Spring Break 2011 - Reflection

Last night, while going to sleep, I decided to write this post.  This post is for the future me to look back and reflect upon how I felt during this time of year.  My hope, is that next year I may look back at this post and realize that things are going better then than now.  Because with each passing year of teaching, I feel like everything gets better/easier, but at the same time it gets more difficult to continue.

Today marks the end of spring break... that awaited time of year for both students and teachers alike.  I have been looking forward to having this time away from school to rejuvenate for the remainder of the year.  I've been needing to get away from school and rest for awhile, so that I can sustain the practice of CI with my students.  The novelty of TPRS has worn off with me, and the true difficulty of the practice has worn me down.  Instead of focusing on the negatives, I need to refocus on what is important.  My goals for the rest of the school year is:

1) Be optimistic. (It definitely is a choice you must make.)

2) Focus on providing contextual, compelling, comprehensible input SLOWLY.

3) Shelter vocabulary but use grammar freely. (This means keeping story scripts simple.)

4) Use "water wings" as needed; for my sake and the students' sake.

It's so easy to get caught up in life in general: what a difference others are making in peoples' lives, what is happening with others, what our contracts are looking like for next year, how much grad homework I have, how much wedding planning is still left undone, what other TPRS teachers are doing in their classrooms, what other non-TPRS teachers are covering in theirs, what extracurricular activities you should be attending, how important it is to eat well, exercise regularly and get enough sleep, etc. that it can get overwhelming. 

But we need to remember that this too shall pass.  Summer is on it's way, and we cannot speed up or slow down the processes in place in our classrooms.  We can choose to be optimistic, focused and effective facilitators of language acquisition, or we can choose to totally freak and start cramming the grammar into students' heads in light of the overwhelming/out of control feeling that we get with the approaching end of another year.  I will feel best if I choose to be optimistic, focused and effective.  My students will feel best if I choose to be optimistic, focused and effective.  My students will acquire more language if I make the same choice.

Now, take a deep breath because you can do this (and NTPRS will be here before you know it!). 

Formal observations

Although I've been working on my perfectionism A LOT this year, formal observations still get my panties in a bunch.  I worry and fret, and usually get sick over nothing.  I know I'm a _____ (good? decent? second-year? average? outstanding?) teacher, and I should be ok with that.  I know I work my tail off and want the best for my students.  I try to work as a team with my colleagues and be a contributing member to teams  and committees that I'm involved with.  On the outside, I know my job will be ok.  On the inside, I worry. 

Nevertheless... I think this formal observation, while not my shining classroom moment, was a lot more stress-free than the last. It's possible that I'm just getting used to the beat of the formal observation drum.  This is my fourth now... and it helps that I really feel supported by my administrator in the method I'm using this year.  Who knows.

Despite all of the stress that comes with a formal observation, my shining moment today was when a student approached me after class and told me she dreampt in Spanish the other night!  HOLY MOLY!  No way!  I was super proud because I think that means she's getting ample comprehensible input in class (which only meets three days a week for 59 minutes!). Go me!

No one will take better care of you, than yourself.

Today is day two of my journey to understand perfectionism in order to not allow it to control my life.  Last night, I read a couple of articles, courtesy of my fiance, (here and here) on burnout.  I was pretty sure before reading that I was burnt out.  After reading the articles, I was absolutely sure and disappointed that some how I had gotten to that point.

A couple of messages rang loud and clear, but the most prominent was the fact that if you don't take care of yourself, no one will.  I'm still unsure if it the expectations I try to achieve are actually put on me by superiors or if they are imagined by myself.  Either way, I understand how important it is now to make myself a HUGE priority. 

Another message that rang clear was that people who are on their way to burnout minimalize their friend circle.  They often cut themselves off from the world.  That is exactly what I had done during the first semester.  It's easy to say "Not right now", but the fact is that we need friends and family as a support system.  We cannot do it on our own. 

After realizing these things last night, after my too long of a blog post :), I resolved to make this my mission for 2011.  I need to get my life balanced, and maintain that balance.  So I only did a 1/2 hour of work, then I knitted, drank some sleepytime tea and relaxed.  And guess what, today I was a MUCH BETTER teacher.

Re: The Great Enemy of Teachers...and Students

Perfectionism has been on my mind a lot this year, and really my whole life in general.  The topic has come up recently on TPRSlistserv and on Laurie Clarq's blog.  Seeing this topic discussed on these public spots has helped me gain valuable insight into others' experiences with and views on perfectionism.

I've known since at least high school that I was/am a perfectionist.  I remember writing my autobiography in 9th grade English class and talking about it in there.  My view, however, of perfectionism has really changed this past few years... slowly.  During high school I thought that my perfectionism was a real strength.  It helped me channel my fears, mishaps, and otherwise negative experiences into positive ones.  During my senior year, I remember having an anxiety attack during the spring because I had too much on my plate (president of NHS and soccer team member among other things).  After that, I vowed to not to do too much again. 

And I did a good job, during undergraduate.  I made sure to limit my responsibilities (but to any sane person I'm sure I still did too much) and take time for myself.  It was a good time.  Some how that slipped away the closer I got to graduation.  Possibly because of the pressure (or perceived pressure) of meeting my full potential as a person. During my internship, the idea of teacher burnout became very real.  I took the following year off from teaching because of it.  The burnout was real, but I didn't know how to slow myself down. 

With the beginning of my teaching career, I was a permanent substitute.  I worked very hard to balance my work and my life.  I worked hard with my first full time teaching position at a very well known high school in Colorado to impress my co-workers, administrators, students and parents (sadly probably in that order too).  Although my fiance tells me that he thought I did a better job during that first year than during the previous experiences, I worry that I might just be better at hiding it; or maybe I'm just getting worse at dealing with it.  The bottom line is that I don't want this self-inflicted crazy, whirl-wind, judgmental, chaotic, stressful and pressured way of life any more.

It's a big challenge to step back from my life and really evaluate it from a different perspective.  Many times I have epiphanies, which seem huge to me, but they're things that my fiance has noticed (and been telling me about) for months/years/etc.  It's going to be a long journey back from this insanity of unrealistic expectations, but I know that just like TPRS, the journey will be well worth it for myself, my relationships with others and for my career.  Here we go...

Beginning of a New Semester... going slow and finding balance.

Today was the first day with my third years, and yesterday was the first day with my first years. I started it out a la Ben Slavic with "Circling with balls" but I circled with cards. I still spent small amounts of time explaining procedures/rules but it was way less than I had in the past.  I think that my students enjoyed it over all.  I remember that the TPRS community mentions that the first 3 days of class are crucial because students decide whether or not they can "do it" in this time frame.  I hope I capture my students again.  They say they understand between 80-100% which is great.  I just continue to try and go slow, and try and bring in the students' interests. 

On another note, I've been feeling exhausted, so it's been tough to start the semester out with a lot of enthusiasm.  I wish I could do more, but I'll try and get a good nights' sleep tonight.  That has been tough because I've been stressing a lot about the start of my grad class again next Thursday.  It'll all end up fine. I'm going to take Michelle Whaley's advice and be aware of the over-achiever gene kicking in.  I'm definitely still striving to find balance between myself, work, school, and life.  On a positive, Gus says that it gets better with every semester; and that's saying something since I started my masters last semester!