{"id":196,"date":"2022-01-13T03:18:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T03:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/?p=196"},"modified":"2022-01-13T03:18:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T03:18:39","slug":"urgent-and-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/2022\/01\/13\/urgent-and-important\/","title":{"rendered":"Urgent and Important"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been teaching for quite a few years, and like many of you reading this post, I’ve developed my craft over the years and have tried my best to learn something every day that helps me be a better teacher and human than I was yesterday. I absolutely love my job as a Grade 2 teacher and Vice-Principal. I get to support both my students and their families and my amazing colleagues. My bucket is full. Despite my love for my job and my experience, this year has been a tricky one.<\/p>\n

Covid is still here and we are all getting tired of the challenges, the pivots, and the struggles it has created in our worlds. Quite honestly most of us expected this year to be a little easier. Things had loosened up surrounding Covid. We were able to eat in restaurants, we were able to be back in school teaching in person so things were great… right? We started running clubs again and although sports looked a little different, they were happening. Yes, we were still wearing masks, still distancing, and many of us were still teaching learners at home who had opted out of in-person learning, but… we were starting to think that things were looking up! So I was surprised to find myself at one of my lows in teaching at the beginning of November.<\/p>\n

I was teaching math, one of my favourite subjects to teach littles. It was a fantastic lesson (I’ll toot my horn if I can) I had used visuals, I had modelled, I posted the anchor chart we created together, I had the students use manipulatives and talk about their learning with their peers. I had scaffolded, retaught, summarized, blah blah blah. We reviewed the goals, the success criteria, I gave a brain break, I had a couple of students restate the challenge in their own words, I juggled, stood on my head and served a 5-course meal. It was a ‘darn’ good lesson!<\/p>\n

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The problem was… when my students got settled into the task, about half of them were unable to complete the task independently. AND that half didn’t just consist of challenged learners or students with ILP’s. Yes, we know that a few of our students need extra support – this is not what I’m talking about people! HALF of my students struggled – what was going on? I wanted to cry – I was out of tricks, my kids were participating and engaged in my lesson, I had great classroom management. I really didn’t know what more I could do. This wasn’t the first time this had happened either, unfortunately. I completely dismissed it in September. In October I thought…ok they need a little more time, we are in a pandemic. BUT it was November I was deflated. AND at that particular moment my principal walked into my room. Just a check-in to see how we were all managing. Are you kidding me!?! She picked that moment, the moment when I am feeling my worst…<\/p>\n

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The kids went out to recess and I told my whole story holding back my tears that I really just wanted to unleash and, I asked for feedback…what more could I do? Now for context, my principal was my teaching partner for several years and she knows my teaching practice inside out and backwards. This was her response to me, “Oh you think the problem is you?\u00a0 To be clear this is not you, this is the effect of the pandemic, but the fact that you are feeling this way, at this moment, tells me that there are a whole lot of other teachers that were feeling this way last month and it is time we do something about it.<\/p>\n

We scheduled a session with our school counsellor who always does a great job of making our staff feel valued, appreciated and leaves us with strategies and tools to support ourselves in that moment. This session involved a self-care kit from Sage, a beautiful breakfast and a self-compassion meditation included below.<\/p>\n

This is a difficult year.\u00a0 The fallout from Covid has impacted students socially, emotionally and academically. Parents are feeling stressed too. I accept that there are times when I will feel frustrated and defeated.\u00a0 It is not my fault.\u00a0 I am not in charge of fixing this.\u00a0 I am not responsible for changing this on my own.\u00a0 I will meet my students where they are at and do the best that I can without judging myself or falling into a negative thought cycle.<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

I was blue, and blaming myself BUT… I needed to look at the WHOLE picture. Many of the students in my grade 2 class had not experienced a full year of school YET. You might have seen that meme that really put things into perspective for teachers in early education. \"\"<\/a>My class didn’t look remotely like the grade 2 classes that I have had experience teaching. Anxiety and mental health challenges were way up, and independence and school readiness were way down. I knew these facts, but I needed a reminder. AND I needed a reminder to be kind to myself too.<\/p>\n

So what does all of this have to do with urgent and important you ask? Well, when asked in September what was urgent and important to me, my answer was pluralism work. I answered quickly without hesitation. It’s a big job and I had lots of plans and was excited for the year that lay ahead. But I realized I had another urgent and important need that was critical for me to address. My students needed me far more than they ever have and in ways that I wasn’t used to. I haven’t forgotten about my pluralism work and that will come in another post shortly, but the time I have to address my urgent and important needs has been a little divided.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today… that urgent and important need to support my students where they are, through this pandemic, has only been exacerbated with yet another pivot to online and now back to in-person learning. It’s starting to feel a little like a hampster race. If you’ve got time for a giggle, check out this Covid horse race video!<\/a> It did make me laugh and we could all use a little laughter at this moment too. In preparation for Monday, I’ve posted the self-compassion meditation next to my mirror because I think I’m really going to need it as a reminder AND maybe you might benefit from it too. If you are like me and have spent less time on your HMW question than you might have liked to… please remember to be kind to yourself. Perhaps you too have found yourself pivoting to address some other urgent and important needs!<\/p>\n

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I have been teaching for quite a few years, and like many of you reading this post, I’ve developed my craft over the years and have tried my best to learn something every day that helps me be a better teacher and human than I was yesterday. I absolutely love my job as a Grade … Continue reading “Urgent and Important”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classroom-reflections","category-face-2-face-sessions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/lisamitchell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}