I have to be honest; I feel like a broken record lately. This school year is harder than last year.
It’s finally Thanksgiving break and a much needed one. I’m finally able to sit down…and do more work. Oh? You were expecting a different answer? Okay, it was just my online class, and I finished my assignments on first day of break.
The rest of the week has been much more relaxing; lots of reading, binge watching, and sleeping in. I even ran in a 5k on Thanksgiving Day with 800 others! I’ve made it an emphasis to not work until right now. It feels so good! I feel better mentally and physically for the first time in a long time.
But it hasn’t been like that the last two months. I’d been in a never ending self-neglecting pattern: eat, sleep, teach, then repeat it all over again. I could sense my attitude was draining. My students and I check in with each other daily, and we all needed this break. It wasn’t for a lack of effort, I tried a multitude of things to change my monotone routine, but none of worked.
Because I was so exhausted, my writing has suffered. If you been reading my blogs long enough, you know in March I started to write daily about at least one positive thing that happened that day. Over the last month, daily writing has become weekly writing. Before you worry, I was still writing, just at the end of the week I was caught up and trying to recall. (Taking pictures helps!) Now, I’m back on my daily writing grind thankfully.
This school year has been difficult. I used to think it was just my school because of the major changes, but teachers on social media are saying the same thing; but everyone has a different reason. The pressure to teach the same way and time as other teachers and a mountain of workbooks that were delivered early in the year. Textbooks and computer programs don’t teach boys and girls. Energized, passionate teachers that have trust and freedom do. Teachers know their students and the data behind the results. Maybe I just exhausted trying to teach in a way that’s not me or best for my students.
This break, as breaks normally do, helped awaken me. The good news…we still have 6 months left in the school year. In other words, we (I) still have time to help my students and myself be our best selves. It’s time I to do what’s best for me. That means I have to break the eat, sleep, teach broken record pattern. For me, that means a few things; reading daily, running every other day, and doing what’s best for my students.
