants to learn Latin, BUT we’ve tried every textbook and curriculum package out there and we always get Stuck.” It could be, “My whole identity is wrapped up in being a good, experienced, effective teacher, BUT the world has changed and I’m not as effective as I want to be.” It could be, “I just want the teachers and students in my department to be happy and successful, BUT they’re stuck and miserable and nothing seems to help.”

So, sure, there are Problems to be solved, but the Problems aren’t the point. The Goal, the Desired Result, the Thing that the Problems are keeping you from doing or being or achieving … that’s the point.

Good news: we can work with that, too. In fact, “Is IT DOable?” is an easier question to answer than “Is IT FIXable?” It’s a similar process, but that small change in focus makes things easier. When you message me and ask for an “Is IT DOable?” coaching call, this is the process we’ll follow:

Here’s an example of how it works … I’m time-traveling in a way, interviewing the Me that I was in 2013, just a few months before I had that moment of clarity that propelled me out of my Stuck and Frustrated Place and into the first version of the Joyful Liberation Work that I do now.

2013 Me: “The Story that brings us here today … WOW, that is a great question, Future Me! So, I guess you know it but I’ll tell you anyway. When I was (should I say when we were) a sophomore in high school, walking down the hill from the main building to the separate building where lab science classes were, I had (we had?) this sudden realization that I wanted to be a teacher, specifically a Latin teacher, and I wanted to use Latin teaching as a way to help people access the languages of power and see through different eyes and understand things more deeply and … I didn’t have the words yet, but yeah, I wanted to do joyful liberation work through Latin. And not just with students, either! I had this sense that there was something about teachers and schools, something about spreading joyful liberation through a network of Schools Like No Ordinary School. But that seems so far away now. Am I even still the same person who had that dream?”

Current Me takes notes and empathizes and explains the Cynefin framework categories.

2013 Me agrees that Complexity is the main issue, with some Chaos and maybe even some Confusion.

Current Me explains the Dilts Framework, and 2013 Me has a flash of insight: “OHHHH! Yeah, Future Me, you are right! There is something at the level of Values and Beliefs or Professional Identity, something really important that I’m not seeing. That’s WHERE I’m Stuck but I still don’t know WHAT I’m stuck in.”

Current Me takes “us” on a deeper dive into Professional Identity, Professional Persona, and Role Definitions. “OMG!” shouts 2013 Me. “I SEE IT! So, I’m a Guide on the Side. I’ve always been a Guide on the Side! That doesn’t mean I don’t lead or direct; I mean, you were me, right? You know that. But when I do lead and direct, I’m not standing in front of people waving my arms like a choir or orchestra conductor. Maybe in rehearsal, but not in performance. I … we … love musical groups where the leader is leading from within, right? But my students … they don’t know how to work with a Guide on the Side. They don’t want a Sage on the Stage either. They want a GUIDE on the STAGE! They want someone to stand in front of them and wave their arms. That’s the misalignment! And they don’t even see me as a Guide, the ones who are the Problem. They see me as, like, a Sage on the Side, and they wonder why I’m not up there on the Stage like I should be!”

Current Me smiles, very happy that 2013 Me could see, in 15 minutes, what took him (me? us?) months of struggle and frustration in 2013-14.

So that’s the IT for 2013 Me: students seem to need a GUIDE ON THE STAGE instead of a GUIDE ON THE SIDE.

Can this “IT” be fixed or done? Sure, and 2013 Me has seen evidence of it the days that he ran a “Traditional Latin Class” with That One Group. It was exhausting but 2013 Me did it and it worked.

Do I want to? That’s an easy answer, too: NO! 2013 Me has exactly zero desire to become a Guide on the Stage, and it would not be worth the investment of time and energy to become one.

What’s the Next Right Step? 2013 Me now knows that he (I? we?) will be looking for an environment where Guide on the Side leadership is needed … actually, to be precise, the kind of participant-leadership that you see in a really great jazz band, a small vocal group that performs without a conductor, or an orchestra with a player-conductor, but for teaching and learning. 2013 Me doesn’t know it yet, but that opportunity is only a few months away.

