You know that feeling you get when you’re walking out of work and you have the next two days off? Have you noticed that you often quite literally have a little bounce in your step in that moment? Yep, that’s the Friday shimmy. Through my work as a teacher, administrator, and consultant, I have realized just how important that extra lightness in my gait truly is. I hope to offer you “a Friday perspective” to carry you through all the days of your week.
In the world of education – as parent, teacher, or any other role – I’m pretty sure we all have moments where we want to lay our heads on our desk and wave a little white flag. We’re working within a system to try to educate, support, and provide opportunities for the young people in our community to flourish. This is no small task! To remain positive, dedicated, and committed to the field, we must practice the art of shaking it off and getting back to it.
My teaching career began just as I finished my undergraduate degree in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2003. Since then, in my time in elementary and early childhood education, I have held various roles, some super stressful, some not so much, but I’ve realized that through all of it, life really is better when you can shake off the bad, tune out the critics, and find the fun. I have found this to be exponentially truer since becoming a parent. As educators, we don’t live in a vacuum (in spite of the looks we get from students who happen upon us in a grocery store aisle that might suggest they believed otherwise). When I am working with children and families while simultaneously coping with finding my best self within my own family, at times I struggle to keep it together. That’s when I come back to the practice of tuning in, letting go, and moving forward.
A Friday Perspective was born out of my desire to help the educators I had worked with and the many others just like them to find their own practice.
At one point, I may have thought I had all the answers. Now, I realize that can’t be true because the answer is different for every one of us. We have to sort through it all to find the answers that make sense to our own individual life.
There are some common patterns and some things that do make sense almost universally. Sometimes I’ll highlight those, other times, I’ll say something that may not resonate with you. May that be a learning experience to help us all remember that it takes all kinds. Learning about the differences between ourselves is all part of this human experience.
May we all find our Friday shimmy today!
