Reimagine Education

Let's just all take a collective, focused, deep breath together.

No, seriously…take a few deep breaths with me.

Sit up straight, breathe in and hold it for a few seconds…………now exhale slowly……….now breath in again and hold it just a bit longer……..now breathe out a bit slower than before. Feel free to pause your reading if that felt amazing and you'd like to dive a bit deeper into that exercise before you press on here. Either way, I hope you feel a bit more centered and relaxed, at least for the next several minutes while you read this post. Sometime just a brief moment of mindfulness and centering yourself can calm the heavy anxiety, fear, and frustration so many of us are experiencing these days.

It seem every time I go on social media of late, I feel the weight all the amazing educators across the country and around the world are dealing with on a daily basis and I just want to be able to get everyone to take a deep breath and gather themselves. I certainly know I've had to on multiple occasions over the past few months, including this morning on my way to the airport to head to FETC in Orlando, my first in-person conference of 2022.

You see, I had this big 5-part blog series I planned to release over the first several weeks of the school year to kick off the year in style and inspire educators everywhere to seize the moment to change education and reinvigorate an industry long overdue for a swift kick in the keester. However, as those words and ideas developed, my awareness heightened to the trials and tribulations persisting on many school campuses. What I hoped would be a fresh start to the year was nothing of the sort for most of my friends around the country. There was indecision around how to start school, insecurity for some being back in groups of other humans, and lingering effects of 16-months where we were told to stay apart from each other, while now being seemingly shoved back into "normal life" back on campus. I could sense the stress and pressure of the moment with every social post, text message, phone call or conversation I had with an educator friend and I realized what we all need in this moment is not necessarily a plan of attack packaged in a quintet of optimistically crafted statements, but rather a collective moment of mindfulness.

As we hit the end of September and schools reach somewhere between the 1 and 2-month markers of the 2021-2022 school year, stress, frustration & anxiety are still the dominating factors for educators unsure how to keep students & themselves healthy, while moving ahead in the learning process with an audience of adolescents which has largely forgotten how to interact, engage and acquire knowledge in a face-to-face classroom. I hear stories of Principals being badgered at every turn by teachers & parents frustrated with any number of "issues", while similar tales from the classroom are shared about students finding it difficult to adjust to being held more accountable on assignments, due dates, and expectations.

And yet, we just labor on. There are asdjfkjdsfkjf

I have had an analogy on my mind of late related to building a house. Certainly, no contractor or home builder would begin to build the framework of a new home without first constructing a solid, reliable foundation to support the upward growth of that amazing structure. 

The foundation of our profession is cracked, unstable, shaken and all together in need of serious triage and extended care. I am not ready to declare it ready to demolish and start over…there are far too many wonderful things about this calling to help young people to jump to such extreme measures. But our foundation as teachers absolutely requires immediate attention to fix the imperfections and challenges which have developed over time and have been so violently uncovered in the past 18+ months.

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