In early childhood education, it can be easy to get so caught up in the demands of each day that we lose sight of why the work matters in the first place.
In this episode of Early Childhood Chapters, host Emily Garman talks with Rachel Robertson, EdD, Chief Academic Officer for Bright Horizons and author of Connecting Practice to Purpose: A Reflective Journal for Teachers. Rachel shares why reflection is such an important part of professional growth and how guided journaling can give educators the space to process challenges, recognize their strengths, celebrate meaningful moments, and reconnect with their purpose.
Rachel also explains what makes a guided journal different from a blank notebook, how reflection can help educators become their own "self-mentors," and why recording both the hard days and the joyful ones can reveal growth that might otherwise go unnoticed.
In this conversation, you'll hear about:
Whether you're beginning your first year in the classroom, taking on a new role, or simply looking for a way to reconnect with what brought you to this work, this conversation is a reminder that professional growth doesn't always require doing more. Sometimes it begins with slowing down long enough to notice, reflect, and remember why your work matters.
Connecting Practice to Purpose: A Reflective Journal for Teachers by Rachel Robertson, EdD, is available from Gryphon House.
What follows is a lightly-edited transcript of our interview.
Emily Garman: Welcome to Early Childhood Chapters, where we explore the ideas, research and practical strategies shaping early childhood education. Today, I'm joined by Rachel Robertson, one of the most respected voices in our field and the Chief Academic Officer for Bright Horizons. Rachel's newest book with Gryphon House is Connecting Practice to Purpose, A Reflective Journal for Teachers, and it takes a different approach than most traditional professional resources. Rather than telling educators what to do, it creates space for them to pause, reflect, celebrate successes, work through challenges, and reconnect with the reason they chose this profession in the first place. Rachel, welcome to Early Childhood Chapters.
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Thank you for having me.
Emily Garman: So this is a different kind of book. It's a different kind of book than Gryphon House usually publishes. Now, you've written traditional books for the early childhood education market, but this one is a guided journal. So what inspired you to create something so different?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Well, I have written guided journals before, and that journey started long ago when I was part of a military family and I was supporting children and adults, including my own child and me as an adult through a really difficult deployment experience. So I realized as I was writing things down and keeping things assembled, that I wanted my husband to be able to come back and see the journey we had while he was gone. I was also using it as a place to keep reminders to myself, things I don't want to forget, things I needed to process. I just realized what I was doing was kind of creating my own guided journal. But staring at a blank page can be really overwhelming. So what I was doing is like prompting myself through it, like, here's what I want to do for this, and here's what I want to do for this. And that gave me some guidance. So it didn't feel like just another thing I had to manage. And then at the same time, I was learning a lot professionally about the power of reflection and the process of reflective thinking. And those ideas just came together as a way to help children. I started with the journal for children to help them be hopeful and forward-thinking, while at the same time keeping a record of what was going on in their lives so they didn't feel like their deployed parent or family member was missing anything. During a really challenging time, they were also able to use it to help them process and heal a little bit. And I think that, although it's a very different experience, the same is true for teachers: they deserve a place to process all the different things that are going on and help themselves through a lot of things. They also have a really hard time remembering all the amazing things that happened, especially on a really hard day. And reflective, guided journaling allows you to do all of that.
Emily Garman: Tell me about the title of the book, Connecting Practice to Purpose. Did you choose that title specifically?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: It was a working process to come up with this title, but I think the words are all very important: "connecting," "practice," and "purpose." In my experience as a former teacher, a former center director, and now supporting a lot of teachers and center directors, it's really hard to remember why you do what you do when you're in the thick of it day in and day out, and things become just heavy and hard sometimes. And some days, I mean, teaching is hard. Teaching is hard work, and it's hard to remember why you do it sometimes. So making sure that people don't lose sight of that purpose. I have a story I tell a lot at work. When I was a center director, I had a center where we didn't have a dishwasher, not a human and not a machine, and I insisted on real dishes. And we had about 120 children enrolled, and we served breakfast, lunch and snacks. So I was washing dishes every night, and my child was running around the building. And I was thinking, I remember thinking one night, like, what am I doing? And I went in my office and I just wrote on a sticky note, “I work for the babies,” and to me that was all the kids in that building. And that's why I'm doing it, because I care about the meals they're getting. I care about the fact that they're doing family-style dining or child-centered mealtime. And because I care about those things, it means I have to do these dishes until I have a different solution. And that has stayed with me. And I've talked about it lots of times: you have to know your purpose behind the things, otherwise you get lost in that. I have to take the trash out, and then I have to write this thing for a parent, and then I have to do this activity, and then I have to move this shelf or whatever it is. But when you think about all those things together and ask, why am I doing this? Why does this matter? What is my purpose here? It just makes such a big difference. And then it also gives shape to some of your decisions and some of your practices if you're remembering your purpose. So all of it matters whether it's practice to purpose or purpose to practice. It's the connection between those two things that can really have an influence on the decisions, unconscious or conscious, that teachers are making throughout the day.
