One of the most important aspect of being a reflective professional is applying new learning.  So yesterday I went to the pool and got some fantastic advice, "keep your head up while you swim."  I tried it and had a good swim.  This morning was time to apply my "new learning" to a full swim.  The first thing I found out was it is HARD keeping your head up through an entire swim WOD (workout of the day).  For any swim of crossfit devotes out there my WOD was 3x8-- that is eight sets of three laps (50 yards per lap).  I'll let you do the math to calculate how many yards that is.  Armed with my new learning I set out to swim.  Right around set four or five my head started to get heavy, and I started to slow down.  However, I kept at it and reached my goal.  I got a grueling yet satisfying workout, and felt so great about myself.  The key was consistency.  When we aren't consistent with implementing that subtle change/our new learning we always end up frustrated.  Especially when we are making changes with our classroom management practices.  Hitting bumps in the road doesn't mean we should scrap our new learning; it means we should reflect and adjust.  When implementing a new learning strategy or instructional model is always messy.  It's messy because it takes time to meld our style with the strategy or model.  Most great practitioners have a "style" to their instructional delivery.   Even great practitioners take time to marry their style to a new strategy or model.  Especially when it involves something that is unfamiliar or scary (like...technology).  When you start-stop-start-stop when implementing something new everyone involved in the process is frustrated.  You are frustrated because you aren't getting the resulted you wanted.  Students are frustrated because you promised "it would be awesome" and it's turned out to be anarchy.  Stick with it, and you might just say what I said at the end of my swim this morning: "If I keep doing this, I'll get better."         

It's not always the big change....

I finally got up and went to the  gym this morning.  I decided to go for a swim.  As I was swimming, I realized that it had been a while since I swam.  There was someone that was swimming in the lane next to me.  I paused for a breath between laps and he looked over at me and said, "keep your head up, you'll move faster through the water and not be so out of breath.  People forget how heavy the head is when they are in water."  I took his advice and had an awesome swim.  It's amazing how that small change made such a tremendous difference.  Sometimes when we are attempting to shift ourselves that it is the little change that makes such a huge difference!
What small thing can you change that can make a huge difference?
 Is it personal?
Do you need to get to bed 30 minutes earlier?
How about more "me" time?
More time with the husband, wife, or significant other?
Do you need to spend more time with your own children?
Is it professional?
Do you need more "tools" to reach your students?
Should you try to get next to your more "difficult" students?
Maybe be more productive during your planning?
Could you use an outlet to add a dimension to your professional practice (maybe start a blog)?
Maybe you can say hello to your students as they walk into the classroom?

Those are just suggestions of course.  Sometimes we can get overwhelmed by all of these large scale (or what we perceive to be large scale) changes and don't change anything.  Maybe it isn't anything huge at all we need to change.  Maybe you just need to take that first small step.  Whatever the case may be, a small thing could be just the thing to make your "swim" better than you thought it could have been.