Hello, Hello Again
2012...you came and went and I didn't even get to say hello much less good-bye. You went by too fast and left behind a blur.
Well, first, I'm 30 now and in my 4th year of teaching. I'm continuing to rent my condo but I have inclinations to sell the place the first chance I get. My car has been paid off and I'm once again saving up money for the next big thing.
Why am I here blogging after all this time? I need help sorting through my thoughts as I reflect about balancing my own mental well-being and my students'. When it comes to work, I put myself at the bottom of the list, which is nothing new but this school year, I've been feeling this thing that people call being "burnt out". It's more than just being exhausted at the end of the day. It's waking up exhausted, eating exhausted, and driving home exhausted. It's waking up with a headache, going to bed with a headache, feeling irritable just walking into work, and feeling perpetually stressed out.
That's been me for the past month or so. And when I'm stressed out, my patience is very short. Very. Short. I'm miserable during the day and unhappy when I go home. In my mind, the negative student behaviors get magnified and I think about their disrespectful behavior over and over again until I'm mentally drained. I'm the only teacher I know who is like this and I've come to the full realization that I need to change my approach completely as I was talking to Ms. K this morning about minor student concerns.
She has become my new teacher role model for years to come, along with Sandra, of course. Ms. K has perfected the art of detaching one's emotion from situations involving students allowing her to be rational and level-headed at all times. She doesn't invest emotion more than necessary in her classes and students. Instead, she devotes her energies to positive things such as her own school initiatives that she runs, student leaders, fun activities outside of school. She doesn't have futile meltdowns like me and have to take days off because she's made herself physically sick.
Everything she told me today made sense and it made me convinced that my go-to strategy in lecturing in an angry state was not constructive. Her strategy is:
•find what will get them to see your side e.g. bribing them with stickers, talk to them after school
•find solutions
•failing or not doing a project is not an option
•"intervene"
•don't yell
•be rational, don't involve your own emotions
I have to put her name in my flower pot with the catch-phrase "rational" to remind me to make a
better effort to approach situations rationally with the goal of being just like her and Sandra one day.
GW
Well, first, I'm 30 now and in my 4th year of teaching. I'm continuing to rent my condo but I have inclinations to sell the place the first chance I get. My car has been paid off and I'm once again saving up money for the next big thing.
Why am I here blogging after all this time? I need help sorting through my thoughts as I reflect about balancing my own mental well-being and my students'. When it comes to work, I put myself at the bottom of the list, which is nothing new but this school year, I've been feeling this thing that people call being "burnt out". It's more than just being exhausted at the end of the day. It's waking up exhausted, eating exhausted, and driving home exhausted. It's waking up with a headache, going to bed with a headache, feeling irritable just walking into work, and feeling perpetually stressed out.
That's been me for the past month or so. And when I'm stressed out, my patience is very short. Very. Short. I'm miserable during the day and unhappy when I go home. In my mind, the negative student behaviors get magnified and I think about their disrespectful behavior over and over again until I'm mentally drained. I'm the only teacher I know who is like this and I've come to the full realization that I need to change my approach completely as I was talking to Ms. K this morning about minor student concerns.
She has become my new teacher role model for years to come, along with Sandra, of course. Ms. K has perfected the art of detaching one's emotion from situations involving students allowing her to be rational and level-headed at all times. She doesn't invest emotion more than necessary in her classes and students. Instead, she devotes her energies to positive things such as her own school initiatives that she runs, student leaders, fun activities outside of school. She doesn't have futile meltdowns like me and have to take days off because she's made herself physically sick.
Everything she told me today made sense and it made me convinced that my go-to strategy in lecturing in an angry state was not constructive. Her strategy is:
•find what will get them to see your side e.g. bribing them with stickers, talk to them after school
•find solutions
•failing or not doing a project is not an option
•"intervene"
•don't yell
•be rational, don't involve your own emotions
I have to put her name in my flower pot with the catch-phrase "rational" to remind me to make a
better effort to approach situations rationally with the goal of being just like her and Sandra one day.
GW
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