What happened?
mbracing this newfound freedom is both thrilling and unnerving, but I am determined to embrace the challenges that come with it.
The Sustained Teacher: Three and Three
Balance doesn’t have to be about doing less, it can be about doing with intention. By setting explicit priorities about work that is important to us, we can feel better about what we are able to get done in the day. This decision to focus on what was most important can end up making it possible to give ourselves grace and be grateful for what it is we were able to accomplish in the work day.
The Sustained Teacher: Wearing Your Hats (part two)
What this experience taught me was that while I eventually came to trust my own intuition, I was not pausing to check in with myself before accepting professional commitments. I rarely, if ever, stopped to ask myself if the roles I was taking on would contribute to my own growth as an educator. I did not ask if these service positions would actually serve me.
The Dilemma of Doing Less
On a daily basis I am asking myself “Am I doing enough?” and while the committee in my head gathers to run the analysis of the tasks I’ve assigned, the structure to my live synchronous sessions, and the format of my home page, how many messages I’ve personally written, phone calls made, efforts to translate material, and the amount of planning I’ve done for future units, I eventually, and somewhat ironically end up with investigating the question “Am I doing too much?” instead.
The Sustained Teacher: How I Protect the Joy of Teaching (Part One)
In this series, I offer you and every educator a principled method for teacher self-care, what I prefer to call teacher sustainability, because for me it’s about sustaining ourselves in a system that is very efficient at overwhelming and wearing down educators who are passionate about public service, therefore resulting in high teacher turnover especially in high-need areas.
Pandemic school: A teacher’s experience
I hoped it would be better. I wanted it to be better. I absolutely saw no better time than in response to a pandemic for us to throw out the entire rule book and start over.