This is part one of an eight-part series of tips on distance teaching and learning while saving your own sanity. Today we’ll talk about your own mindset. Here are 17 tips.
1 – Take a deep breath. You can do this. You have done hard things before and learned how to do things you didn’t think you could learn. You can learn to do this — to make videos, to interact with your students over Zoom or Google Meet, to sort through resources and to choose what best fits your students and your own situation. You can do this.
*Do your best but do not try to be superhuman.
2 – Accept the uncertainty of this entire situation. Do what you can do and try to let go of what is outside of your control. (Easier said than done, I realize.)
3 – Don’t try to be perfect. Give yourself some grace. All of us have been thrown into this situation with zero preparation or training and we are doing our absolute best. Do what you can do.
4 – Take care of yourself first. Make sure that you are eating healthy-ish, drinking water, getting enough sleep, and moving your body in some way every day.
5 – In addition to your physical health, it’s important to prioritize your own mental health right now. Do what makes you feel the calmest and relaxed right now. For me, it’s going outside daily, even for just a brief walk. I am also trying to work out daily, in some form, and to get enough sleep. See my post HERE about self-care during this stressful time.
6 – Set up a daily routine for yourself. You might not have to stick to as rigid of a schedule as you do when you have to leave the house for work every day, but try to still have an approximate time when you will take a shower, get dressed, etc. Make sure you take breaks to eat meals. Take breaks to do any necessary home tasks. Do what you need to do for your own family.
Identify set times when you will work on specific school tasks and, even more importantly, when you will NOT work. One “trap” I am falling into is to not leave school at school, as I would during regular classroom teaching. It’s easy to sit down with my laptop to do “one more thing.” Try to set regular hours for yourself and stick to those.
7 – Set up a weekly routine for yourself as well. You might have specific weekly tasks that your district or principal are giving you, but also try to have specific self-care tasks you do for yourself throughout the week. Schedule time to do your regular chores around the house. Try to set up some sort of predictability to your week. Doing so will help you to feel more in control of something during this time when it feels like we have so little control over anything.
8 – Work out at home every day. This might mean taking a walk, a run, or a bike ride outside. If you join the FASTer Way to Fat Loss plan, you will be given daily workouts to do at home (even workouts you can do with your kids!). Beachbody On Demand is another great option. Use any other streaming workouts or YouTube videos or apps. Just do something active every single day.
9 – Take care of your family. Many of us are home with our own children. While we may also be required to work from home on school tasks, we also have our own children to reassure. Keeping to a routine will help.
10 – Check on the other people you love. Even when you can’t physically check on them, a quick phone call, FaceTime, email, sending funny memes, mailing a handwritten note, or texting reminds them that you’re there and that you love them.
11 – Understand that it is next to impossible to transfer all of your content to an online course in a day or a week. You can’t be expected to do that. Provide review and enrichment, but don’t worry about teaching new content as effectively as you would be able to do in your own classroom.
12 – Remember that your students and their families are stressed. Recognize that you (and your students and families) need rest right now. Rest is critical to staying healthy. Expecting yourself to maintain your typical productivity level is not a realistic expectation right now, nor is expecting your students to complete assignments in a “normal” time frame. Nothing is normal right now! Accept that and allow yourself time to rest.
13 – Watch out for social media. While it is more important than ever in some ways (opportunities to connect when we are all social distancing, getting ideas and support from others), it can also trigger guilt and anxiety. Understand that we are all in different places and have different expectations. Do not be intimidated by people who are posting amazing assignments AND cooking gourmet dinners AND re-organizing their entire house AND happily and successfully home-schooling their four children. Delete or unfollow if you must, but remember that YOU need to do YOU.
14 – And by the way: feel free to disregard any tip or suggestion that I, or anyone else, offer. I hereby give you permission!
15 – If there is some project or goal that you have been wanting to tackle at home and it gives you energy to think about it, make plans to work on that during this time! This should not be something you feel like you should do. This should be something you absolutely want to do.
16 – Use this time to learn something new. You can learn how to do most anything online, especially if you start with YouTube. I am working on my Spanish skills using Duolingo. I’m also buying an air fryer and learning how to use that. (Send me all your best tips and recipes if you have an air fryer!)
Other suggestions:
~learn to do something with your hands. Crochet, knitting, sewing. A friend of mine spent a recent afternoon sewing face masks for our local hospital with her daughters.
~learn to cook something new. Another friend of mine is posting a daily recipe trial on Facebook, complete with photos along the way. It’s keeping her mind occupied and helping the rest of us too!
~learn to bake something new. I am still working on mastering the perfect cinnamon roll. (Send me any of your best tips or recipes for that as well!)
~work in your yard or garden or plant flowers in pots
~learn to do something artistic. Paint or draw or use watercolors.
~learn a new craft. Calligraphy is on my list.
~declutter or organize something. This, too, makes you feel a bit more in control. It doesn’t have to be a huge area. Even decluttering a drawer or a shelf will help you feel productive.
17 – If you are a person of faith, spend some time reading devotional books or websites daily. Spend some time doing some Bible study. Pray. Meditate, which is a way you can listen for God’s leading. Even if you are not a person of faith, spend some time in silence and solitude daily. If your kids are home with you, do this together. (Or escape to the bathroom for a few minutes!)
This is a difficult and stressful time. Nothing is normal about this. Remember that, slow down, and take care of yourself. You’ll be a better teacher, mom, partner, and friend if you take care of yourself first.
I totally agree that we shouldn’t try to be perfect when it comes to distance learning. For some, it is still a foreign concept and should be discussed slowly in order to be understood. I just hope that there are enough resources for teachers who find this setup hard to ensure that they can provide good education to their children.