A Case of the Blahs (And Teaching Anyway)

By nature, I'm a pretty upbeat person. I can usually look on the bright-side, find something lovely to celebrate, and bring some joy to pretty much any situation. Positivity is one of my superpowers!

But today, I have a case of the blahs. Nothing is terrible, but I'm just feeling that sense of tired irritability where small things bug me, and nip at me, and consume more of my cognitive space than I might like to admit.

Image by Krithika Parthasarathay via Pixabay

I headed into class at noon today, and in those last couple of minutes just before we began, I decided to change up my lesson plan for today. The future teachers I serve are amazing people, and I'm so grateful for the opportunities I have on a daily basis to help them see the varied aspects of the work we do as educators. And today? Today that meant a little meta-lesson about the emotional labor that is assumed for teachers.

I started by just naming it: "I'm feeling uncharacteristically blah today, folks." A few seemed surprised, but most kind of nodded--I mean, I am a pretty bouncy presence most of the time, and I just wasn't at the beginning of class today. And I explained how this is part of the work we do as teachers: we often have to check our own feelings, suck it up, and just teach anyway. This probably wasn't earth-shattering news to anyone in the room, but I thought it could be illuminating for them to notice this, and see if they could tell a difference in the way class unfolded. In another course, I have a lesson I teach about the difference between "acting like a teacher" and "being a teacher." Today's class meeting was an example in practice of "acting like a teacher."

So, after this odd preamble, I headed into the lesson as planed. We spent some time in discussion about a chapter I asked them to read in preparation, and they had lots of thoughtful reflections and deliberate questions, as they normally do. Then a very brief lecture from me, followed by a series of activities and demonstrations. They participated well, interacted well, shared their thinking well.

And you know what? By the end of class, I realized I wasn't "acting like a teacher" anymore. Somehow, starting off with that "acting" morphed back into my more normal embodiment of my own teaching practice. And honestly, the playfulness of the activities I had planned to do with the students--and seeing their joy in discovery--has buoyed my spirits in a way I wasn't expecting.

Somewhere in one of his writings, master educator Parker J. Palmer says something along the lines of, "Technique is what you use until the teacher shows up." Maybe this is the lesson for me that I needed to be reminded of and practice today. And my hope is that, for the future teachers I serve, I got to model some sense of this today.

I am a Yellow Crayon

At a meeting last night, my friend, Ruth, gave me a yellow crayon...

This is my crayon. (Thanks, Ruth!)

She gave it to me because--her words--I am a positive, sunny person who spreads joy to everyone around me.

This seriously warmed my heart.

Many people have told me that I am a positive person; this is not surprising to me.

But the tangibility of being given a token like this was a welcome reminder for me of the impact I have on the people around me. Ruth mentioned something specific that had happened a week or two ago while we were working on a mutual, technology-related problem. She tried sharing a file with me, and after I was unable to open it, I emailed her back. My email said, "No joy on my end." And she told me when she gave me the crayon, "I can hardly imagine you with 'no joy.'"

What a lift, from a simple little gift!

I'm embracing it: I am a yellow crayon.

How about you? If someone was going to give you a crayon that represents something about you, what color would they give you, and why?

Doing Hard Things

This past weekend I had a new experience: I participated in a triathlon.

I say "participated," because I wasn't really in it to "compete." That would have been a whole different experience, I suspect. I was part of a trio; we had a swimmer, a runner, and I was the biker for our team. We said from the outset that we were in it for the experience; we were sure we weren't going to win, but as I said to my friends, "I feel like I'm winning because I'm doing this!" (Cheesy? Yes. Trite? Definitely. True? Well...yeah, I think so.)

Team 3 Amigos! Go! Fight! Participate!

Team 3 Amigos: that was us. We were not out to compete, really. We were participating. We were trying something out, and learning by participating. And I definitely participated--I put myself out there to try something new that challenged me, and I learned a couple of important things through my participation, by getting in there and doing a hard thing.

Positivity and #GreatTeachers

I joined in on a great Twtitterchat this morning: #Nt2t ("new teachers to Twitter.") I like to get in there when I can; while I'm certainly not "new to Twitter," this chat is all about helping folks who are new to Twitter get acclimated and learn how they can use Twitter for their own personal professional development. The chat is moderated by Julie Szaj and Traci Logue, who are two of the most encouraging educators I have had the privilege to meet on Twitter. (If you are an educator on Twitter, you should be following them!)

One great thing about #Nt2t is that, while the questions are often similar from week to week ("How do you find people to follow?" or "How do you manage participating in a chat without getting overwhelmed?") the moderators do a great job of connecting to a theme, or a current issue in education. Today, for example...