S8: E158 Summer Health Series - The Four R's of Summer: Rejuvenate, Renew, Reflect, Redirect

 Afternoon Ti Podcast

Season 8

Episode 158

Summer Health Series - The Four R's of Summer: Rejuvenate, Renew, Reflect, Redirect

For our summer health series so far I’ve focused on sharing some of my summer favorites and parenting ideas for time with your kids ages 0 through middle school.  Today’s episode is all about you.  You just finished what might arguably be the hardest year of teaching you’ve ever had. You were creative, innovative, exhausted, determined, uncertain, experimental, challenged, discouraged, beat down, encouraged, and then it came to an end.  Summer has arrived.

My immediate response to the start of summer was the need for rejuvenating and renewing myself.  I wasn’t ready to reflect on the year and am still not at that place yet completely.  Not like I’ve done in the past.  I’ve looked through photos of myself from the year and see the bags under my eyes, the tiredness in my face, and a clear view of myself as someone who wore themselves out trying to keep everything going.  And it was apparent that rest needed to happen as soon as school ended.  And rest I did and two weeks out am still doing.  A few of you are just ending your school year and what you need is rest.  Take it.  Do it.  When you’re ready to face school work, new ideas, and reflect on the year then go for it.  But give yourself permission to check school emails infrequently, go up to school for specific times and only if necessary, and to be a person again before your role of a teacher.  

It can be hard to shut off teacher mode.  It often takes some time for me to unwind and actually relax and do things that are unrelated to work.  Part of it is having ideas pop up and fleshing those out.  Part of it is that there are things I want to work on in my classroom that are easier to do in the summer or meetings I’m still going to in the summer every now and again.  Or just that I simply don’t know what else to do with my time and need to remember that it’s okay if I sit on the couch and watch another episode with my girls.  

You might be in the same place as me - needing time to rejuvenate and renew yourself.  You need a little time before you jump back into thinking about school, writing down new ideas, or doing anything related to teaching.

You might feel like you want to put things into action.  You’re ready to get your thoughts down through reflecting and redirecting.  You don’t want to forget things that worked or didn’t work this year and you want to redirect your thinking towards how you can use what you did this year again.  

There is no right reaction to summer starting.  Take what you need.

Rejuvenate and renew - go do it.

Reflect and redirect - go do it.

I’d encourage you to make time for both this summer.  In any order or combination that works for you.  But you need both.

Here are a few ideas for how to do both this summer:

Rejuvenate and Renew-

1. Step away from school work.

2. Choose specific days and times for doing school related things (and then only do them during that time)

3. Be bored. Allow yourself to get used to a slower pace.

Reflect and Redirect-

1. Make a list by grade level of what you want to keep for next year

2. If you’re ready, look at what you want to focus on next year (either wasn’t able to be done this year or is an area you know that your students need more time with - specific concepts)

3. Begin writing down ideas for next year - maybe even go up to school to decorate your room or clean out things