One Sore Throat and Two Stomach Flus

Today in my class, I have one really bad sore throat and two of the ERFs in my classroom are off with the stomach flu.

So, I thought today might be a good day to talk about personal wellness.

We are coming up to the last three weeks of school before the break and these three weeks tend to be the most demanding. The students will be extra anxious, excited, emotional and generally demanding of your time and energy. The problem is after report cards, interviews, IEPs, referrals, ISRCs etc., we are all pretty run down by this point in the year.

There are many ways to make it through December with a smile. Some of my favourites are:

  1. Do an activity with a colleague. Put two classes together and work together to support your students. Having a team approach to deal with extra behaviour from students can take the pressure off of being calm and patient all day long.
  2. Plan activities that don’t require you to take marking home. Try to get all your marking done in class. Commit to taking anecdotal notes about rich conversations as opposed to marking assignments after school. For writing, do an assignment that requires writing conferences as assessment. For Math, get into some amazing Marion Small rich tasks and capture everything in the moment. The less you have to take home, the more time you have to recharge in the evening. You need to stockpile the energy this month.
  3. Get outside. Do a couple of lessons in the great outdoors building structures out of snow, balloon races or making some art out of found objects. Extra time outside can really have an impact on all those high emotions and can help students burn off some energy.
  4. Take time out for laughter. Yesterday, a bunch of my friends and I went out and did an ugly Christmas sweater run. It was great to get out and laugh A LOT. We took crazy selfies all over town and cars were honking at our silliness everywhere we went. I know many of you have a whole bunch of gifts to buy and food to prepare and family to host but somewhere in there find time for laughter. It can be the best self care there is.
  5. Make rewards more immediate and obvious for the students. I sometime up the reward time in my class in December to help the students stay focused and on task. I have posted the letters F-r-i-d-a-y-F-r-e-e-t-i-m-e at the front of the room and tell the kids that each letter represents 10 mintues. I remove letters based on if students are not following the rules.
  6. If emotions are running high, have students do some independent work. Give them a break from doing their work and using their social skills at the same time.

All in all, I love December and all the celebrations that happen at this time of year. But this month requires you to take one deep breath and take care of ourselves!

 

 

Personal Wellness

It is at the end of April every year when my personal wellness goes out the window and work seems to take over my life. There are so many events as we gear up for the end of the year, that I often feel like I am a hamster on a running wheel trying desperately to keep up. At this time of year, I exercise less, eat more junk food, and sleep becomes interrupted with thoughts of what I didn’t do during each day. This is a pattern that I know is my weakness, but something happened last week to signify that my approach to personal wellness in the spring has to change.

After teaching music for many years, I decided that this was the year for a big change. I have been at the same school for a decade and I felt as though I really needed some new learning. Last week, I accepted a job at a school across town where I will be running a program for 10 intermediate Developmentally Delayed students. I have always been drawn to helping our special needs students and the school that I accepted a job at has a built-in mentor next door. She is an expert in running similar programs and will really teach me a lot. I am very excited about this new challenge!

This opportunity is so exciting and wonderful, but it will come with a lot of challenges that potentially could be stressful. Maintaining a good work/life balance and focusing on personal wellness will be an important part of my success in this role.

As I finish up this year and look forward to next year, I know it will be important to focus on the building blocks of personal wellness.

  1. Physical Activity: My goal will be to get out and just get my heart elevated at least three times a week.
  2. Laughter: My goal will be to laugh every day as much as I can.
  3. Nutrition: My goal will be to try to make sure that my diet doesn’t consist of an over abundance of Doritos and McDonald’s French fries.
  4. Reflection: This is important for growth. However, I sometimes overemphasize the what went wrong instead of having a good balance between acknowledging successes and failures.

Some years go better than others in the area of personal wellness and stress management. Some years you have kids that get along and make major gains in their learning, while other years you have a parent who is mentally ill that you are constantly dealing with or administration whose vision doesn’t match your philosophy of education. The best part about our job is that when things go wrong, you can do your very best until the end of the year and start fresh in September.  In order to make it to another September, we have to take care of ourselves along the way.

