Why Every Teacher Needs a Smile File

"My mom sent this," said one of my fifth graders as he handed me an envelope.

"For me or the intern?" I asked, unsure if this was for me or my student teacher from the local university.

"For you." With that he walked back to his seat to begin the day. I took the envelope and a few other materials and left the room while my intern conducted her full time teaching. After getting settled in the work room, I opened the envelope and began to read.

The note was from the student's mother, written on notebook paper in pencil. "I heard you were a good teacher, but I don't see it," it said. My heart pounded, my stomach turned and my hands shook. I walked straight into my administrator's office and cried. Bawled. Shoulder-shaking sobs as I handed him the letter.

He did two things that day that helped me. He let me cry and, more importantly, he kept the letter.

This happened over ten years ago and I can still visualize that letter in my mind. Just writing about it feels like I am teleported back to the very moment I read those poisonous words.  I remember what the paper felt like and the loops of her cursive handwriting. It's burned into my memory like a cattle brand.

If I still had the letter, I would have memorized it and all the flaws she pointed out. It would haunt me sitting in a drawer. That's why I'm so grateful my supervisor took the letter away because all I can remember is that one line. And that one line is enough to get my pulse racing so that I can hear my heartbeat in my ears a decade after it happened.

Holding on to those negative memories is actually common, perhaps even human nature. I know I've had parents send me lovely notes and messages in my career, but this stinker of a comment is the one I can quote. And I will likely remember it for a lot longer than those nice messages because research indicates that the memories of the bad news tends to linger.

So the question becomes, how do you combat the inevitable negativity?  For me the answer is a smile file.

My Smile File is called HAPPY!

Now, you don't really have to call it a smile file and it doesn't even have to be a real file.  As a classroom teacher, I had an actual file folder where I would drop printouts of nice messages, letters from parents, student drawings, notes from colleagues, etc. Now,  I keep mine on email, since I don't get nearly as many handwritten and hand-drawn notes. I call it HAPPY. Every so often I get a nice message that makes me feel good, so I plop it in the HAPPY folder.

How does a smile file combat the Negative Nelly comments? Well, it turns out that researchers have looked into the impact of praise versus criticism in various settings--business and marriage are two commonly referenced settings. Most of the research suggests that there is a sweet spot of positive and negative reviews, which is 5:1. That means it takes about five positive events to overcome just one negative one.  I think my parent note required 25:1!

Having that smile file handy means that when the big negative hits and you're feeling low, you have instant, unsolicited happy at your fingertips. In fact, I often determine what I need to put in my own HAPPY file based on how specific the praise is. For my situation, parent notes about how much I had helped their child or observation notes from other teachers would have helped me attack the "terrible teacher" story that I was telling myself.

Brené Brown, researcher and author calls the "terrible teacher" story your SFD, or shoddy first draft, based on the work of Anne Lamott. (Truth be told,  "shoddy" is a less colorful phrase for what Anne actually means by SFD!) In Brown's interpretation, she used SFD to describe the story we tell ourselves based on the evidence provided, even if our interpretation has big holes. What gets you to start revising that first draft of the story you tell yourself can be some evidence to the contrary. If the 5:1 is accurate, a healthy smile file might be what moves you into revising that SFD.

We are often willing to share negative, embarrassing or awful stories about ourselves, but use this as your chance to brag on how great you really are. And then print it for your smile file...you might need it someday. You might also want to find a colleague who needs a little something for her smile file, so send a note with some specifics about what you appreciate about them.

In the spirit of 5:1, share the good stuff in the comments or tweet it out. Remember to tag your friends and colleagues! We'll call it our #SmileFileRevolution!