And if you’ve read this far, you either know your “IT” by now or are ready to book a session and name IT. And you’re ready to say, out loud, the important part: whether you want to Fix or Do your IT, and whether it’s worth the investment of time and energy. And you’re ready to see and name and take your Next Right Step or two.

You know where and how to reach me. Let’s do this thing!

The Even Bigger Picture

Since you’re reading this, you’re probably a teacher, a former teacher, a kinda-sorta-wannabe-ex-teacher, or a language learner who’s been attempting to teach yourself. And because you’re in one or more of those categories, you probably have – or used to have – a pretty strong sense of Purpose or Mission. Robert Dilts calls it your “What for?” or “Who for?”

Many of us also have a “Why?” but a “Why?” can be hard to put into words. Your “What for?” or “Who for?” is easier to articulate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to share with others.

My “What for?” has always been joyful freedom, and my “Who for?” has always been people who don’t feel joyful or free. And yours is just as unique to you as mine is to me.

I remember being a happy child and realizing that not everybody around me was happy. My parents had all the worries and concerns that adults have. My beloved Aunt Helen (who isn’t actually related to me) had some life-sadness that I knew about (she was orphaned as a small child and grew up in an orphanage) and some I learned about later. Friends in the neighborhood, friends at school, teachers, adult friends of my parents … everybody seemed to have something that was keeping them from being as joyful and free as they wanted to be. And I wanted to help them. I didn’t exactly want to entertain them, but I wanted to help them be as joyful and free as they seemed to want to be.

Flash forward a few years. I’m in high school and have discovered that I can help people understand things that are difficult for them … which helps them feel joyful and free. I’ve also discovered that, for a lot of people, learning another language opens up paths to joy and freedom that weren’t visible before. I look at the middle- and high-school language teachers I know, including the two who introduced me to Latin and the Romans, and I realize these are people in the joy and freedom business. I find an initial career path.

Years go by. I’m doing the Work that I love in a Place that I love, with People that I love, and I’m even helping other language teachers who are – or want to be – in the joy and freedom business. More years go by. I realize, slowly and gradually, that I’m still in the joy and freedom business, but that Last Physical-World School, the one that I had cherished for years, has been shifted, through nobody’s fault, into a very different model than the joy and freedom one that attracted me. It’s 2014, and I make a Big Scary Shift.

Flash forward again. It’s December 2023, just before Christmas, just after Saturnalia, just as the Turning of the Year is at hand. I’m still in the joy and freedom business, still helping learners (like the mom and son in Australia whose biweekly Latin session was yesterday) increase their joy and freedom, still helping teachers (like you!) take your next step toward your own joy and freedom.

The past few years have been hard! They’ve been especially hard for teachers and learners, for people whose School World changed in ways that would have been unimaginable on this day in 2019. A lot of teachers, a lot of learners, a lot of other educators are barely in survival mode, let alone joy and freedom.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your “What for?” and your “Who for?” … those haven’t really changed. The core of your Personal Identity hasn’t changed. The essence of your Professional Identity hasn’t changed. But circumstances have changed around you, and something is now misaligned about the way you “always” expressed that Professional Identity – something, possibly something very small, about your Professional Persona or the Role Definitions you have or the Stances that you’re taking toward something in those circumstances. It isn’t anybody’s fault! Nobody did anything wrong! But something is misaligned or ungrounded, either “horizontally” with the People around you, “vertically” with the Place, or perhaps “chronologically” with Practices that used to work well but don’t work anymore.
Let’s find that something. Let’s realign or reground it – and you. And let’s make it so that 2024 is a year of joy and freedom for you and the People you love.

The Bigger Picture

Teaching Confidence is important. Knowing whether your Seemingly Unsolvable Teaching Problem is Fixable? Also important. But you know there’s a bigger-picture Thing going on here, right?

And if you’re new to this blog, you probably wonder why it’s (still) called Joyful LATIN Learning. If you scroll back to the posts from 2014 and before, it’s probably obvious: Justin taught Latin, the language of the Romans “and their successors,” first in physical-world schools from 1992-2014, then in online settings from 2014 on. The blog’s name made sense back then.

But Teaching Confidence and Fixable Problems aren’t just for teachers of Latin, the language. And they’re obviously part of something larger, right?

