Some Stuff I've Learned

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Home : 2001 : November : 4

Some Stuff I've Learned
By Julie

I read all your messages this morning. They made me decide to make a change today and make a major effort to de-stress. Like the rest of you, I've been putting in long hours at work. I hate it because I end up feeling
like I have to do so much for EACH INDIVIDUAL KID. The hardest part is I feel that the job would be tough enough if it just ended at 3:00 when the kids leave. It's so physically exhausting to deal with them. I find myself coming home in the dark now after four hours of after-school work. Even then I have left many, many things undone. When I get home I eat, then sit on the couch, telling

myself I will watch just half an hour of TV to de-stress, then get some stuff done around the house. Guess what? I often fall asleep on that couch around 8:00, then crawl into bed about 10:00. Though I know I am not always at school, it is consuming my whole life. Thank God I am single and don't have kids, because if I did the poor things would probably have to forage for their own food.

Well, after reading these posts I've decided that I will seek out meaning in my life outside of school. Today I went and sat at Starbucks and wrote in a journal, something I have never done before but really enjoyed. I then went and bought myself some bubble bath. I thought about people who give their whole lives to school and people who seem to always be out by 3:30. I decided that both are good teachers. Choosing to spend more time on your personal life makes you a good teacher because you're improving your whole attitude toward life.

This past week I've been trying hard to leave school at school. Yeah, I stay until 6:00, but then I'm done with school for the day. No more correcting, no more typing on the computer that night. Sure, there's always a huge stack of stuff that doesn't get done, but guess what? Nobody has died from it yet.

I think these methods are going to be the only way to get me through. If I give and give and give of myself with nowhere near as much effort on the part of the students, then teaching is definitely NOT worth it.