Today on Afternoon Ti I’m sharing three things that are helping me beat the fatigue of teaching this fall. This is episode 118 - so glad you’re here!
Not looking far ahead - sometimes only looking at the first 30 minutes to an hour of my day when I wake up. What do I need to do?
Routine: Get a drink of water - walk the dog - his leash is in the drawer where we keep our thermometer so that triggers the reminder to take all of our temps and log into the system online to put in information each morning and get verification that we are allowed on campus that day - shower - make-up-ish - dressed - breakfast - lunch check (we prep all we can at night -
Then when I arrive at school I prep for my first class, making sure I have everything pulled up on my laptop for where I’ll be teaching. Then I prep for my advisory and chapel times. For now we’re Zooming and walking through each day. What am I helping students look at for the day? How can I help them find what they need on our Learning Management System?
The point is that I used to be able to look at multiple things in multiple ways because I was so familiar and comfortable with my schedule and how I taught music. I knew my procedures inside and out. I knew my expectations and what they looked like and sounded like. All of that is modified. I’m still teaching music and engaging students, but it looks and sounds very different. I can’t predict how far students will go with the material and where the sticky points of lessons will be because I’ve never taught in this way before - with some students online and others in front of me. With little to no instruments and no singing in the classroom. It’s a huge learning curve. What is working for me when I have mental fatigue over figuring out the how of teaching is to focus on bite size chunks and focusing on roughly an hour at a time. Then focusing on the next hour. I find myself looking at my schedule multiple times a day as I adjust to where I need to go, who is in my room with my kids, and what the flow of the day looks like. And this is okay. It’s going well and I feel good about that. The overwhelm comes when I try to solve what ‘could’ happen or what needs to be taught several classes in. I’m facing things with my concept plan chart and moving one concept at a time. Trusting that the next thing to be taught will follow and I just have to focus on what’s in front of me.
Coming home and just being
Putting on pjs
Resting in bed
Napping before dinner
Going to bed early
Eating leftovers - again
Ordering out pizza - again
Then eating the pizza for leftovers - again
Finding one thing each day that went well
If you can’t find the good, be the good. If someone stands out to you for some reason and it’s meaningful to you, tell them. Text it. Email it. Say it. Your words mean so much. I’m going to make a blanket statement that I fully believe : all of us are more tired at the start of this school year than we’ve been at the start of most or all of our school years. There is no teacher tired like beginning of the year teacher tired. Only I now think that there is no teacher tired like covid teaching tired. So many adjustments and things we are trying and doing to help our students learn and know they are cared for and matter. I want everything to go realy well and successfully and mostly it does. But that voice in my head rarely stops sharing that I’m not as good as ____ fill in the blank or that I’m not being effective enough or whatever else I hear inside my thoughts. Sometimes the one thing that makes the difference for me is to hold tight to the positive thing that has happened. I had a few of these moments this past Friday after our first few days back with students. Man, it felt great to be with them and see them! A parent wrote me the most wonderful email about their student and what a great week they had. And thanked me and our team for all we’re doing. It was the best way to end a week where I gave absolutely everything I had and what a blessing that note was. She may never realize how much it meant - even I told her it meant a lot - and that one email gave me confidence that this next week is going to be great. That I can do it. And that what I have been doing has been making a difference.
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