You're semester or school year is off and running - am I right? In my last post I encouraged you to take care of yourself over the summer. To show yourself some compassion as you prepared for this fall. I hope you did that. If you didn't now you have another chance. In the world of helpers, September is Self Care Month. Consider this my gentle nudge to remind you to take care of yourself as you work online with your students this semester. Self care is another blog post, but it is a form of self compassion and if you don't show this to yourself, you will struggle to offer it to your students. Find someone you can pair up with who would be fortunate enough to have a self care partner in you. Speaking of fortunes, I was fortunate enou gh to attend several profess ional development sessions this summer. As we work together to grow our knowledge and skills using a compassionate pedagogy framework, let me share some compassion with you. This was shared with me when I atten
If we have learned anything during this time, it is the importance of flexibility, nimbleness and compassion in teaching and learning. I had the intention of blogging weekly and you are well aware that this was interrupted. I feel the need to apologize but that is not necessary. Let me share further.
I'm a helper by nature - hence my chosen profession in social work. I had hoped to have a big impact through this blog as many educators moved from residential teaching to online teaching. I adore the challenge of building community, of backwards design of learning activities and accompanying students and educators who have found themselves in the land of online learning; nothing delights me more to see their eventual success when they had so many doubts. I very much wanted to be as helpful to as many stressed educators as possible. I had hoped to provide tools that could help on the fly, that could help them understand that being human with their students was probably the most important tool they had. After curiosity, the tool of compassion is the number one tool in an online educator's toolbox.
What I underestimated was the impact that COVID19 and it's aftermath would have, and continues to have, on me. I discovered my own need for compassion and care - especially self compassion and self care - after a series of experiences came my way. During this time, I was leading learning communities where students lost housing, became unemployed and food insecure, began teaching their children at home, and returned to living situations they found unsafe. I had students at the front line of healthcare and child welfare who just .... couldn't participate in learning when they were working to keep people alive and safe. And, one hour before I was to lead a synchronous session of a course I found out that a student had passed away. I needed to create brave space for students to grief in that session and throughout each class session.
This made something so very clear: I needed to step back and care for myself and be present for my students and my colleagues. Sleep, lowering my standards on personal measures of productivity and contributions, getting outdoors, and trying to reach out to others for support became so important. This practice of self compassion and self care helped and continues to be a priority for me. I am so grateful to those who have shown kindness to myself and others when our land legs got wobbly as the pandemic began, and will continue, to shake
Not being one who completely disconnects from goals, I did continue my "research" as a curious explorer. I chose to take on the role of observer. What were others writing about related to online learning? What were topics of discussion being had by educators in communities of support? What was working and what wasn't?
So much more to share with you, readers. Be well, do well, and stay tuned.
And know I would love to hear how you are doing. Really.
Comments
Post a Comment