Thursday 6 November 2008

Slow down!



Message to myself. Have realised today how necessary it is. Have no idea how to do it though.

What made me realise? Well, apart from the fact that I am starting to feel like crying most of the time, some things which contributed were...

Being in a (lovely) lower school and observing other teachers doing things well, but more slowly.
Having a very very long day (9.00 start, 6.15 finish, home at 6.45).
Missing my Yoga session due to the late meeting.
Going in to school for half an hour and racing around solving other people's problems, not going near any of my own. (Where's that "no" word when I need it?) In half an hour I actually did 7 tasks. None of them were on my list of things I needed to do myself.
Looking at my inbox from school email and finding I had 32 messages in a day - and of course, I felt I *had* to reply to all of them straight away.
Writing down all the things I need to do.
Writing down all the things I have done in my one day a week consultancy role over the last 7 weeks. It scared me - I have done so much that even I can see I have done too much.
Going to a consultancy meeting and realising the other consultants have much more realistic intentions for themselves than I do for myself.

OK, so I realise it. What am I going to do about it?
Well, for a start I am going to plan (or not plan!) a really easy Maths lesson for me to teach tomorrow. I have to teach the pupils how to draw pie charts and i did think about going in and talking about equivalent fractions, percentages, etc. Instead I am going to start off by getting them to draw pie charts where the total adds up to 360, 180, or 36. I will give a quick explanation; they will do a lot of drawing of pie charts. I also should have a relatively easy RE lesson (assuming I can use the laptops with the class - otherwise I am in BIG trouble!) and hope, during English, to take the pupils to the library.
It's a start.
Slowing down is hard.

4 comments:

Fiona Marcella said...

Yes, slowing down IS hard, and I'm particularly bad at it but it's a good role model for your children (as in both those you gave birth to and those you teach)

Fiona Marcella said...

and then you can role model for me!

Unknown said...

just breathe, and take time to make time for YOU!!!!

Disillusioned said...

Thanks.
am working on it.