When I realized that this old-but-new blog was still a right-fit platform, I had a sense that LATIN might be an acronym for something important. And it is! There’s Latin, the language, and the process of teaching (and learning) that language and its many cultures in joyful, effective ways. We’ll still talk about that. But there’s also LATIN the acronym, which stands for

• Liberatingly
• Aligned
• Teaching
• Improvement
• Network

We’ll be talking about that kind of LATIN as well.

When you choose to Reclaim Your Teaching Confidence or find out that your problem is Fixable, you’re really choosing to be part of an emerging network of teachers who are committed to liberation and alignment in their teaching practice. What you’ll ultimately be doing is Rebuilding Your Teaching Practice on a solid, firm foundation of liberation and alignment and joyful learning. Your professional identity and professional practices will be liberatingly aligned or grounded, as Otto Scharmer says, three ways:

• horizontally in the People around you, with a deep awareness of the wants and needs and strengths and challenges that your students face
• vertically in Purpose (with a deep, clear understanding of your own core purpose as a teacher) and Place (with a deep, clear understanding of your teaching context, including the wants and needs and strengths and challenges that the other adults in your school and community are facing)
• chronologically in Practice, with a deep understanding of what used to work in Old Normal times, what seems to be working in these dramatically different times, and what seems to be emerging as a potential New … Something, even if “New Normal” is still too much to ask for.

Back in Old-Old Normal times, thirty-some years ago, when I was a new teacher and, before that, a pre-service teacher, I was fortunate – blessed, even – to have truly excellent models of those kinds of grounding. The Classics and Education faculty at Carleton College were great models for me. The Education faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill were great models. My first principal, Mr. B, and my early colleagues and mentors at That First School were great models. And when I made the Big Switch to That Second School in 2001, nine years into my teaching career, I had a whole new set of well-grounded colleagues and administrators to help me adjust to very different People, Place, and Practice.

But even if you had those kinds of mentors and models before, nobody has ever been “here.” Nobody – in living memory – has experienced the kinds of disruptions of Place that everybody experienced when schools shut down overnight at the beginning of the pandemic. Nobody knew how to Do School in the absence of a Place called School. Practices changed in unpredictable ways when those Places Called School were closed, and the People involved (students, teachers, parents, everybody!) changed in unpredictable ways, too. That’s why, when the Places Called School reopened, we couldn’t “just go back” to Good Old Normal, even if we wanted to. And that’s one really important factor in why so many teachers – and for that matter, so many students – are so stressed, so overwhelmed, so unhappy.

So, if you want to Rebuild Your Teaching Practice in ways that work for drastically changed People and Places, there are several steps you may need to take.

1. The first question for many of us is “Is It Fixable?” – but what exactly is It? And do I want to fix it? And is it worth the investment of time and energy it would take? Some of us will realize that we don’t want to or it isn’t worth the investment, and that’s totally OK. Some of us need a new professional identity in a whole new professional field, a field that is aligned with the kind of work we wanted to do – and were good at doing – all along, the work we can’t do in these drastically changed Places Called School..
2. If we do decide it’s Fixable, your Teaching Confidence is probably a big part of that “It” that needs to be Fixed. In Old Normal times, when things were (ideally) Clear or (usually) Complicated in the terms of the Cynefin framework, it wasn’t hard to have Teaching Confidence. In Clear situations, there was a Best Practice, and in Complicated Situations, there were Good Practices to choose from. But today? Today, when it’s Complex, Chaotic, or even Confusing in Cynefin terms, how do you know what to do? And if you don’t know what to do as a teacher, it’s really hard to have Teaching Confidence.
3. If Teaching Confidence is an issue, we’ll work to Reclaim Your Teaching Confidence. Since Teaching Confidence is closely related to knowing what to do, we’ll dig down through the observable problems – the problems with the Physical Environment, the Social Environment, the Behaviors, and the Capacities or Capabilities, in Robert Dilts’s terms, where we don’t know what to do – until we get to the root level problem where we can know what to do. That root level problem is likely to be in the areas that Dilts calls Values and Beliefs or Professional Identity. There’s something, maybe more than one thing, that you always used to do, an approach that always used to work with Old Normal People and Places, that just isn’t working anymore. It isn’t aligned with the Actual People or the Actual Place, and when we find it, we’ll discover that it isn’t aligned with your Actual Core Purpose anymore either. So we’ll be able to let go of that and let something new come.
4. And then we’ll see where you are right now as a teacher, using Robyn Jackson’s framework and terminology. There are several possible pathways.
   1. Most of us aren’t really Novice teachers anymore, but we may be feeling like a Novice again. If we are, we’ll proceed to Refind Your Teaching Flow to get you out of that Novice feeling. Or we may Restore Your Teaching Balance so you don’t feel like Dr. Jackson’s Apprentice teacher, or Renew Your Teaching Rhythm so you can be a Capable Practitioner again.
   2. Some of us really still are a Capable Practitioner, but we’ve been feeling like an Apprentice again. If that’s you, we’ll Reground Your Professional Identity so you can feel like the Capable Practitioner you are.
   3. And some of us are ready for the next level. Some of us are ready to Rebuild Your Teaching Practice and level up in the New Normal … level up to be the kind of teacher you always wanted to be.
5. Along the way, you’ll meet the Others – the other teachers who are on this journey of Liberatingly Aligned Teaching. It’s not a journey that you can “finish,” mostly because things will continue to change. Your “perfect” Practice and Practice Model today, your “perfect” Professional Identity for right now, won’t be “perfect” forever … and that’s OK. You’re now part of a Teaching Improvement Network, and together, we’ll keep each othe grounded and aligned and balanced as conditions continue to change.