Emily Garman: Maybe teaching is a little bit more like being deployed than we might have initially thought.
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Yeah. I think one of the quotes that I love and I'm not going to get the quote exactly right, but it's about the best part about teaching is that it matters every day. And the hardest part about teaching is that it matters every day. And in any caring field, you are giving of yourself to others. You have to do that to be successful in your job. It's really challenging and it's really hard, but it's also so rewarding and meaningful. And in early childhood, you could not work in a field that has more purpose and value and impact. So I think that's what you just have to find a way to make sure we never lose sight of that, the power of what we're doing while we're in the thick of it. And while it can be a hard day, hopefully within those hard days there's lots of good stuff. Our brains are really wired to think about the negative stuff. And another thing that journaling can do is make sure you hold on to the good stuff, so it forces you to ask, what good did happen today? So three days later, when you're like, what am I doing with my life? You can look back and go, oh, this is what I'm doing. I'm doing it because of these great moments.
Emily Garman: So somebody might look at this and think, I already have a bunch of blank journals that people have given me. I've got some spiral notebooks. I've got that sitting around the house. I don't really need a guided journal. You've talked a little bit about this, but elaborate some more. What makes the guided part different? What do these prompts do that a blank page just can't do?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Yeah, that's a great question. For me, looking at a blank page can feel a little overwhelming or I just don't know where to start. I do a lot of writing as you mentioned. And so I really have to force myself to just get something out there. But when someone asks me a question or gives me a prompt, it's so much easier to just get things started. So that's part of it, to just offer that guidance for folks and to make sure that there's a progression so you can have some repetition to see how things grow over time. So if you're answering the same questions week to week, you can look back then and have this record of the evolution of your thinking or how you're processing something. And then it also gives you space to make sure that you aren't losing sight of all the positives and all the impact you're making, as well as giving you space to process some of the harder things that happen in the world of education.
Emily Garman: You do ask really thoughtful questions in the journal. So how did you decide what kinds of prompts and questions to include? What makes a question powerful enough to lead to real growth?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Yeah, I mean, I love the last word you said in that question, because reflection is really the only way we learn and grow. I mean, we can just go through life doing stuff, and that's what happens in a busy life. Sometimes you just get stuff done. But really, the only way to learn from experience is to reflect on it and process it. So a lot of these questions are built around helping people reflect on the experiences that I know that they're having as educators of young children. So there's questions about big days and exciting moments. There's questions about difficult situations and things that challenge you. And we all know that those things are happening throughout the life of an educator. So it's prompting you to make sure that you're thinking about all of the things, the full picture, and then trying to foster something called productive struggle. Or I've heard people call it intellectual friction. Whatever visual you like, you want to be in a place where you're feeling like, I don't know how I feel about this, or I don't know where this is going to go, and can I do this? Like we're all asking those questions of ourselves sometimes, but when you get to write about it, you get to think about it from a different perspective. It's slower than just quickly doing something online. The process of writing is really helpful because it's tactile, it's 3D, so you're processing in a different way in your brain. So all these good things are happening when you're doing that. And then again, if you get to look back over time, you're able to watch your own struggle through something and you can learn a lot about yourself. You could learn from those experiences you're having, learn from the choices and decisions you're making. So I think that is a really powerful piece of reflection or guided journaling that probably people don't know so much about, but they feel it. They feel that they were able to learn from something or process in a different way. And we often talk about reflective practice in education, but there's not a lot of time for it. So giving teachers a tool they can use for themselves to do it was really important to me as well.
