Circling Forward

Spring Break wrapped up really nicely. It turned out that being on a meditation retreat for the last few days of break was really nice. I have done this in the past and found the transition to be quite jarring. I think this felt different because of the content of the retreat and because I prioritized being fully prepped for the first day back before heading off for the retreat. I also set the intention of taking it really easy the first day back to give my students and myself an opportunity to transition with as little stress and pressure as possible. The topic of the retreat was integrating attachment theory into meditation practice, and the teachings drew extensively from the work of Dan Brown (attachment) and John Makransky (field of care practices). I found the practices to be really impactful and healing, and I left the retreat with a sense of ease with myself that I don't think I've ever experienced. Returning to the classroom this week, I was happy (and honestly surpris...

It is so nice to have a two week Spring Break. I’ve gotten to the point where I have to think about what day it is, I’m sleeping more, and I’m in a much more relaxed rhythm. Week 1 was just really nice.  Monday and Tuesday I did do some lesson planning, but it was nice to have big chunks of uninterrupted time, and I spent a lot of it with my grade level colleague getting ahead. We have the rest of the year mapped out, and I’m excited about what we’re doing. For math we will keep plugging along with the self paced work using Eureka Squared as our based. For our humanities block we are going to do an SEL based mini-unit on communication followed by a short health that our school counselor co-leads with us, and finally we will wrap up the year with a unit on neurodiversity. Through all of it, we are really focusing on writing skills and development using Writing Revolution 2.0  and self-pacing as our anchors. I’ve been a fan of Judith Hochman for some time but haven’t dived into ...

Spring Break is here! My school has a two week March Break instead of a week each in February and April, and I really like it. I have a good lineup for Spring Break planned. A few days at home (with my daughter still at daycare!), a trip to visit family with my daughter while my husband stays home and has some solo time, and finally a meditation retreat for the last few days that I'm really looking forward to. It feels like a good balance of things, and I'm excited to do some projects around the house for the first few days of break. I'm currently at the Verizon store getting my tech in order, which is something I definitely wouldn't have the patience to take on during an ordinary weekend.  I talked to my grade level colleague about the schedule shift, and she was very enthusiastic. We shifted our schedule so all of our core content is wrapped by lunch, and we realized that allows us to do flexible grouping for word study and independent reading conferences across class...

Perhaps the single thing that has positively impacted my teaching the most in recent years has been receiving my own ADHD diagnosis. I was seeking support with depression a few years ago during a period of significant stress. My husband, then 9 month old daughter, and I moved across the country in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. A couple years after that I was still adjusting to life as a newish parent, my students had more needs than ever as we returned to school after the disaster that was remote learning, and I was still very getting used to life in Boston. I was so lucky to work with a mental health professional who recognized my ADHD traits and suggested that I get a neuropsych evaluation, which eventually happened in the summer of 2023. The evaluation gave me language around my strengths and relative weaknesses, and it put me on a path to better understand myself. For the past few years, I've heard the term masking quite a lot, but it hasn't resonated. My focus has be...