I swear that there is this ONE bird who, as SOON as the sky starts to lighten, starts going, "CHIRP CHIRP! CHIRP! CHIRP!"
The first time it happened, I was all like, "Ooooh, spring! Birds chirping! Good morning, birds!" A week later, I'm all like, "SHUT- UP."
Now, there are MORE birds. So, the first guy goes, "CHIRP CHIRP! CHIRP! CHIRP!"
Then his buddy answers, "Choo, Choo! Cha- chirp-chirpchirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!"
It's just obnoxious.
Enough about birds. Let's talk about stress. I don't know if I've ever been under this amount of PROLONGED stress. I've been in stressful days, stressful weeks, stressful situations, stressful times of life... but I've been stressed this whole school year. I am not sure if I'd have stopped to acknowledge that- who has the time?- but in all of my voice therapy sessions over the past 2 months, the theme of STRESS has come up from the very beginning: I have a lot of tension in my neck and throat. I tighten up when talking. I have to consciously try to keep my jaw and my tongue loose and relaxed.
This week, we have determined, um, I am super stressed. This realization came due to wine, pizza and friends. As I told my voice therapist, "Usually at dinner I try to protect my voice and not talk too loud over the background noise. But last week, after two glasses of wine, I was laughing, talking loudly to my friend over the noise of the restaurant and our loud kids... and my voice felt and sounded fine. Am I crazy, or did the wine relax me enough to get rid of all that tension?"
She said, "You're not imagining it. The wine relaxed you enough for you to relax all of those muscles and speak freely." So now we are working on building up my vocal cords so that when I DO figure out how to relax, my voice will be strong enough to do what I want it to do.
This voice therapist is incredible. She records me, figures out how loud I am and how much my pitch varies, which all shows how flexible my voice is (or isn't).
My prolonged stress is due to being a working mom of two small kids, with a job that has a brand new, still unfinished curriculum, new (I'm getting stressed just thinking about work) technology demands, more demands on our time as far as test monitoring and curriculum needs, and new state standards that come with new, challenging tests that are done in a new way- all on computers. Too many new things at once. It's a struggle to simply focus on the kids in front of me that I'm supposed to teach, but I am battling to do so. I have to let a lot of things go. The email from the assistant superintendent about the NEW teacher evaluation procedures? Unopened. The form from downtown asking me to confirm that all my info is correct for the payroll system? Sent a month late.
It's been a tough year, but I'm trying to do what this book that I got a Kindle sample of says to do. The book is called "The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching: A Checklist for Staying Focused Every Day." I have to go wake up my kids to get ready for school and work, but I'll just finish by saying focusing on two of them:
"I help students do something with their learning"
and
"I interact meaningfully with every student"
have helped me stay positive this week and feel like I'm teaching my students good things and being responsive to them as people. Sadly, those things CAN fall by the wayside in the rush. To feel like I'm doing a good job as a teacher despite struggling to keep up with all of the demands placed on me, I have to tune out all of the chaos of tests, random events, forms and meetings, and keep focused on the basic: Am I seeing these kids in front of me and teaching them what they need to learn?
My heart is racing just thinking about this, but I have to manage this stress. I want to do that by focusing on my students AND myself- doing my voice exercises, taking breaks in the day to relax, and.... OK, gotta go!
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