Emily Garman: So looking at the structure of the book, you include sections. Some of the sections are "Weekly Download," "Today Was a Big Day," and "Tell Your Story." So why is it important that educators record these memories and experiences and lessons instead of just moving on to the next day? You've talked about this a little bit, but why is it important to take the time to actually write it down, to see that growth over time?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Yeah, they see the growth over time. And that's one of the reasons I wanted the weekly downloads is just like, how are you feeling? And also to make all of that okay, like it's okay if this week you weren't feeling that great, and it's also okay if this is the best week of your teaching career. It's all the things that are okay. This is a safe space. It's a private space to be able to say that. But one piece of advice I got in life when I was kind of coping with some challenging things, including some of the military stuff, is to make a decision. If you're struggling with a big decision, write it down each day, kind of make that decision and then reflect back on it over a month or so. What was the majority of your days like? What were you thinking? You don't have to have these big-pressure moments of, "I have to decide it today." And then your brain just kind of rethinks and rethinks, and having that weekly download allows you to maybe get out of that overthinking or overprocessing. You could just write about it and then you're going to come back to it and you'll process it again next week and so on and so forth. And then you'll have, again, this record of being able to look at, oh, you know what? I felt really crummy that one week. But overall I actually really love this. And I'm getting better at it. And it also allows you a safe space to kind of deal with these things that you might be challenged by. So you can safely say what you're challenged by in a journal that's just for you, and be able to come back to it over time. So that's the weekly downloads. And then for the big moments, there are just such precious big moments that happen when you're an educator. There are just such wonderful things that happen, but everybody gets to decide which of those things are their big things. Maybe they connected with a child. Maybe that's your big moment. You connected with a child. A child came to you and asked for help who had never asked for help before. On one of my recent visits to a child care center, a child said to me, "Can I tell you the bestest secret I ever knew?" And I'm like, this is a big moment for me. I get to be on the receiving end of the "bestest secret!" It was actually a pretty cool secret. It was about a shortcut at a children's museum, so that was a big moment. I've retained it because I've talked about it, but otherwise it gets lost. Those big moments get lost. Or maybe you've connected with a parent, or maybe you did something hard. Maybe you presented at a staff meeting, or maybe you gave feedback to someone. Whatever it is. However you define big days, big moments, those are important. And then "Tell Your Story." I think one thing I know for sure, from working with tens of thousands of teachers in my career, everybody has a unique story about why they do this work and why it matters to them and the impact they're able to make. And making sure that people are able to honor themselves because teachers are literally the most important thing in a classroom. And being able to see yourself like that, own your own story, and understand the power of your own story is also important to me. So giving teachers space for that. But again, because it's a guided journal, I'm not telling them what that story is or I'm not guessing at their story. They get to tell it.
Emily Garman: You're helping them uncover it.
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Emily Garman: One thing that really stood out to me is a phrase that you used. You said that this journal can help educators become great self-mentors, so you can help an educator become a great self-mentor. And that's a fascinating idea. What does that mean to mentor yourself and how can that reflection help mentor you toward making better decisions over time?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Yeah. So having a really strong mentor or a really strong coach is so valuable. There aren't enough to go around and we can't have them all the time, everywhere. So learning how to do some of those things for yourself is really important. And this kind of journaling process or self-reflection also provides this opportunity for self-assessment. You start to see what your patterns are. You start to see what your strengths are. You start to see what regularly challenges you, and you start to pick up on your own need for learning, for help, for growth, for opportunity, for interest. Sometimes through this process, somebody could say, "I had no idea that I wanted to be a literacy expert, but this is what I'm journaling about all the time, and this is what I'm really excited about: new stories and how to read with children, and how to unlock early literacy in the science of reading and all of that." That might just come out as you're journaling and you learn a lot about yourself. So I don't want to take from the profession or the roles of being a mentor or coach, because those are certainly very valuable. But even if we do have access to that, knowing how to do that for yourself and be able to reflect on your own strengths and needs and opportunities is a really powerful skill set that we actually want children to develop too. It's so important for their whole lives. And so when you as a teacher are doing it, you're able to pass that on to children too. So there's a double benefit of being able to do that.
Emily Garman: I'm thinking about people I know in my life who are educators. And I'm kind of wondering, do you see a specific kind of person or specific educator benefiting most from this journal? Like is it primarily for somebody who's brand new to the profession, or do veteran educators have just as much to gain from using it?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Yeah, that's a good question. When I was writing it, I was thinking of new teachers, and then I started thinking about, well, it's not just new teachers, it's teachers who maybe have a new grade, a new center or school they're working at, or a new colleague or a new co-teacher. When there's something you're struggling with, or you're new or at the beginning of something, you can kind of see in the background one of the books I've written. It's called Beginners Are Brave and it's a children's book, and I love this title. I use the title with adults a lot of times, too. But I think I'm taking this idea from those concepts of when you feel new to something, or when you've been given a new challenge or part of your role. Maybe it's a promotion. Whatever it might be, you start feeling like a beginner again, and it can be uncomfortable and you don't feel that accomplished because maybe you were very good at what you were doing, and now you're in a whole new environment, maybe new colleagues, new age group, whatever it might be. So it's a natural time to want to be reflective and to make sure that you're paying attention to your own growth and learning, because you don't always feel that great at what you're doing or that skilled or competent. So that was my main audience. I went from "new" to "new experience." And then as I went on and shared this with a couple teachers, people were like, "Can I just use it? Do I have to be new?" So I think it's really for whoever is interested in getting better at the reflective process for themselves and wants this record, because in the end you will have a record of a year. You could do it like you do if you have children. You have baby books or whatever you're doing to keep their school mementos or something. It's sort of like mementos of your own career. So I think really anyone can benefit from it, whether they're in a new situation or they're simply interested in building their own reflective practice.
