After watching Marcus Buckingham's video and reflecting on my own career, I felt inspired about a new viewpoint of playing up and focusing on my strengths rather then spending time and energy on my weaknesses.
When standing back and looking at my strengths and acknowledging areas where I am in my element, I feel a sense of calm. I feel like I am in my "sweet spot" when managing my classes. I enjoy being observed by others when giving instruction or transitioning my classes to new activities. I feel that I excel at giving concise directions that specify my expectations and tell my students how they will be meeting those expectations for the period.
I also feel that I am strong at connecting with students. I am fair and I genuinely care about the lives of the students I teach. I will try my hardest to connect with my students, even if it is just on a daily greeting basis. I like to think that my students know that I really care about them and their ability to succeed.
In regards to areas that I feel totally out of my area of strengths, would be similar to that of Marcus Buckingham. I feel weak in the area of confrontation. I do not like disagreement, and I do not like uncomfortable environments that contain tension. When having to give negative feedback or having to deal with confrontation, I feel anxious and I physically break a sweat.
I also feel unsure of myself in areas dealing with numbers that have practical applications, such as retirement calculations, refinancing our home, insurance, changes to taxes, and others. For example, my husband and I just signed up to buy a solar program for our home. As soon as we started discussing how we needed to adjust our taxes to be able to pay off one of the loans with our solar tax rebate, I was lost and referred to my husband. Numbers in real world scenarios can be difficult and stressful to me.
I really liked this video and felt inspired afterwards by the things that I am strong at. I found Mr. Buckingham's perspective about how we focus time and attention to weakness by using the class grade example to be enlightening. I have always thought about improving my weaknesses, rather than adding to my strengths. Although I think that it is important for students to have struggle and seek improvement in all academic areas, I do think that it is equally important to highlight areas of strength and then play to those areas.
When standing back and looking at my strengths and acknowledging areas where I am in my element, I feel a sense of calm. I feel like I am in my "sweet spot" when managing my classes. I enjoy being observed by others when giving instruction or transitioning my classes to new activities. I feel that I excel at giving concise directions that specify my expectations and tell my students how they will be meeting those expectations for the period.
I also feel that I am strong at connecting with students. I am fair and I genuinely care about the lives of the students I teach. I will try my hardest to connect with my students, even if it is just on a daily greeting basis. I like to think that my students know that I really care about them and their ability to succeed.
In regards to areas that I feel totally out of my area of strengths, would be similar to that of Marcus Buckingham. I feel weak in the area of confrontation. I do not like disagreement, and I do not like uncomfortable environments that contain tension. When having to give negative feedback or having to deal with confrontation, I feel anxious and I physically break a sweat.
I also feel unsure of myself in areas dealing with numbers that have practical applications, such as retirement calculations, refinancing our home, insurance, changes to taxes, and others. For example, my husband and I just signed up to buy a solar program for our home. As soon as we started discussing how we needed to adjust our taxes to be able to pay off one of the loans with our solar tax rebate, I was lost and referred to my husband. Numbers in real world scenarios can be difficult and stressful to me.
I really liked this video and felt inspired afterwards by the things that I am strong at. I found Mr. Buckingham's perspective about how we focus time and attention to weakness by using the class grade example to be enlightening. I have always thought about improving my weaknesses, rather than adding to my strengths. Although I think that it is important for students to have struggle and seek improvement in all academic areas, I do think that it is equally important to highlight areas of strength and then play to those areas.