The Longest Night of the Year is over. Today is just a little bit longer and brighter than yesterday, and tomorrow will be longer and brighter still. Christmas is coming, and so many other Winter holidays are here or on the way. You know you want to be part of a Liberatingly Aligned Teaching Improvement Network as the New Year arrives, and you know you want your Winter Break to be transformational and regenerative, not just barely sustainable. And you know how to reach me, and you know how the process works when you’re Ready.

… So How Does It Work?

You’re reading this, and you want to believe. You want to believe that your Problem, the one that’s been keeping you awake at night and giving you those Sunday Scaries, is Fixable. You want to believe what I’ve been telling you about where the Root Problem is and how we can identify it and how we can find a solution.

But how does it work? This is really different from your typical “coaching” or PD. It’s not like the courses and workshops and programs you’ve tried, or the Stuff you’ve bought, or anything like that.

How exactly does it work?

You’ll pay and we’ll find a time slot. That part is obvious. But what then?

You’ll get an Agenda, a Google Document that looks like this.

In our session, we’ll work through that Agenda together. I’ll take notes and you’ll get a copy at the end. First we’ll name the surface-level problems with your Story of what brings us here today. Then we’ll find the root-level problem. Yours is unique to you, but root-level problems have certain things in common:

• They’re related to complexity and chaos, sometimes even confusion on the Cynefin framework
• They’re not at the observable levels on Robert Dilts’s framework, the levels of Physical or Social Environment, Behaviors, or Capacities. The problems there are symptoms and clues that will lead us to the root-level problem.
• They’re usually related to a misalignment at the level of your Professional values and beliefs or your Professional identity – a misalignment between what was true in “old normal” times and what is now becoming true as things change radically.
• There’s something about the way(s) you’ve been expressing your Professional identity – something about your Professional persona or role definitions – that used to work but isn’t working anymore.
• Once we find it, we can shift it and everything else will shift.

So, once we’ve found It, we’ll address the three key questions:

1. Is it fixable?
2. Do you want to fix it?
3. Is it worth the investment of time, effort, and other resources to you?

From there, it’s pretty straightforward … especially because you already know, in your heart, that you do want to fix it and it would be worth the resource-investment. And then we’ll find and name the Next Right Steps for you. You might need to

• Reclaim Your Teaching Confidence
• Refind Your Teaching Flow
• Restore Your Teaching Balance
• Renew Your Teaching Rhythm
• Reground Your Professional Identity

We’ll talk about what that looks like and we’ll see if you can do it yourself or if you need some help with implementation. And if you need some help, we’ll get that set up for you and get you started.

You already know if this is right for you. And you already know how to reach me. So, when you’re ready, let’s do this thing!