As some of my more consistent readers may have noticed, it’s been a while since I’ve last put my thoughts to paper, or keyboard as it may be.
There are two main reasons for this. First, the end of the school year as any teacher will tell you is crazy, a fury of trying to wrap up final units, review, give and grade exams, and clean up a classroom that has a years worth of materials piled up.
Second, with the plethora of initiatives presented by our administration to conclude our year and begin preparations for next, as well as reductions in force there has been a lot of turbulence within the faculty.
Factions of sorts have formed based on positive and negative reactions to these changes. Factions that do not necessarily agree, get along, or are always as nice as they could be to others with different perspectives.
I choose to live my life being nice to people (a ground breaking philosophy I know). I do my best everyday to be as consistently nice as I can. However, I discovered an unfortunate side effect of this philosophy.
I am nice to and spend time with people on both sides of the fence. Which means I often experienced, we will say, less than nice discussion, gossip even, of members in other divisions of the faculty, people who I also spend time with. The oppoiste would then occur when spending time with the other group of people.
Needless to say, I found myself consistently being surrounded by negativity, no matter where or with whom I spent time with at school. As anyone who has experienced such constant negativity could tell you, it’s draining, and makes it hard to find the positive. Even when it is there.
Thus, due to my cynical and frustrated mindset towards the end of the year I took a break from writing until I could adequately present the positive and successful stories of the conclusion of my third year teaching.
Summer vacation has come just in time, allowing me the opportunity to surround myself with the positive and good aspects of my life and in a way recharge my deflector shields for next year. I do have positive words, thoughts and insights from the end of the year and I will share them with you over the next weeks of summer.
Finally, to anyone out there experiencing a similar overwhelming and what seems at times to be all encompassing negativity; do your best to find positive outlets. Exercise, read, listen to music. Do something for you to help stay in the positive mind set you want to be in. Do not succumb to the darkness, be a light for positive thought.
Is This Science? 