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I am sick. Rotten kids have given me germs. I'm feeling really sleepy and listless. It's nothing serious... just feeling under the weather. Bleh.
We did errands this morning anyway, because they were necessary in spite of feeling sleepy. We paid our notary and did our banking, retrieved my shoe from the repair place, mailed my cheque to Teachers' Certification, tried (unsuccessfully) to recycle our cardboard boxes, got the new coffee maker that Shawn thinks will improve the quality of his life, and on impulse, decided to get a crock pot with the idea that perhaps it would inspire us to cook at home more since we could have dinner ready and waiting upon arrival home from work. I actually think this is truly possible.
After all that I napped on the couch feeling yukky and tired. Then we had dinner with the inlaws and now we're back home again. I thought it was late when we left their place but it was only 8:30. I feel totally ready for bed now and am, in fact, in pajamas with teeth brushed. I think I'll doze on the couch while the pups play in hopes they will tire themselves out enough to sleep through the night.
Lately, the boy dogs have been waking up in the middle of the night to hold 2:00am wrestling matches in the bedroom. It's infuriating, especially when I have to get up at 6:30. I'm not sure what to do to prevent this other than trying harder to tire them out during the day.
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I went to a meeting (voluntarily) on Friday after school with the Drama Teachers' Association members from our district. This isn't the kind of thing I have ever done without being pressured to by an administrator, but I work in a big enough school now that administrators don't even know about things like this meeting. I just went because .... I don't know. I just had this feeling that I should. And at the end of the day when I was wet and shivering after the Terry Fox run in the rain, I forced myself to go anyway instead of coming home and having tea which is what I desperately wanted to do.
And strangely enough it was a really good meeting. I felt very warmly welcomed by the group and was truly amazed and impressed by how much good and useful information and support was provided for new people to the district... well, and to everyone, really. They just seemed like a really nice group of people to belong to. So maybe I'll try harder to be a contributing member. Or at least a member.
Drama teachers tend to work very much in isolation because we are usually the only person on staff teaching our subject... and this group really seemed to offer an alternative to that isolation. The benefit to being isolated, of course, is that no one really knows if you're doing a poor job and so you can be lazy (which I often am). But of course you also don't get any accolades when you're truly working your butt off, which I have also been known to do from time to time. This group seemed to offer a sense of both support and accountability, which from a professional perspective, would be something new and could be very inspiring.
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It all got me thinking about talent and work. And teaching. I haven't totally figured out what it is that my brain is trying to sort out. It's something to do with the fact that I'm not really necessarily good at teaching things that I'm good at. That is, there are some things that I do (that we all do) easily and those are things that I'm generally not so great at teaching other people how to do. Like teaching English, for example. I have taught high school English and I have also taught adults that are learning to speak the language. And speaking and writing in English are things that I do with relative ease and competence and yet I do not think that the instruction I have provided in those areas has been particularly stellar. Average at best. I'm not good at teaching these things, I think, because I don't really know how I do them. I just do them.
This is why I am, in fact, better at teaching Drama. Because I am not a brilliant actor and I have had to work hard when I've worked as an actor. Work hard to be believable, work hard not to lose my mind from being around other actors, and work hard to stay focused when I need not to be distracted. And so because I have struggled somewhat with these things I feel I can do a better job of teaching them to others. Likewise, because I often feel socially inept, I feel like I can break that experience down into manageable bites and help kids cope with it and survive it.
And this is about work. I don't often choose to work hard. I frequently choose to work a LOT, but I almost never choose to work hard. When I've acted it has been hard work. And when I took dance classes, that was hard work because I am naturally kind of uncoordinated. But most of the time, I choose work that I can do easily while keeping my real brain (and soul) embedded in other things. Teaching, for me, isn't hard work. It's long work when I'm tired and want to go home instead of listening to noise or pretending to laugh at things that aren't funny. But it's not hard. It comes fairly easily to me. The same is true of my writing projects for the safety councils. They're tedious sometimes and boring and annoying, but they're never difficult. The writing happens without much real work involved. The real work is just forcing myself to do things I don't want to do.
