#Reflect31: 31Days of mindful reflection, sharing, and connecting tailored to educators

On July 29th, Team Grundler hosted a #K12ArtChat Twitter chat and kicked off #Reflect31: 31 Days of mindful reflection, sharing, and connecting tailored to educators as they begin a new school year. This topic has been near and dear to our hearts since 2015 when we first started our annual reflection challenge. As we have been riding the rollercoaster of life all summer (really the past 20+ months), right alongside you all and it’s made us even more passionate about the #Reflect31 challenge for educators.

So what was #Reflect31 is a reflective thinking challenge; to help positively start moving teachers into the best possible frame of mind for a successful start to the 2021-2022 school year! This reflection challenge combines the important skills of spending time contemplating your teaching practice and pulling from the inspiration you found to help you remember why you became an educator and go back to school with a positive mindset. How does it work? We will post a daily reflection prompt on our social media, @creativitydept (both Twitter and In stagram), and then you spend a little time reflecting on the prompt any way you like, followed by sharing your reflection response using #Reflect31. If you aren’t on Twitter or Instagram you can follow along on our Facebook page or see the prompts posted a week at a time on our website GrundlerArt.com

We all get it!..... No one wants to bring the last school year up or even think about going back to school right now…..summer just isn’t long enough this year. And on top of that, we know and understand that it is one of the busiest times of year for teachers. We really do get it, both as an educator and administrator then as the parents of 3 children ranging from elementary to high school age (we talk about it on a regular basis on our podcast,) time is precious. Therefore, we are realistic, our goal is to always make sure that we are providing our fellow art educators with bite-sized, practical, and implementable content. With the understanding, there is no pressure for our PLN to share your daily reflections but hopefully, just engage and grow from the challenge, (however we would LOVE you to share as we know you’ll spark creative thoughts and inspiration for your peers by sharing your reflections.)

This past year was hard, we found ourselves juggling so much more than in years past, both professionally and personally, we could not wait for the year to be over. Even though it was hard and still is remember there were silver linings, out of that chaos, came many positives. We learned new skills, we gained efficient ways to manage classrooms, we collaborated, the list goes on. So let’s look at those positive things that will help put us in a better place to start this new school year.

How does reflecting help us move forward? Basically think of reflection as the feedback we can give ourselves to help us improve, then translate that feedback into actionable steps you can implement in your teaching practice. By taking the 31-day challenge you begin to build an ongoing practice for yourself that will make a positive impact on your teaching and students.

As you participate in August and will continue to do so during the school year, (or whenever you find yourself ready for this challenge) remember it’s never too late to reflect to help you improve instruction.

We are truly excited to see what you share with #Reflect31. Most of all focus on your why, Why is it important to be an educator?

Know you are always welcome to connect with us and other creative educators in our weekly Twitter chat, #K12ArtChat, every Thursday at 8:30 pm central time or by listening to our podcast K12ArtChat the Podcast in partnership with DavisArt.com.