Ring That Bell!

Bells are rung for many reasons ... to announce an arrival at a door, to call for dinner, to celebrate a wedding, or to signal an emergency on a ship. Some cancer treatment centers have patients ring a bell after a final treatment; some restaurants have a bell mounted by the door for customers to ring for good service; some colleges have their graduates ring a bell after receiving their diploma. Most importantly, churches have rung bells from steeples calling the faithful to worship.

Some leaders have instituted bell ringing in the office for meeting goals, celebrating accomplishments, and amplifying core values. Bell ringing is an effective way to keep the workplace positive and raise the overall morale of the staff. When the bell is rung, something good has just happened. Schools need to ring bells, too.

The School Bell

When one thinks of a "school bell," the one room school house on Little House on the Prairie is what usually comes to mind. When the bell was rung by the teacher, kids from all over Walnut Grove came running to school -- what a positive image! Today, schools still use bells to start/end the school day and to start/end class. Those are not the bells that I am talking about.

Every educator should "ring a bell" every single day to celebrate an accomplishment or one good thing that happened that day. Focusing on the positive will help to keep the school ethos positive for staff and students alike. Unfortunately, the opposite is often the case ...

Because we have a deficit mindset in education, teachers and administrators tend to focus on the negative. We want to help the one student who failed the test, correct the one lesson that flopped, or work with the one student who made a poor choice. It is so easy to leave school with the challenging activity from the day on our mind, and because we care deeply about our students, that stays with us, even causing us to lose sleep. While it is vital to help every student flourish, focusing on the negatives of the day can have a deleterious effect on individual teachers and staff morale as a whole.  

Positive Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) is an internal feeling that you can accomplish the next challenge. Positive self-efficacy is built when we focus on small accomplishments and positive actions in the past; this leads to the confidence that we can take greater risks and return the next day with a positive attitude to take on whatever challenges we will face. The opposite is also true, repeated failures and struggles lead to negative self-efficacy, which can turn into a cycle of defeat, resulting in a student (or a teacher) giving up.

We know about the power of positive self-efficacy from educational psychology about student learning, but we often forget how powerful that is for us, as educators, too. It is essential for teachers to take one minute at the end of each day to celebrate "one good thing" that happened that day, and then focus on that as they head home. Pause before rushing out the door; remember the "I got this" look of a student, an impactful moment in a lesson, or a student who said "thank you" before leaving the class. Remember that positive event and end the day with that. 

You Need a Bell

If you have a bell in your classroom or office (I gave all my staff a bell to remind them of this), ring that bell before leaving for the day. This is an auditory reminder that you are making a positive impact in the lives of your students. It will make a difference, and you will show up the next day ready to take on whatever challenge arises.

Use it to Worship

Let me briefly return to one of the reasons for bell ringing listed above. For Christian educators, bells should be used to call us to worship. When you ring that bell at the end of the day, praise God for the work He is doing in you and through you; it will turn into a doxology of sorts as you leave school each day.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow ... and Ring that bell!