Emily Garman: And it seems like that would be beneficial professionally as you're growing as an educator, but also personally, too, because teaching is so connected with your personal beliefs and your personal values. Teachers have to love what they do; there's no other reason to teach except that you're drawn to it. So this is something that I think can add personal growth as well as professional growth. And one of my favorite sections, and you've talked about this before, but letting educators connect with their purpose and remember the incredible impact that they're having on children's lives every day. So when you're having one of those really tough weeks because teaching is so hard, what are some ways that people can connect with their why?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: I was doing some work where I was using some reflective journaling in a pilot project I was working on, and I had a teacher saying to me that until she did this and reflected on it, she didn't understand that she was making assumptions about a child's abilities, and she made a change in how she was working with that child. And it was really special to hear how excited she was about this child's strengths and capabilities and all the things she learned about this child. But she was able to do this through this process of thinking like, oh, wait, I'm making an assumption. I don't know if I know that. Is that really true? Instead of simply thinking of it as challenging, she could step back and go, well, why is this happening and what could I do differently? And what if I did this and that? It was happening through that productive struggle of self-reflection in a guided journaling process. And it was just little things like that you're able to unlock, and then it's so fulfilling. It feeds into your purpose because you were able to take something that was hard or you don't quite understand how to do it, or you don't feel good at it yet, and have a process where you're figuring it out and getting better, or find a solution, or make the decision and not feel like you have to rush through it. You have this process that you can go through, and then people are just kind of figuring it out for themselves and solving their own problems. It's not to say people shouldn't ask for help, and that asking for help is actually a fantastic thing to do. As a teacher, you can't do it alone. So this shouldn't take the place of those kinds of things. But it's just such a powerful skill, as you're saying, for teachers and their personal life and their professional life. And then, of course, to be able to teach children. I'll tell you one more thing. A teacher said to me recently, going through that same exercise, "I just really didn't understand how important I was. And now before I go into a classroom, I remind myself of that. And then I act like it." And I'm like, oh, if that's what we could do, I mean, I know we're not going to do that every day, and not everyone will. And that's just a very powerful statement. But it's hard some days to remember that or to always be doing your best every day. But I think just that guided journaling gave that to her, which was pretty exciting.
Emily Garman: And that's really kind of the answer to my next question, which is, if you imagine that somebody uses this journal for an entire school year, they do all the writing prompts and then they look back at what they've written, in the following summer, what do you hope they'll discover about themselves?
Rachel Robertson, EdD: That they really matter and that they're important. That's huge. That they love this work, even though it's hard. That they are good at it, and that the strengths and the amazing moments far outweigh the tough stuff. And very deliberately, I have a "Letter to Self" at the very beginning and a "Letter to Self" at the end. And the letter to self at the end requires you to go back and look at your letter at the beginning, and there is power in that growth alone, in looking at what do you want to learn? What do you want to know? And did you do it? That can be so powerful for people. Some people are going to do that and think, oh, I actually forgot about some of these things. I may even do some of these things. And that's not meant to feel like there was a failure or a negative there. That could be because things just changed. You didn't need to do those things you thought you needed to, but through your process, you learned other things were more important. Or those things can be the impetus for the next year's guided journal, whatever it might be. So it's not a comparison where you're checking off, "Did I pass this test?" You're learning who you became through this process and what you achieved. I wish I could watch teachers reading that to themselves and having that experience, because I know it will be so powerful for people to be able to do that. And then again, I think the same thing I thought for the deployment journals: I want people to have a record of who they were, what they achieved, what they accomplished, and how their thinking and feelings progressed over time. Like I was saying with that advice someone gave me about making decisions, if you can allow yourself the space to know that you'll do better if you can reflect on it and process it. That's true of everything that'll go in this journal. It also allows people to say, "I forgot about that moment. I forgot about this. Oh, actually, I learned this." I will also say one wonderful thing about being able to record all this stuff is that when we relive moments, we get some of the same dopamine and serotonin kind of hits that we get when we have those moments. So it's another reason to write about the good stuff, because then when you relive it, you get to have those happy feelings again.
Emily Garman: Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today on Early Childhood Chapters.
Rachel Robertson, EdD: Thank you for having me and letting me talk about something I'm so passionate about.
Emily Garman: You've reminded us that professional growth doesn't always come from another workshop or another checklist. Sometimes it begins with simply slowing down long enough to notice, reflect, and reconnect with our purpose. Rachel Robertson's new book, Connecting Practice to Purpose: A Reflective Journal for Teachers, is available from Gryphon House. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe to Early Childhood Chapters wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, thanks for listening, and thank you for everything you do to support young children and the educators who care for them.