In my neck of the woods there is about a month until teachers and students return to the traditional classroom. One month. 30 days on the shot clock.
What will you do with these next 30 days? How will you prepare YOU?
Here are the three things I plan to do.
The beginning of the school year is not the time to prepare. In between classroom set up, syllabus printing, roster reorganization, team meetings and other PD, all I have time for is coffee.
One month before school starts I am still relaxed enough to really think about who I am, what I accomplished last year, who I want to be and what I want to accomplish this year.
To do this, I ask myself focus forward questions. These are questions that help me think about the future. So, I might ask, “Am I purposefully pursuing my passion? How will I continue my pursuit this year?”
I reflect for a few minutes, but the majority of my time is spent thinking about next steps.
Next steps, for me, always involve finding inspiration and encouragement.
Reading books, taking walks, watching movies, talking with friends, taking an art class or a dance class. I can gather inspiration from most places when I am open to receiving it.
Over the years I have found that living an inspired life in the best lesson I can teach my students.
From the inspiration I gather, I can begin to create my first Power Up space. This is a place where I can continue to be inspired throughout the school year.
For tips on how to create your own Power Up space, check out this blog post.
The last thing I do 30 days before the school year is …. pick my poison.
Stay with me. I promise it makes sense.
One of my favorite movies is The Princess Bride. In that movie there is a battle of wits; the old poison in the cup schtick. The challenger actually places poison in both cups. So, how does he escape death? He deliberately chose this poison and then ingested small amounts of it each day. This built up an immunity in his body.
What does this have to do with the 30 day prep for school? Well, there is always something that we dislike doing, but we know it will make us stronger. This is the poison.
Poison – anything done or consumed in excess.
So, during my 30 day prep time I choose something that I don’t particularly like doing, but I know it will make me a better person. I do this thing in small doses.
For example, I love a clean, organized house, but with 4 young kids, cleaning is not a task I enjoy. In order to have what I want, I put myself on a small dose cleaning schedule.
- Mondays – strip all the beds, remake them, and wash all the dirty sheets.
- Tuesday – Clean the bathrooms
- Wednesday – Wash kids’ clothes
In this way, I am not overwhelmed trying to clean everything at once.
Well, that’s all folks!
Cheers to the 30 day prep!
Joce
Need some great professional development? Want some practical strategies you can take straight back to the classroom? Check out The Intentional Teaching Series.
