First Day Back

Jackie ♦ January 5, 2010 ♦ 1 Comment

Today was my first day back at school after the winter break, and I’m already sleepy again. I got into my pajamas as soon as I could after returning home today and have rarely left the couch since!

Looking over my entries from the fall to write my 2009 recap post made me realize how much my energy flagged over the autumn months. I think that while I am feeling really satisfied and fulfilled by my work life, I’m also still struggling to find that balance, not to let my entire store of mental electricity get drained away by work.

Dana Huff, one of my go-to teacher bloggers, blogged recently about an upcoming difficult semester that might result in less posting and reflecting time. I think I’m realizing retroactively that the fall was my difficult semester, and I’m missing that lost reflecting and writing time. I think that, like Dana, I need to rethink what I consider a “blog post”– just because mine are usually longer narrative pieces, doesn’t mean that’s the only way for me to blog. A quick reaction to someone else’s post, a quick link round-up, or maybe a picture and a comment: all of these could serve well as blog posts, and would help me keep up my blogging momentum a little more consistently. I’ve been getting more involved in the English Companion Ning, and an entry talking about a question I’ve just answered there would serve my purposes just fine too.

Another blog post I read recently that resonated with me was Jim Burke’s on teacher brain– I definitely recognized myself there! But one of the downsides of teacher brain is that it can be very hard to shut off–you can spend untold hours adjusting and tweaking and revamping your curriculum, not to mention lesson planning, grading, and reading new texts. But for me, I need to turn off my teacher brain sometimes, the part of my brain that is hopping with new ideas and projects. I need to jot them down and file them away, and then reflect, rest, and relax.

I count myself incredibly lucky to have discovered what I consider to be my vocation, my life’s work, in teaching. But the flip side of that discovery, the side that might take much longer to explore, is how to keep my life as nourished and healthy as my work.