Study, Read, Write

Of course, having fun and making yourself happy is always a good thing. But if doing things for yourself feels like a chore, that's okay.

Maybe going outside doesn't always clear your head. Maybe working out doesn't normally make you feel any different. That's fine! It's completely valid to treat those things the way you'd treat taking medicine: "Got my sunlight chemicals. Check. Got my exercise chemicals. Check."

i feel marvelously underqualified to answer this question right now since i’ve been positively useless since mid-march and at least marginally useless since the new year started but! here are some of my favourite organizational bits:

schedule a sunday reset

the absolutely lovely muchelle b has multiple videos about what her sunday resets look like (try here, here, and here) and y’all? these are a gamechanger. i try to do these at some point every weekend, if not every sunday! i’ve been slacking on them a bit lately and this is a great reminder that i need to get back into doing them.

get yourself a trustworthy master list

part of my weekly reset is looking back at my daily lists for the week and crossing anything i got done off of my master to-do list. i have a notebook that is literally just a master to-do list - anything that gets added to my plate gets added to this notebook. it’s the one list i trust explicitly! i know that if i was assigned a task, it’s on that list. this comes up in muchelle b videos, too - you need to trust the spot where you’re writing your to-dos or reminders down or you’re not going to use it. for me, that looks like making sure i have one (1) spot that is a catch-all, and all of my other lists (daily, weekly) get created from the master list.

create an ideal routine & then acknowledge that it’s uhhh going to change

listen, i love a good routine. i love knowing that i meal plan on sunday afternoons and i plan my week on monday mornings and that my ideal morning routine looks a little like “wake up, water, coffee, journals, read, yoga, shower, work.” but initial routines don’t always work - and that’s okay! when i feel a little lost, i like to create an ideal routine and then pay attention to how it goes. do you ignore a certain part of it? are you trying to introduce too many new things at once? let your routines shift and change as needed, just as you shift and change. be open to adjusting for what you need, what you want, and what brings value to your life.

pay attention to your energy budget & your time budget

13.4.20

1. Reading comprehension questions is not how people learn to love reading. Answering basic reading comprehension questions rarely helps students grow. The students who can already answer the questions independently don’t need to, and the ones who can’t answer the question won’t.

2. Read out loud. No matter the age, no matter if you’re all listening to an audiobook/podcast, no matter if it’s an op-Ed piece, no matter if it’s Strega Nona for the 30th time. Read meaningful and authentic text out loud.

3. When you’re reading out loud, pause only when necessary to clarify meaning so you don’t interrupt the flow of reading. Let them get hooked!

4. Make a class on epic! so your students can read and listen to books for free during school hours! Plus there are so many engaging nonfiction books at all level that you can present to your class.

5. Every student should have a chance to read something at their level every day. It’s their right as a reader.

6. Be open about what you love to read about, and talk about your own journey as a reader! I talk about my books clubs and describe to my second graders how I still stay up late reading, or how proud I was when I finished reading my 1,000+ page fantasy novel.

7. Use videos to supplement vocabulary/topics! Especially if you have students who are English Language Learners. Nat Geo has these great short (3-5 min) videos about so many topics.

8. When in doubt, read about animals. Every child loves reading about animals.

9. Allow space for students to recommend books they loved or ask them for recommendations.

10. Keep reading sacred and fun! And smile. You get to teach reading, the best thing in the world.

i always try to have a balance of must-dos and would-like-to-dos! having that flexibility means that if my must-dos get done early i can get started on the would-like-to-dos, but if the must-dos take me all day, it’s not the end of the world to bump the would-like-to-dos to another day. 

i never write my to-do lists with the expectation that i’ll finish every item on it, honestly. would i like to finish everything on there? absolutely! is it the end of the world if i don’t? absolutely not. they’re aspirational - i usually get a bit of a motivation (adrenaline) kick from looking at an absolutely massive to-do list but i also read the room! sometimes a massive list is brilliant and inspiring, and sometimes a massive list is overwhelming and terrible. i adjust the amount of items i put on a to-do list for the kind of day i’m having.

