A post a day....

I am going to write a post every day for the next two weeks. Including Saturday and Sunday. This forum is SO helpful in enabling me to process things but I live out the darkest and scariest patches in my day to day without ever coming to the blog.
I am getting ready to go back to school tomorrow for the start of term three. I am feeling rather sick about it. I have blogged about my psyche in the school holidays before. I actually don't like them that much as the constant fight to 'make the most of them' wears me out a little bit. So in that respect (she discovers 6 lines in) I guess I can actually say I am looking forward to going back to school. Even typing that makes the panic and dread ease slightly.

So where does the dread come from. Well - I had a sticky end to last term. Well it felt sticky. In actual fact I had a lot of successes but my mind doesn't tend to dwell on them. I have been having a lot of trouble with the only English class I teach. I ask myself - what is going on here. I think it comes down to some source of feeling inadequate as an English teacher, a confidence crisis that I don't have as much when teaching Drama. This came to a point where someone questioned to me whether I had not realised whether I could handle the demands of full time teaching. I felt pretty gutted at this, but also not as 'tunnel of doom' that I have been in the past with such comments. I know why I am teaching and I know that I am passionate about it and wouldn't want to be any where else. My crises of confidence come from a perfectionism that I cannot achieve and am constantly trying to rationalize. However, I am slowly beginning to realize that it is much worse if people judge an outcome that shows a lack of product, than if people judge the outcome of me just getting it done and not labouring over it.

There is just SO much on the 'to-do' list and I feel like some significant delays on this list are the only reflection of my ability to be a successful teacher. The reality is, that most people who look for evidence of my teaching successfully only have the 'lack of things done' list to look at. My 'too hard' basket is becoming the thing that is defining me at work. So with this discovered, I need to make sure that the too hard basket is not defining me.

So strategies to avoid THB - identification.
* Just keep pushing through the to-do list. There is always something on the list that is a 5 minute job that once ticked off can make me feel like progress is simple and easy rather than hard and scary.
*always write down, either here or in another place, why the things in the THB are in the THB
* Keep up to date with planning and scheduling. Don't be afraid of looking at a calendar and seeing deadlines and due dates to get things done by - remain in control of this.


As I write out the strategies, I realise that the THB is a only a thing when one is disorganised and scared of the what has to be done.

Right - so I am off to address the list for today. There are many small tick-off-able tasks that I am going to prioritize. I realise I haven't heart-leaked all over this blog post about why things are scary and dark. But I don't really need to and to be honest, I don't always know why I go to those places. The positive thing is that I am processing through writing and that helps a great deal.
Until....well until tomorrow! A post a day!