Isn’t it all urgent? Still working on the ability to say no!

I cannot believe that October is next week! Where did September go? I feel this is a common educator lament, “Where did the time go?” Before sitting down to write this post on where I am at with what is urgent and what is important in my classroom right now, I went back through some old posts to see where I was at this time last year. Time was on my mind last year and it still is this year. I was worried about the amount of time that the beginning of the year reading assessments were taking from my wellness sessions with my students and whether or not my class would be ready to spend the week together up at Onondaga camp this week for our whole grade excursion. I’m still worried about how the addition of practices for our upcoming Harvest festival and the beginning of sports teams will impact our delivery of the curriculum.

The difference though this year is that I feel more empowered to say no to things that don’t necessarily support what is best for my class and myself. At the moment the most urgent and important need is to develop a safe, welcoming community where students are comfortable taking risks and asking questions to support their learning. That’s it! I believe it has to all come back to that right now because if it doesn’t we’ll be working to patch the holes in our foundation for the rest of the year. I firmly believe that the more time we spend on building trust and curiosity in the classroom the better it is for all stakeholders involved.

I’m looking forward to chatting with our hive to see where everyone is at with the September race.