 

 

Taking care of yourself in December

Now that the hustle and bustle of progress reports is done and parent-teacher interview night is over, I am exhausted. I find this time of the year to be the longest stretch of the school year and these next four weeks to be the most demanding on me mentally and physically. Although my body and mind feel like they should be at home relaxing on my couch, I have four solid weeks of instruction to deliver, an AQ to complete and a Christmas concert to gear up for. There is no time to rest just yet! However, this is my eighth time through December at school and I have learned a few things along the way. Below are my survival tips for the next four weeks.

Survival Tip #1: Keep to your regular routine in class as much as possible. This is tough with concerts, sing along assemblies and parties in late December; however, kids get cranky and forgetful of the school rules when so many routines are disrupted. To limit the amount of negative interactions with your students, continue with normal Math lessons and guided reading circles throughout the month to mitigate all the changes happening.

Survival Tip#2: Continue your exercise routine as much as possible. Just like the kids, there are so many disruptions to our lives in December. I have multiple holiday parties that I am committed to attend, baking to do, and presents to buy. It is really easy to get overwhelmed at this time of year. However, no matter how busy I get, I drag myself to my swimming and spin classes this time of year as I always feel better when I am done. I also am a better partner and teacher when I have had one hour of a spin instructor yelling at me (I guess when you are trying your best just to keep your legs moving, you don’t have time to worry about anything else).

Survival Tip #3: Do assessments in class. This is a great time of year to have students do oral presentations, skits, or hands-on math activities in class to demonstrate their knowledge. Have your rubric/checkbric/criteria checklist etc. ready and mark them in the moment. This will encourage you to take home less marking and keep you fresher for student feedback during the day.

Survival Tip #4: Choose your battles. This tip really applies to every day of the school year but I really try to remind myself of this in December. Some students have a really hard time with the transition into the break. For students who are going home to a two-week holiday filled with fighting, substance abuse or neglect, this break can be really long and stressful. That anticipatory anxiety and stress can display itself in behaviour that is really challenging to deal with. Try your best to stay calm and choose your battles if the student’s behaviour is not impacting your ability to instruct the class. Talk to the student at a quiet moment to see if they need support.

Survival Tip #5: Attempt to eat right. I say attempt, as my mother-in-law’s sausage rolls and jam tarts always get me. However, weight gain, upset stomachs and crazy sugar crashes that are very prevalent this time of year are not great factors for running the marathon that is the last four weeks of December.

Ultimately, it is very important to take care of you in December. I know it may seem selfish, but you will have so much more to give to your students, family and friends. Good luck and have a great December!

Personal Wellness

It is that time of year where your steps are getting a little slower and your energy is starting to dwindle. There are concerts coming up, progress reports to write and a million other little things to do before the next five and a half weeks wrap up. Usually I handle this chaos with a steady stream of caffeine and a total stoppage to all things at my home including cleaning, shopping and spending time with friends. However, this year, a member of my family and my teaching partner are both suffering with a critical illness. This has forced me to slow down and take care of my personal wellness.

This year, I am trying to take time to exercise regularly. I attend swimming lessons and belong to a running group. I attend them at least a couple times of week. Nothing like a good sweat or your face in the water to let go of the day and just relax. The weather has been fantastic this fall which has also made being outside just awesome!

I also have committed to only one extracurricular this fall. This was a tough one for me but necessary. Only giving up two breaks a week will ensure that my sense of humour, energy and general cheeriness stay intact.

At my school, my team and I decided to change some long standing practices around things like the Remembrance Day assembly. I realized that doing an elaborate wreath processional, a choir, and a tableau presentation was not necessary for the act of showing respect to the members of the military. This year, I taught all of my classes the same songs and we sang them together. We all stopped for a moment of silence and watched a beautiful tribute on our screen. The singing sounded awesome with 300 students singing together. It was a simple but meaningful tribute to the amazing men and women who deserve our reflection on the eleventh.

Overall, I am trying to find a balance between home and work. This is something that I am definitely still working on and will continue to strive towards for the next 27 years.