I Walk The Line

So, Johnny Cash sang about walking the line 60+ years ago, singing about how he tried to stay on the straight and narrow path of “being good” in the face of temptations. 

As I sit in my living room, I think about the many, many lines I am walking the line these days despite the fact that I don’t go very far (or anywhere). And how the line is ever shifting and confusing. Remember a month or two ago when we just had to stay in groups of less than 250 people? Or just use hand sanitizer more often? That WAS walking the line! 

So, here are a few lines I’m currently walking

• The line between getting exercise and being around other people.
• The line between being a good parent and a good employee.
• The line between braving Publix again or ordering takeout (and supporting a local small business).
• The line between needing Pop Tarts for mental health and not needing Pop Tarts for physical health.
• The line between needing to make an amazing, engaging lesson so the students actually do it and learn something and the line between needing to not spend 20 hours on a screen.

It’s a definite line.

Because A leads to B leads to C leads to D... like this ...

If I assign boring work, the kids won’t be engaged.  

If the kids aren’t engaged, they will stop logging in. 

If they stop logging in, they stop learning in my class. 

If they stop logging into my class, they might stop learning altogether. 

If they stop learning altogether, the fourth quarter is a waste.

If fourth quarter is a waste, my most struggling students will be even more behind than ever.

If my most struggling students are even more behind, then how will they ever catch up?

However ... 

I have to walk the line. 

Have you gone down the rabbit hole looking for some cool activity lately? The internet is a big place. Go looking for something more interesting than the usual stuff and you can spend hours and hours digging and sifting through the resources. You can get lost and sucked into a time warp where you search and explore for hours, emerging well after dark wondering where your day went. 

You have to balance your students’ needs with your own needs. This is always true, but work blends into home life a little more easily now that we can’t get into our cars at the end of the day and leave the school building. 

Number one, as Dr. Grego said in his recent email, please give yourself grace. 

This is not your regular classroom. You are not teaching five 45-minute lessons anyway. The kids are not in front of you. So, please give yourself and the kids grace to still work through figuring these things out. Let it be messy. Let lessons bomb. Be forgiving when the kids mess up or you mess up or when a lesson falls flat that you thought would rock. Or when the technology doesn’t work. Or when the kids don’t work. For real. 

Number two is that many hands make light work. How do you make a great lesson? How do you find great resources? Where do these colleagues find awesome virtual field trips and learning games? Divide and conquer! 

You can use the resources that come out of our office or share the work with your friends and colleagues. 

But please walk the line between finding engaging lessons and working too hard. Please don’t work too hard. Life is too stressful right now for you to spend 18 hours a day on your computer. 

But please don’t totally skip the engaging piece and just assign textbook readings with questions at the end. If we do that, we lose kids. And if we lose kids right now, it’s awfully hard to find them again.

What lines are you currently walking? How are you succeeding (or not) at walking the line between engagement and overdoing it? How are your kids responding? 

I really do want to hear from you. I really do miss you all! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org 

-Tracy