Thoughts today April 13

Loving yourself and accepting what and who you are in the moment while simultaneously striving to do and be better is a complex dance that often leaves me exhausted.  That said I am trying my best to be good enough in all my roles. Its been a few years since the last blog and I somehow managed to survive "pandemic teaching" and still love my job. My school was one of the few who went back to in person teaching at a level that was super demanding for teachers but done in a way I felt safe at the same time. 

Since the last post (done in 2020) I have been pregnant, had the baby, and that baby is somehow already 13 months old now. 

To say time flies is the understatement of the year.

Not to mention both my parents have passed away. Even though I wasn't close with them ( haven't really spoken to them in years) , it still kind of hurts

It's been a lot these past few years. I have discovered parts of myself I didnt know existed both ugly and beautiful. I am the embodiment of "two things can be true" . I am human.

I still am not sure how I want to use this space so that has not changed. But I know I want to do something

Might as well start

 I have been waiting for inspiration to alight in my mind to "figure out" what I should do with this thought space.
Today it dawned on me that no matter what I do it will  feel "awkward" because let's face it I am secretly a bundle of energy that can't focus on any single project or course of action when it comes to blogging. So, I am just going to jump in and blog about what ever pops into my inspiration radar.

For today that means my job :-)

I have one of the best jobs in the world! At least the best job for me ;)

I am a middle school science teacher.  Currently, with the vast spread of COVID-19 my school is engaged in remote learning.  Today is day one for the students but I have been participating in various ZOOM video meetings to learn about how the school wants to manage and navigate these new waters.

For comparison sake here are the basic guidelines my school is providing us with:

1) The focus is not on academics but on continuity and student wellness.
2) lessons should not exceed more than 40 minutes of students daily time. ( I LOVE this because I know from experience that staring at a screen all day is exhausting and straining on my brain)
3) Student socialization is encouraged.
4) NO grades just feedback on learning 💖🙌 ( while grades can be useful to a degree I find grades to be subjective and not a great metric to measure student success, perhaps a future post on this)

I was given a space on our school server (we use Blackbuad) to create a digital classroom space.

I often teach using Powerpoint to introduce the days goals and objectives. So to create continuity for my students I created a powerpoint like graphic that I am calling my digital whiteboard. I plan on posting the days instructions and goals and any other info the students will need.

This is today's example:

I used my bitmoji to make it more personal and fun for the kids. In my everyday classroom I always have a fun fact, the date, and the lessons learning goal posted on the whiteboard. 

The only difference from my usual classroom is  this  digitized version has a "to do list"  for the day and instructions for the lesson, plus hours I will be available on ZOOM for face to face meetings.

I then have links to the necessary documents in clearly labeled section on the digital classroom.

I plan on having an archive of "previous lessons" as well for students to access. It is day one so we shall see how this evolves. 

So far the school day is almost over and I have only had maybe 20% of my students email me with questions.  

So far so good 😊 

Best-

Tori

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