Scheduling Life

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The days spent schooling after a break are always interesting. It doesn't seem to matter if that break is a few days or an entire summer. Breaking back into school-mode is always difficult. These past few days have been the usual trial, since we had spring break last week. It's always a toss up as to whether that time off was worth it for me, sometimes I think we'd be better off never taking a break. My students rebel, they come back to the school table with "game head" (that's when your child can't really have a complete thought because he's gotten used to the video game responding to the push of a button -- working out a math problem, for example, is impossible with "game head"), they've forgotten how to do math, or sound out words. It's just plain ugly.

Before our break began, however, I thought I needed a break to help me get back on track. We were getting really loosey-goosey with our school days. I know that some teachers prefer a loosely-scheduled day, but I think I've mentioned before that we need structure to keep us going. I had great plans for our break week to get the rest of the year scheduled, to work on study guides, to plan some fun stuff. Ha! I got to Sunday night and whatdoyaknow? I had nothing prepared.

I realized, again, that I need a schedule, even on my break days, to keep me on-task and motivated. I think it might be time to read A Mother's Rule of Life again. It provides inspiration for staying on-schedule the way flipping through a Martha Stewart Living inspires me to clean my house.

The past few days have been successful at least in regard to keeping a schedule. I have printed my daily schedule every day, and kept it taped to my kitchen counter. It's very gratifying to look back over my day and see each item checked off.





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