How do you spend your summertime?
Do you work in your room?
Plan curriculum?
Attend workshops and classes?
Worry about the first day back?
OR...
Do you relax?
Take vacations?
Forget you are a teacher?
OR
Do you do a little of both?
I know that summer is the time that most teachers use to rejuvenate themselves. They relax and try to escape the education realm. Me? I do take time off, and I am not at the school every day, but I truly enjoy being in my classroom working, organizing, and planning.
This year, I decided to do a "Clean Sweep" of my classroom. It was a show that was on TLC (or maybe still is). Anyways, the idea is that you take everything in a room and separate it into three piles, "Keep", "Donate", or "Discard". So I did that. I took everything out of every cupboard, cabinet, corner, drawer, etc. It was so liberating to throw away at least a dumpster full (and if you don't think you have a dumpster full of "stuff" in your classroom room- think again!), to create a donate pile AT LEAST that size, and then look at my room and, though nothing really looks different on the outside, things are much more organized, clean, and ready to use on the inside. I donated over 50 professional books to the school professional development library...books that everyone can use and enjoy and that I rarely use.
So, here is my Dare...or challenge...or call to clean.
Attack your classroom and de-junk, de-file, de-clutter your lives. My guide was if I hadn't opened it or used it in the last two years I didn't need it. Yes it was hard and painful to let go things that I had been storing for years because "someday" I may need it. Well guess what???? "Someday" never came. AND if it does, then I will just go and buy what I need again, because letting a store STORE it for me is a lot better than me trying to find room to stuff it.
So, my fellow educators...
GO FOR THE CLEAN...
Just Teach It...
No comments:
Post a Comment