Small Bites Friday Five 9-17-21:
Encouragement from @DorisASantoro – Rise up with strategies and information on burnout vs. teacher demoralization in this Edweek article that helps you understand what you’re dealing with and how to deal with it.
Encouragement from @PlanBookCom – Rise up, if you’ve decided that burnout is where you’re heading, with these strategies from PlanBook and don’t be afraid to reach out for help.
Encouragement from @Angela_Watson – Rise up and Say goodbye to Teacher Tired with this article and resources from Angela Watson. I learned about her 40 hour work week resources from Cult of Pedagogy. Some resources are paid, but even the free ones will revolutionize the way you spend your time.
Encouragement from @weareteachers – Rise up and giggle. Sometimes, laughter is the best medicine, and we teachers are a funny lot! Start here then follow them on Twitter and Instagram. Cause, when you run out of tears, sometimes all you can do is laugh.
Encouragement from M.L. Brown – If laughter and strategies no longer work, rise up with this Medium article from an educator who decided that enough was enough. For those who have made that decision, let’s be supportive, knowing that sometimes, enough really is enough.
Ever have one of those weeks where it seemed nothing you did made an impact? Welcome to my week.
Moving from guiding student learning in the classroom to impacting student learning district wide are two very different situations. The joy of watching students learn, achieve, grow, fail, fail again, then succeed; the joy that fuels you when the exhaustion kicks in, was missing. I felt it acutely.
I was not prepared for the long game that working at the district level is. Oh, I knew it, understood how it would be intellectually. But I was not prepared for a close up, personal view of the unyielding underbelly of this albatross we call an educational system. You’d think teaching about systemic inequities would have given me a clue, and it has –which only serves to add to the feeling of futility.
This week, I am humbled at how incremental the change is in the grand scheme of things. That humility makes me want to cry into a glass of milk. That humble place is also a place of remembering: “Define Your Why“, as author and educator Barbara Bray says. Either I believe that I can be an agent of change one small bite at a time, or I don’t. The system needs to change, that’s why I do what I do. And so, I’ll dry my tears and start over. Because futility and hopelessness are just not an option.
Note: This episode is dedicated to educator Sha’Lon Campbell, an inspiring administrator who this week, by sheer force of will, launched two virtual school options for our district. Mr. Rogers always said, look for the helpers. She was that heroic helper this week!