Don't Look Too Far Ahead

 It's a risk to even look at your calendar......

    Don't kid yourself. Opening up your planner to start entering in all of the days off, professional development days, field trips and testing dates on your calendar right now- will definitely lead to an instant feeling of ineptitude as a teacher. Not only do you feel like you haven't taught as much as you wanted to, but you now realize that even if you wanted to try and squeeze as much in as possible- there is no just way to do it! At the onset, it seems like a good thing to do. It will surely help you to have a clear picture of what you can realistically accomplish before the year ends. However, that is not what happens. 

    Your first instinct will be to cry....a lot! How will you ever be able to get it all done. You are a failure as a teacher. You may feel guilty, or upset, or just plain overwhelmed with the whole thing. Then you go and talk to your colleagues, and guess what? They made the same mistake and feel like bad teachers too! Well, at least misery loves company. So, as you talk more and more about it you reach the phase of laughing at it all. Clearly there is no way you are going to be able to achieve all of the teaching goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year. It just plain happens. 

    Do you know why it happens? Because life is messy. Kids are messy. Teaching is messy. Unless your students are consistently on task, eager to learn EVERY DAY, not ever sick or emotionally unavailable, and you are perfect in every way- you probably set the bar for yourself and your students a little bit high. Maybe just a bit higher than is reasonably possible given the constraints. It happens every single year and every single year we go through the same cycle of guilt and regret and inadequacy. Seems kind of silly, doesn't it?

    My advice to you is this: reflect on your year as a whole so far. Think about the big picture. What have you accomplished? What was happening in the world? What was happening in your personal life? What challenges did your school or students face? As you recognize all of these things, hopefully you will also see what you and your educational community have overcome or achieved, despite these obstacles. Then you can start to let go of the feelings of guilt and move forward to do the best you can with the time you have left. Focus on making the end of the year the best it can be. Make it fun while you squeeze in what you reasonably can within the time constraints left.