i also break my tasks down into varying levels of detail on a day-to-day basis. if i’m super with it, i can put the big task on the list no problem. if i’m lacking all focus and drive and feel like anxiety in the vague shape of a human, i put twenty tiny tasks (sit at desk! take a sip of water! write one (1) sentence! read one (1) paragraph! open email!) to give me the structure i need to get there and the serotonin boost that comes from striking things out. 

effective to-do lists are a learned skill, to be quite honest! i feel like there are some excellent youtube videos on the subject - if i recall correctly, our lovely favourite muchelle b has a few, probably in her videos on procrastination? will link if i can find them later.

“on the mountainside, weeton’s humanity seems to dissolve until she appears more bird than biped.” from wanderers: a history of women walking (2020) by kerri andrews | i am nearly in tears over the ellen weeton chapter of andrews’ book (must find myself a copy of weeton’s letters and journals post-haste) but what a way to sink back into research and writing after the new year—! 

i admit, “don’t look at me while i learn” hits hard… but why is that so? when i was 7 years old i sang along to songs i had yet to fully learn by bumbling through sounds that half-resembled what i thought i heard, at full volume.

at 6, i would practice ballet moves–in which i had no instruction–outside the theater after a professional performance, in full view of the public.

at 5, i asked my teacher so many questions that she affectionately called me Bug–because i was always bugging her with my endless inquiry. i loved the nickname.

at 14, i was afraid to practice a song in my own room with no one home because, “what if my voice cracks? what if i can’t hit that note?”

at 15 i was afraid to dance in the garage with no one around because–i mean how embarrassing would it be to get the move wrong?

at 16, i forgo asking questions in class because god forbid i not understand.

what is this? “the shame of beginning”, we say. but not inherent, never was it inherent. the child loves to begin! they love making the silly mistake. the world tells us the mistake is fatal, or worse, shameful. what a tragedy. the world strangles our joy of beginning and when we’re old enough we add our own hands to the neck.

but the truth is we begin everyday and we are wrong and we’re dumb and we make silly mistakes and at the end of it all we are still the brilliant learners we’ve always been. there is no shame. it’s alright. i don’t know how to properly express that i wish upon everyone who’s reblogged this post to realize the shame is in our hands wrapped around the neck. we can let go. allow the self-kindess of your heart to soothe the bruises.

The homophobic gag in that rom com,

the racist side character in that coming of age story,

“I GOT THE JOB!”

“I worked really hard!”

After that, this kid was cleaning out the fridge at least once a week, and I was like, “why are you always cleaning the fridge?” Like, I didn’t mind, but it seemed odd. And he said, “one time I cleaned the fridge and you said I did a good job. I wanted to make you proud of me again.”

Literally, I changed the entire way I interacted with teenagers after that. I actually got a package of glitter stars and I would stick them on their nametags when they did a good job, and they loved it.

My manager had commented on how hard these kids work and I said, “they’re starved for positive feedback. They go to school all day then come to work all evening and no one appreciates it because it’s expected of them, but they’re still kids. They need positive feedback from adults in their lives.”

 Whether it’s completing certain amount of readings or note taking or studying, each person has a unique circumstance and the education system doesn’t personalize the work for you. A person who is struggling with a mental illness, a person who is currently supporting someone else in need, a person who feels burn out easily or a person who takes longer to absorb the material; they all will get the same degree of workload from someone who doesn’t understand what each individual goes through out side of their academic life. Sometime even if there is nothing wrong, the unrealistic expectation to be working 24/7 or that you can finish so much work is not possible. 

And that’s okay. You’re human and you’re going through life your own way. It’s okay that you couldn’t finish everything and it is not the end of the world. It doesn’t make you less capable or less intelligent.