One of those Off Days

Teachers can be driven. Much of the stress that teachers feel is internal, the nagging question at the back of the skull that keeps asking if we have really done an excellent job today (this period, this lesson, with this student, with the course, with colleagues . . .) Some days, the honest answer is that we haven't.

Rookie teachers are especially prone to the perfectionist guilt. And there is a lot of support for that from the world external to the school, pressure to be on your game every day all day. It's a receipe for burnout and getting out. Some days you just drag yourself out of bed and are lucky to have the energy to get to school, let alone be an intellectual cheerleader, making the class fun, interesting, relevant, and engaging for every student. Teaching can drain an already fatigued teacher dangerously close to shutdown.

One of the tricks of the profession is learning how to make peace with those mediocre days, and still try to make the teaching and learning effective. If it is a high energy lesson plan, I may have to change it on the fly, or risk a big belly flop. It's difficult to redo a lesson once it has flopped. I don't win every racquetball game. Some days at the health club lifting any weight is an accomplishment. And some teaching days, just taking one more step forward to make the day useful and educational is successful teaching. You gotta know when hold 'em and when to fold 'em. It's a strategy of mercy to oneself that allows a reset to regain the strength to provide peak performance in the future.

It really is ok, really.