Touching base

Hi

Just touching base with you...

I am trying to get organised for the year and prune back a lot of my commitments at the same time.

I took people's comments on board about overdoing it. So I am not writing here in the morning. That was too hard... and I kept coming across in a negative tone. Also I am cutting back my personal blog keeping to just this blog.  The adjustment will take a bit of work. I was writing in the morning because at least I could get some done. It was the first thing I did. That way I avoided having to cope with distractions. Writing in the evening takes a lot more discipline because by then the day is running at full speed and it is very hard to slow it down enough to do any reflective writing. But I want to and i will try and I will see what happens.

I am pruning back commitments. I have resigned from Dayspring. I am cutting back a lot of online connections. I am trying to focus on what are now the core areas of my life. I am hoping to be able to give more quality time to the tings that matter right now in my life rather than being spread too thinly over everything that interests me. Its taking a bit of time to work through that process but I hope to be in a much better place on the other side of it.

In terms of getting organised for the year... I am attempting to get databases organised so that I can better manage my parent contact. I have succeeded in getting parent contact to a very high level (and others are starting to follow me Yay!) but it takes a lot of organisation to manage all that information. I am using File maker to create linked databases. Not being competent in database creation I am learning as I go and it is taking more time than I would like. But again... I hope to be in  much better state once I'm finished.

The whole ICT in education thing is still raging. I can no longer "get away" with ignoring "the rules" and am going to have to stand up and fight for mp3 player and mobile phone use in class. I don't want to do it. I just want to get on with teaching. But I refuse to enforce ridiculous rules, and I can't hide in a corner anymore, so I have no alternative.

Now all this is happening while the school year is in full swing with the normal teaching load. So its a bit hard to hang out and chat with all this going on.

As always i hope to have a bit more time to hang out and chat soon.

Comments

[Ann Oro]

I understand this post. I love the network of teachers that I am building, but in order to have sanity in my life I can't do it all. I wrote a little blog post along those lines a short while ago. I enjoy "running into you" on Twitter and through your blog. We all have to keep an eye on what's important and sometimes have to step back to make it all fit into our lives. Good luck with the MP3 players and mobile phones!

[Patrick]

How ironic that today I felt exactly the same way; too much to do/learn/see/experience/feel/etc. while all the while having a family/personal life that must come first. 24 hours just don't seem enough anymore...but that's all we have so we need to choose wisely....

Carry on and keep us posted...