I'm Not A Frilly, Fancy Teacher

You know those teachers who have beautiful classrooms with amazing decor and the most beautiful worksheets with awesome fonts and clipart. That is not me. Now, don't get upset and think that I'm bashing those teachers. I think they're amazing, I love looking at their classes on Instagram, but it's just not me.

I'm the teacher with a simple classroom. I'm the teacher that plans with the end in mind and then creates my resources based on my goals for my students. I use fonts that are easily read by students. I limit my use of clipart and fancy borders. The reasons for this are simple:

• I believe it is best practice to focus on the content and make it easily accessible by students.
  

• I don't have an eye for aesthetics. Sometimes I try, but trying turns into a time-suck for me because it takes me 4 hours to find fonts that look right together and add clipart/photos that match the content and look good. I'd rather spend my time making content rich activities than making them pretty.

Because of this, I've found it hard to make my mark on TeachersPayTeachers. I have some really good resources, but because they are not as eye-catching as some other products, I've found it hard to get my store off the ground. This summer, I did a complete overhaul of my store and products. I worked on making the covers more eye-catching, but I didn't work on this until after I made sure they were content rich products because that is what I feel is most important.

Occasionally, I look at other classrooms on Instagram or in my school and self-doubt starts creeping in, but then I remember... I'm not a frilly, fancy teacher, but I am effective.