Dear Friends,
It has been preying on me that I seem to have abandoned all life outside school. We are five weeks into our studies and I'm struggling with staying on schedule, motivating the kids to stay on task and, at this point in time, a bit of boredom.
But I am afraid to engage in the world I've created with this blog. It's very silly--but I feel both like hibernating in our school cocoon and breaking out of it and resuming "my life"--whatever that is!
But I'm not really ready to leave it, even though it is beginning to chafe, for I am afraid that if I do, school will fall through the cracks and it will be shoved to the back burner yet again. And I have promised myself that won't ever happen again. There is no more time to lose!
School truly is taking a lot of energy and time. Preparing each week takes about a full day--I don't quite understand why. I'm hoping that as I keep working at it, it will get more streamlined, but I doubt it, somehow. This week is pretty straight forward, for example, but I do have to teach "ing" endings...and figuring that out will take at least an hour.
What energy I do have over and above the daily grind and weekend planning is being spent on long term plans for our next history period which begins at Christmas. I'm trying to correlate Canadian History, artists, composers and scientists with our next major period of study--the 1600s to about 1849. It's rather daunting at the moment.
And I really should be cleaning the house!
This state of affairs can't continue forever, of course. Eventually I'll have my research done and I'll figure out how to get the house clean and keep it that way on a daily basis. That's my next goal.
But I wanted you all to know, I think of you often, even though I can't quite give myself to click over and comment on your blogs. Maybe that will change soon, too.
6 comments :
I've been assuming that school has been taking up a lot of your time, as well it should. I can understand, too, that the lure of other things could undermine school.
We miss you, but we understand.
In-a-school type teachers have years of training to figure out this stuff, and they have fairly set curriculums. You're at an unfair disadvantage in that regard, really.
I wish I knew how to help. Are there resources out there that provide a curriculum that isn't quite as daunting as the one you set up for yourself, but will still get the job of education done?
Good luck.
I second the good luck, and we miss you, but totally understand what is keeping you so busy. Zen hugs!
Gotta do what you've gotta do...and it sounds like you've got some momentum right now, which is a good thing, right?
I suspect that professional teachers responsible for all subjects (like grade school teachers) probably spend a couple of hours a day in lesson planning and other plan-to-keep-the-day-running miscellanea - that's the equivalent of an additional school day's worth of work, even with the training, static curriculum, institutional support and last year's notes. So it doesn't surprise me that this would be time consuming.
Hang in there!
While I miss you a lot, I sympathize with the experience of being exhausted and/or focused elsewhere.
When you're ready to blog again, I'll be thrilled to hear what you have to say.
I've definitely had similar periods...and I always feel bad for not commenting enough on others' blogs...but hey, you only have so many hours in a day and days in a week!
Uh, that "anonymous" was me. Oops. If I'm not commenting much, I might as well get credit for the ones I do!!!!
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