It makes me wonder if other people are like that too, if we're all at work doing things that we find easy but tedious because we're too lazy to do things that are hard but engaging. Or if there's something truly wrong with me for opting out in this way.
And it was the Drama Teachers' Association meeting that got me thinking about this stuff because these were people who were, largely, very excited about their careers in spite of being significantly older than I, and who were still actively involved in professional development and in learning new things themselves so they could teach them to their students.
Specifically, I have to admit shamefacedly after teaching Drama for about nine years that I still don't really know much about technical theatre which is an important component of the program. Lighting and sound in particular elude me. I am intimidated by the wires and buttons and knobs. I am frustrated by what seems to be an organic piece of equipment that changes and morphs without me knowing how or why. One day when I push this button it makes the lights do one thing... another day the same button causes a short circuit. Why??
Instead of teaching it to my students, I've always found older students to teach the younger ones, and thereby avoided learning anything myself. And when I should have been paying attention and trying to absorb what they were teaching, I was letting myself go on mental coffee breaks. Year after year after year. Anyway, these Drama teachers were so excited about teaching each other technical skills that I felt like I might as well actually do some real hard work in learning this aspect of a program that I am supposed to be teaching to others. And since it's such a struggle to even make myself listen to people talk about tech, when I finally manage to choke down the information, maybe I'll be good at teaching it to others. Maybe? There seem to be a lot of supports in place for people like me - so maybe I'll finally access them and force myself to do some work.
This is why I am, in fact, better at teaching Drama. Because I am not a brilliant actor and I have had to work hard when I've worked as an actor. Work hard to be believable, work hard not to lose my mind from being around other actors, and work hard to stay focused when I need not to be distracted. And so because I have struggled somewhat with these things I feel I can do a better job of teaching them to others. Likewise, because I often feel socially inept, I feel like I can break that experience down into manageable bites and help kids cope with it and survive it.
And this is about work. I don't often choose to work hard. I frequently choose to work a LOT, but I almost never choose to work hard. When I've acted it has been hard work. And when I took dance classes, that was hard work because I am naturally kind of uncoordinated. But most of the time, I choose work that I can do easily while keeping my real brain (and soul) embedded in other things. Teaching, for me, isn't hard work. It's long work when I'm tired and want to go home instead of listening to noise or pretending to laugh at things that aren't funny. But it's not hard. It comes fairly easily to me. The same is true of my writing projects for the safety councils. They're tedious sometimes and boring and annoying, but they're never difficult. The writing happens without much real work involved. The real work is just forcing myself to do things I don't want to do.
It makes me wonder if other people are like that too, if we're all at work doing things that we find easy but tedious because we're too lazy to do things that are hard but engaging. Or if there's something truly wrong with me for opting out in this way.
And it was the Drama Teachers' Association meeting that got me thinking about this stuff because these were people who were, largely, very excited about their careers in spite of being significantly older than I, and who were still actively involved in professional development and in learning new things themselves so they could teach them to their students.
Specifically, I have to admit shamefacedly after teaching Drama for about nine years that I still don't really know much about technical theatre which is an important component of the program. Lighting and sound in particular elude me. I am intimidated by the wires and buttons and knobs. I am frustrated by what seems to be an organic piece of equipment that changes and morphs without me knowing how or why. One day when I push this button it makes the lights do one thing... another day the same button causes a short circuit. Why??
Instead of teaching it to my students, I've always found older students to teach the younger ones, and thereby avoided learning anything myself. And when I should have been paying attention and trying to absorb what they were teaching, I was letting myself go on mental coffee breaks. Year after year after year. Anyway, these Drama teachers were so excited about teaching each other technical skills that I felt like I might as well actually do some real hard work in learning this aspect of a program that I am supposed to be teaching to others. And since it's such a struggle to even make myself listen to people talk about tech, when I finally manage to choke down the information, maybe I'll be good at teaching it to others. Maybe? There seem to be a lot of supports in place for people like me - so maybe I'll finally access them and force myself to do some work.
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