The moment you think you’re safe as a teacher, is the moment you could be losing your edge.
The longer you stay with the same class or routine, the easier it is for you to start coasting.
Solution? Teach entrepreneurially to keep your edge and excitement alive about what you do.
Entrepreneurial Teaching
- Entrepreneurs are risk takers. They have an idea for a business, but they don’t know if it will work until they try it.
Application to Teaching When was the last time you took a risk in class? In your style as a teacher? In how you presented what you taught? Keep your teaching skills sharp and alive by taking more risks.
Try something new to teach something old. Risk, and risk often.
Doing things the way you’ve always done, even it is working, is a great recipe for boredom. Think: if you feel bored by your last lesson, you subject material, or just teaching in general then it’s likely a great time to take a risk in how you teach.
- Entrepreneurs are Observers. Entrepreneurs see a need in the market, and then build something to supply that need.
Application to Teaching: How is your material meeting your student’s need? (Your market as a teacher are your students.) How aware are you of your market’s needs?
Maybe you can’t control what you have to teach, but you can shape how you deliver your courses so that they meet what your market is demanding. Are you?
The alternative is force feeding.
- Entrepreneurs are Action Oriented.
“Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.” -P.T. Barnum
Application to Teaching: How are you being brave today? Brave means that you feel fear about doing something, but you act anyway because you know it is the correct thing to do. I’m wondering: Is our teaching that edgy?
I’m thinking about myself here. I need to be more edgy. Not in a careless sort of way, but in a way that is oriented towards causing the most good, the greatest impact and the best results for my students.
I will work to be an entrepreneurial teacher. How about you?
