My Golden Rule: Surround Yourself with Good People

June 25, 2022

“Just like a young seed growing in a garden, thriving in your early years of teaching depends largely on who you plant yourself next to.”

Rebecca Lebel

I want to bring you back to your early years of teaching. I recently finished my second year of teaching and, as you likely already know, those early years of teaching are all about strength, growth, adaptability, and resilience. It’s all about finding your niche. You realize that some things in your teaching tool kit that you thought would work really well actually need to be thrown in the garbage. I think we can all agree that the early years of teaching are overwhelming. There are a lot of things to learn and navigate through, but the golden rule for success is to surround yourself with good people. It is important to find the positive, supportive, and enthusiastic teachers around you and stick close by them. Just like a young seed growing in a garden, thriving in your early years of teaching depends largely on who you plant yourself next to. 

The colleagues and fellow educators around me have been the key to my growing from a little seedling into a blossoming flower. The advice and coaching I have received these past two years have been amazing, and I am incredibly grateful. It has helped positively shape me into the educator I am today. I am part of the student support services department at my school where I am surrounded by fellow special education teachers who are very passionate about the work they do and strive in supporting their students to be the best that they can be. They put their students at the center of their learning and practice a personalized approach to support their unique learners. 

It is through my fellow colleagues that I learned about the MARIO Framework and how to have successful one-to-one conferences with students incorporating the use of effective questioning. A goal during my first year of teaching was to learn more about how I could apply one-to-one work more meaningfully, and the MARIO Framework was the answer in helping me achieve that goal. The MARIO Framework highlights that we constantly adapt and grow together when the one-to-one approach to learning is applied meaningfully and purposefully. I knew this was an important framework to practice as our students consistently say that having one-to-one sessions with their teachers has the biggest impact on their learning. MARIO helps educators maximize the time they share with their students and helps students recognize and prioritize their individual learning goals. 

I expanded my knowledge of the MARIO Framework by taking the MARIO Educator Level 1 Certification course. The MARIO Educator Certification Course is structured in a way that fosters a strong sense of community and allows you to connect with other educators from all over the globe. It ultimately allows you to practice that golden rule, surround yourself with good people. The connections I have made with other educators within the course have been some of the most meaningful in my educational career. The coaching I have received from fellow educators within my school and within the MARIO Educator Certification course has served to positively impact my practices as an educator. The skills and knowledge I have gained from the good people I surrounded myself with are what helped me get through my early years of teaching. 

No matter how many years of teaching you have under your belt, I encourage you to go find those good people and plant your seeds close by them so you can continue to grow strong and blossom into an empowering educator. 

Written by: Rebecca Lebel