Tag Archives: schedule

Finding my sea legs

I remember a trip to the Cayman Islands with my dad. We were on the small island of Cayman Brac and we hired a boat to take us to see a shoreline that my dad wanted to explore. The boat wasn’t very big, under 25 feet long, and not designed for anything more than a day trip. The captain was a short, old man with a weathered, leathery face that made him look over 100 years old. He was letting me troll for marlin while we travelled. The waves were choppy, the boat bounced and swayed, and I had to keep my eyes on the horizon to keep from getting sea sick.

At one point I caught a barracuda and after I reeled it up to the boat, I couldn’t get it over the edge of the boat without standing up from my chair. The movement of the boat set me on my ass before I could take two steps towards the stern. The old sea captain put my dad’s hand on the steering wheel and pointed forward. He then walked to me, as sure-footed as if he were a young athlete on a flat track, picked me off the deck and helped me back into the seat. He then took my rod, walked back to the stern and got the fish into the boat. All the while, the boat bounced in the rough seas and this captain casually made tiny little shuffle-step movements with his feet, keeping himself perfectly balanced. This ancient-looking man had sea legs, he was as comfortable with the motion of the sea under his feet as we are on land.

This is my twenty second year as an educator and for the first time in years I feel like I’ve lost my ‘sea legs’. I’m struggling to find my balance. I’ve struggled with work load, and time management, and work-life balance before – I think all committed educators do – but this is different.

I recently discussed with Dave Sands that, “All screen time is not created equal,” but this is where I’m losing my balance. Beyond a daily walk, I’m spending every moment of my time in my school office or at home. During this time, I’m spending a fair bit more time online. When I’m at work, there is a constant flow of video conferences that interrupt any sense of work flow for my other tasks, and so days are very busy, but don’t always feel productive.

My online time at home flows from distraction, to entertainment, to work, to creating and writing, to news, back to work, and then back to news or distraction, with a daily workout thrown in. Recently, I’ve missed workouts, I’ve missed my daily meditation (3 times this month), I’ve spent more time writing (without writing much more than I usually do), and my focus seems scattered.

I need to rework my daily routine during this pandemic. It feels difficult because there is a constant flow of information that keeps shifting what things look like at work. There is also ever-changing news about how our social distancing expectations will change going forward. Metaphorically, the waves keep churning, and I’m struggling to keep my balance on the boat. I don’t have my sea legs. I’m going to rethink and reintroduce some of my routines that have worked for me before, and see if I can steady myself a bit.

Break in routines

It’s Monday after the March break and the week ahead will be far from routine. I’m starting my work day in less than an hour but students won’t be walking in the school doors and I’ll only see my teachers digitally. I’ll start the day reviewing emails I’ve flagged that remind me about new procedures and expectations around dealing with Covid-19, and the ‘new normal’ that will be far from normal. Next I’ll join a district team in a digital meeting to discuss supporting administrators and teachers. After that I have two meetings with two of my different school staffs. After that, communication to students and parents.

Usually, returning from March break means going back to a normal routine, but this year there is nothing normal about what I’m returning to. Yesterday I wrote that the quick answer isn’t always the best answer, but starting today I’m going to have many people wanting immediate answers from me. Some will understand my need to find out more and ask more questions before responding, some will get frustrated with my lack of answers. Some will approach me with resilience to handle the abnormality of our new situation, some will feel frustrated, nervous, and even scared. Some students or parents won’t engage in asking questions even if they have them.

In general we are creatures of habit and we like routines. Not all the these routines we have are positive and healthy, but routines help us cope with challenging situations and help us stay calm and resilient. When routines break, some of those coping strategies are lost. This is a time when we have to be supportive to those that do not handle changes and breaks in routine as well as others. This is a time to remember that we are dealing with human beings going through a challenging time. This is a time to remember that we ourselves are going through a challenging time.

This tweet by Dean Shareski really hit me this morning:

We need to focus on the needs of those we work with and for. We need to remember that that students, parents, and educators can struggle with new routines. We need to put people’s well being ahead of concerns about curriculum and learning. As we navigate the new teaching and learning routines we are creating, we’ve got to put people first. The rest will fall into place as long as we don’t rush and, while going slow, we show that we care for one another.

Nothing normal about the new normal

I’ve been camping out at my oldest daughter’s place in Victoria while my wife and other daughter are home. I’ve loved the daily walks we have gone on, and we’ve been watching Prime Video together in the evenings, enjoying ‘Hunters’ – a fictional series about a group of Nazi hunters in the late 70’s. These two activities add up to about 3 hours of my day… The rest of it has been a blur. Recovering from a broken knee and a shoulder injury has left me feeling very limited about what I can do for exercise besides go for long walks, with a cane, which just makes me feel old.

I’ve taken some more time to write than I normally do. I’ve spent way too much time following the news and stats of the Coronavirus, and I’ve more than doubled my social media time on my phone. I’ve also been thinking a lot about work and have had a number of emails and calls related to “continuity of educational opportunities” that will continue, even with our schools closed to students. Like most people, I have more questions than answers.

What this all adds up to is a very unusual schedule, where I have no idea what normal feels like? Today I slept in. I usually write this before 6am, and right now it’s after 1pm. The only thing on my agenda after this is a walk on my own, listening to my audio book, and a walk with my daughter around sunset. I don’t have the motivation to do more, and yet I’m already getting restless and know that I have to give myself some projects to work on. I’ve got a neglected newsletter and podcast that I might bring back. I might do some writing beyond this daily-ink. I might nap.

No matter how I look at things right now, there is nothing normal about what my day will look like until March break ends. Even then I don’t think I will have any kind of normalcy to my life… but the ‘normal’ of the past few days has to change soon because I’ve never really done ‘nothing much’ well as a major pastime. The new normal after the March break is still filled with unknowns and will include a drastically different schedule than before this global pandemic changed all of our lives.

What have you been doing to spend time well during this social distancing experience?

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