The Death Card Spread for Teachers

What needs to die in order for my teaching to improve: 2 of Wands (Spread Your Wings)
How will be teaching improve as a result of this death: The Magician (Manifest)

I love how the Magician keeps showing up in my readings, especially since becoming the Magician in my classroom is one of my key goals. Now at first glance, it may be challenging to see how something that looks so positive (the 2 of wands) needs to die in order for my teaching to improve.

The two of wands is all about long term planning. It's about taking an idea and trying to devise a plan to make a dream a reality. Long term planning is something that all teachers do. We create curriculum maps for the entire school year and then we create units for our terms. So what could possibly be the harm in being a planner? The problem for me personally is that I always seem to have one foot in the current school year and one foot in the next school year. So while I am teaching and trying to focus on the students I have at the present moment, during my team meetings, department meetings, and individual meetings with my department head, I am always working on the next year's goals. The danger in this is that usually by this time of year, between being burned out by my current students and feeling overwhelmed by what's not working, I tend to just start immersing myself fully in planning for the upcoming year. So pretty much I feel like spreading my wings and flying away from my current students so that I can start focusing on my future students. In my imagination, those students will be more focused, more organized, less apathetic, and less rude. Of course, eventually reality will replace the fantasy and I will be right back where I started. I take full responsibility for this problematic cycle. The part of the cycle that isn't my fault is that I am always being asked by administrators to create and pilot new programs. I think I need to start saying no to some of these projects so I can spend more time in the present with the students I currently have and focus on solving the current problems instead of hoping to solve them with my next set of students.

If I can do this, I will be a true Magician. True magic is about taking what isn't working and fixing the problems in real time instead of simply wishing them away. It's all fine and dandy to reflect on things that have gone wrong and trying to plan and change things for the future, but the real magic of a teacher comes from facing current problems head on. So I really need to stop spending so much time in future planning and start spending more time looking at what isn't working currently and making changes right away. If I want to manifest a successful classroom, I need to start experimenting in the present and stop strategically planning for the future. Today is all we have, tomorrow is not promised.

Amazingly enough, this reading also applies to my novel writing career, but that's a completely separate post. I would be really interested to know what needs to die in your career or in your life in order for you to live the life you want to be living. So please feel free to share if you feel called to. Thanks!

All my best,

Amy