Maintaining Balance

Today's prompt for Big Time Literacy's blogging challenge is about balance in our teaching lives. What a great subject. Because if anyone struggles with balance it would be teachers.

First of all, I have to say... I love Michelle's list! Make sure you go read it! I aspire to the ways that she achieves balance. I have it in my head that this is the year that I'm going to be great at setting boundaries, being balanced, getting organized. But so far I haven't been really successful at the concept of balance. Last year balance meant leaving the school at 5 with almost an hour commute home after that. I guess that was balance. That was the agreement I made with my kiddo to keep the peace. But we'd get home, make dinner and then it was pull out my bag and start on whatever I brought home to grade or to plan or give feedback on. So more than tell how I keep a balance, I am going to discuss my aspirations for how I hope to keep balance this coming year.

Networking/Teaching Friends
I have already met some people in my district and one of the things I am really looking forward to is that it is a bigger district than my last district with more opportunity for networking, collaboration and friendship. My partner and I are planning together and we are meeting with another teacher from another building and planning our first few days of school together. This past year I have made some really great friends via the internet, through a couple facebook groups I am a member of, and joining some book studies this summer and meeting new people, and the blogging community I am a part of. I've always been really fortunate to have had strong teachers in my life, in college I had incredible mentors, and with the exception of last school year, I have always had great teachers modeling for me what teaching should look like. I have no doubt that if I look for these great mentors and friends, I will find them again, the ones I can vent to, run ideas by, talk to about school and plan with. This makes my job easier and helps me not have to carry my burden alone. 

Self Care
I have a fellowship of friends that keep me sane. I would love to go into more detail about this, but I really don't know if I can explain it in this forum. It's somewhat like a church small group, and somewhat like small group therapy. Always supportive, keeps me on track and keeps me grounded. I try to get involved with this at least once a week. 

Health and Wellness
I have a goal to NOT bring school home this year and only work on school at school. This will cut back on the need to grade papers at night, and will hopefully increase the chances of going to bed at a decent hour. I also plan to get up at an earlier time this year and eat a good, healthy breakfast. Something that will give me stamina, maybe oatmeal, and eat it sitting down, maybe will reading a daily meditation. Eating right. I hope so. As it becomes harder and harder for me to control my weight, it is more and more important to change my diet, but it's important to be healthy too. My kiddo is gluten free and so if I fix us healthy meals, she'll be in better shape too. I am trying to get ready for a 5k. That would be a walking 5k, not a running one. I hope to add daily walking to my early morning routine right along with that breakfast. 

That's the short list of my hope for achieving/maintaining balance. I think this list might be a little bit like a New Year's Resolution list. And I think that it may be more pie in the sky than actually achievable. We'll see....