For those of you who know me personally, this will come as no surprise. For those of you who don't, I am passionate about my job and am a total work-a-holic. These two things put together make for little down time. Several years ago our district decided to give students and staff a full week off for Thanksgiving. I have always spent at least 3-4 days catching up on work or creating new everything for my class. I was usually in my classroom for at least an hour as well.
This year I was mostly caught up with the grading (gotta love project based learning and technology!). My plans for the upcoming weeks were semi-formed in my mind, but there were a few things I needed to get togther or formalize. However, there were several other things I needed to get done. Like find my teacher desk underneath all of those memos and "teacher stuff" or grade the essays they finished just before the break. (Since I never sit at my desk, I find it hard to find the energy and time to actually get to it.) The plan was to work for a few hours each day of the break (ok I would have taken Thanksgiving off) so that I wasn't spending all day Sunday working as usual. That was the plan. What I did was the exact opposite. I did nothing. (To be honest, I did check my email, but that was only because I am waiting for something important to me to come through.) I slept in an extra 1 - 2 hours every morning. I spent time with my kids watching movies, feeding the homeless, and recycling our plastic. I went for walks with a friend. I spent Thanksgiving with my best friends. I did a little shopping for Christmas gifts and myself (something I don't do often either.). I even caught up on all the shows my DVR was going to delete because it was too full. (I won't tell you how many hours I spent on the couch for this activity!) Each day I would say I should get some work done. Each night I would not regret the fact that I did none of it. I even avoided time with my PLN on Twitter, joining only a slow chat with my peeps. I did spend the last Sunday of the break doing the work I had neglected, but it wasn't any different than any other Sunday. This was the first time in my 20+ year career that I did things for me over the break. Even when we only got a 4-day weekend, I always managed to use the extra day for work. What I found out was that I really needed that extra time to do nothing. Being a teacher is exhausting, even when I am having fun with the students. Today we went back to school. While the kids were still sleepy from the vacation, I was raring to go. Yes, I would have loved to have a late start and sleep in like I did over break but it wasn't the total desperation of "how many days until winter break" that I normally experience. Did I joke about a countdown with my colleagues, of course! That is more about how the kids are going to do in the coming weeks and how much needs to get done before we leave again. Spending the time to take care of myself made me excited to see all of the students again, excited to see how they reacted to what we were going to be doing. The next time I try to overextend myself yet again with work, even with the thought that "it's what's best for the students", I need to remember what really is best for the students is to have a teacher that understands there needs to be a balance. We create brain breaks for the students knowing that they can only handle so much. It's time teachers, especially this one, remember that we need to take our brain breaks when we can. That idea I've been simmering, those essays that need feedback, that extra duty I've been asked to take care of all need to be done. BUT only after I have had my time to rest. What I learned: - Brain breaks shouldn't just be for students. - Vacation should be time to rest, not just extra "free" days to get more work done
1 Comment
Netti Farrar
11/28/2016 07:56:58 pm
Good for you! So happy you "finally" took care of yourself!! Glad you made it over for Thanksgiving <3
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Author20+ year teacher, mother of 2 kids and 2 dogs, wife, lover of all things M&M, interested in tech in the classroom, and changing up my teaching Archives
March 2020
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