Upon reading the articles Crazy Busy and The Importance of Deep Reading, I began to stop, think, and reflect on my own life, and the irony in which I had been completing my own reading assignment at that time.
I read the articles, rather distractedly, while multi-tasking with a cup of chicken soup during my short lunch break. I teach full-time, and we all know, teachers don't get the lengthiest of lunch breaks. Most often, there is some sort of multi-tasking being done. At times, it is strictly a "work-break," no eating or relaxing to be had.
I am currently wrapping up my last semester of classes in my master's program at TC. I have one semester to work on a project and fill out graduation paperwork for the spring, but this past fall semester was the final push. Three demanding, graduate-level classes, each with a healthy amount of coursework. Along with full-time instruction of a difficult 4th-grade class of students with ID/ED at a new school, provided me with very little time for sleep, and a dangerously high level of stress hormones. To put it simply, it ain't been easy.
The following quote highlighted in the article, The Importance of Deep Reading, resonated with me:
Of the three lives Aristotle speaks of, the life of action, the life of contemplation, and the life of enjoyment, we have the two, action and enjoyment, but we lack the other, contemplation. That, I thought, is why ours is a violent city.
I can see firsthand the change in my personality in my first year of teaching and graduate school, versus my personality in the summer months, and back to a very difficult and busy semester this past fall. During the summer months, I had time to write, read novels, plan, and reflect on my course work, my teaching, educational theory, and creative endeavors. I drew, I wrote poetry again, I traveled by train, I cooked dinners for friends and family. I felt like a human being again, capable of running my own life and thinking my own thoughts. I wasn't "crazy busy" and I didn't have to answer to demands that I literally did not have the hours in the day to attempt.
I certainly felt stretched far too thin this past semester and most of last year. It helps me to have a lot going on, to have a little "fire under my behind" to get me going. As a natural procrastinator, the less time I have to spend, the more work I complete. However, I have never felt so bone-tired and anxious/nervous in my entire life. I have worked professionally in other fields, and had a very demanding undergraduate program, however nothing has exhausted me as my first year of teaching and this past semester of my second year.
My quality of life had changed. I spent less time talking to friends and family, romantic relationships took a backseat (or just didn't work out, mostly due to stress), even my diet changed. I was eating take-out more than I had ever in my life. This was not "who I am."
I found myself often irritable, impatient, and snappy- the opposite of the characteristics that led me to teaching in the first place.
Even my quality of work suffered. Often, I would have three to five projects, papers, or assignments open in different windows on my computer. Upon that, I would juggle receiving and sending text messages, or flat out ignoring phonecalls from friends and family that I should have taken. I would skim instead of read, and after a while, my eyes would cross with information overload. I'm not the best at multi-tasking, and this mile-a-minute lifestyle was certainly taking it's toll on my brain, my body, and my emotional connections. I couldn't sleep well at night because of the massive to-do list which constantly revolved in my brain. Then I would wake in the morning, feeling completely unrested and short-circuited before the day even began.
It took a lot of self-reflection to begin to realize that I cannot endure this type of life, not for myself, not for my family and friends, not for my students. It's not sustainable, and I will cease to be the educator I want to be if that should be my personality. How can I spark interest, energy, and imagination in my students if I am lacking all those things? How can I create a safe, well-planned environment of empathy and reason, if I am suffering in all those areas?
I'm taking it upon myself that next semester, I won't bog myself down the way I did this past one. My schedule will be lighter, I will take more time to go for walks or runs, re-establish friendships and relationships I let fall to the wayside, take time to reflect on my teaching and my students' needs, cook dinner, do my laundry more than once a month, sleep more, watch some movies, and read a good, long novel.
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