Happy Monday! Or is it? I'm in my chair after having my quiet time so tired that I quite literally feel the exhaustion running through my veins — heck it isn't even running, it is most likely just slogging through there. After a 24 hour up and back on Friday/Saturday to Edscape in New Jersey, I blistered my feet on the way home and couldn't walk yesterday to make it to church.
I've got school today with report cards going out this week and a staff meeting in just over an hour. Lots to teach and cover in the 3 days I'll be here this week before I do another up and back to Power UP in Chicago on Thursday – a conference targeted to elementary teachers.
But I'll be with my students at precisely this moment in 2 hours. We'll be talking about digital citizenship as we discuss the PBS series “Growing Up Online” and I know it will be a great conversation. I've missed the Flat Classroom project and Digiteen teacher meetings so I'll need to listen to those meetings in between everything else to get myself up to speed on what needs to be done.
Meanwhile 800+ emails sit there in my inbox waiting for me, I've got the freezer sale to organize, have to get ready to look for prom decorations, and have some prep work for these speeches to do. I'm sure I have a million things to do for Flat Classroom as well.
It is a new day, however, and life is too short to have a bad day. I can have a busy day, an exhausting day, a tiring day, but every day I'm alive is a good day- it has to be. So many wish for just one more day — this is mine, I get to live it — just one more day. You do too. You've got just one more day to make a difference and to reach these children.
Never let your tiredness or exhaustion cause you to write off a day with your students. Never pretend that pulling out a worksheet is a replacement for your active teaching in the classroom. Never think that you're not important because you are. A tired teacher is better than an alert substitute (unless you've got a very very good substitute.)
The Les Miserables musical has a song “One Day More” that I sing in my head on these days. The hope and optimism of one more day wondering what it will bring. We don't know if we'll have any more days, we really don't.
This is your day and you have one more of them. Make this day count. Be encouraging. Be positive. Teach well.
– Written on my iPad using Blog Press by Vicki Davis, author, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds
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