Its amazing how much a little Thanksgiving break can change your perspective. I left feeling drained, overwhelmed and pretty on edge, and now I'm backhand I am still a bit intimidated at the work ahead of me but I'm refreshed and confident. It may just be the fact that I finally got to eat some decent, complete meals courtesy of my lovely mother, or it could be that Augusta found my long lost wallet, giving me an exta $70, a Barnes and noble gift card and my social security card back. I think it's more than though, for me I think the most nourishing thing I received this weekend was a healthy dose of home. I don't mean the building located on 16 Hawthorne Dr, I mean a law night on the couch watching movies with my dog, a family dinner, waking up to a mom who not only has he coffee made but already did the laundry I fully intended to do myself. Home to me is watching football with my dad, having dessert at the udder with Lil J and spending a night at a bar with Trevor and talking about my future and for the first time in awhile feeling content about it, regardless of the job market. Thorough said instead of fame or love or money give me truth, and for me I don't find truth anywhere but home, with he people I love. Now I'm back in the Ville and I'm staring at at to do list of presentations, papers and unit plans all of which are due in he next 9 days, but I'm ok with it.
The classroom is all too often a miror image of my pre-thanksgiving life. Students become tired, overwhelmed and irritable. Their effort begins to decrease along with their sleep and soon they spend the entire class thinking of all he work they have to do and wanting to pull their hair out, or perhaps may hair. The question is, why? What are our goals for piling work and driving our students to unprecedented stress levels? Well I can't say I have an answer for that. I'm guessing somewhere along he lines this approach was thought to prepare kids for SATs, Colleen nd the real world. And we are, we're preparing them for a lifetime of feeling stressed, inadequate and pressured. We're teaching them to cram, copy, cheat and procastinate. If you ask me, I don't want that, not of or me and no for my students. Kids need to be encouraged and refreshed, and at times they need to takea break from the curriculum and just talk. I don't intend for my class to be people's "home," but for some students that may be just what they need. In my life, I need breaks, and if I said it once I'll say it a hundred times: teach the way you live, live the way you teach.
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