I twisted my ankle this week.
After a high school assembly, I stood poised in the entryway between the auditorium and the hall, on my phone. Without thinking, without looking–without caring–I stepped to move forward, and
WHOOPS, oh, that’s a stair,
whoa, that’s big step down,
and, hello, crack,
and ouch limp,
and swoosh went my laptop crashing to the ground,
and I went right into it a necessary day or two of RICE.
In case you haven’t noticed… I. am. important.
The emails that come to my phone are so essential, so time-pressing, so urgent, that I dare not look up and live the life in front of me.
#ouch is right.
My priorities and perspectives are about as twisted as my ankle.
I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve written about this… but no. Let’s travel back TEN YEARS, back through two countries, and a different job, to when I wrote about alarm fatigue:
I only hope those in power see the liability of “alarm fatigue” in education, and that we return to a renewed focus on treating–teaching–the student. Only then will we all find healing.
Well…Houston we have a problem.
I am now one of those people in power. And I am so consumed with the alarm bells of my inbox that I can’t even look up.
My beautiful ex-colleague but still-friend, Nikki, said something a few years ago that I can’t stop thinking about… and talking about. She talked about how in education we manufacture this false sense of urgency. Often, it is from a lack of proactive and thorough planning and diligent execution, so then, when the action arrives, wait, what, what action?, didn’t you check your email?, everybody and everything is so frantic to get it done and get it done right that everything else has to be stopped to do this thing, oh but wait, doing this thing means you have to stop that thing, and no, you can’t NOT do that, things will fall apart if you do that, so juggle it all, with the same intensity, oh and also don’t forget self-care, and model for students healthy boundary-setting, and, oh wait, crap, the copier is down, oh and also could you help? we don’t have someone to sponsor that club, can you do it?, because the person who was doing it is behind in writing a new policy for deadlines because nobody is getting all the important stuff done in time and so they don’t have the time to dedicate their time to that, and we need that policy because the external organizations we are paying a butt-load of money to don’t have their ducks in a row, wait, they just changed their syllabus again, can we have a meeting to get that figured out?, and, don’t forget to spend time exploring GenAI because your kids are using it and cheating all the time, yeah, you’re right, they need some social and emotional development, especially after COVID, oh gosh, that reminds me of the other gaps that came about from that years-long span of being behind a screen, can you fill out this form and let us know what you’re seeing, but wait, let’s circle back to that because this is important, wait, what THIS are we talking about?, but, also, don’t forget your day job.
If you need a breath after that sentence… welcome. to. a. Monday. for. anybody. working. in. a. school. #commasfordays
And I see it in my leadership. The language I use and ways I act that inflate the urgency. Words like “crisis.” Or the incessant response of “busy” to the question “how you doing?” (I’d like to meet this Busy, because they are getting a lot of action. #swiperight) The hesitancy to look up from my computer to be with someone when that dreaded question comes: “you got a minute?” The shortness of breath and tightness in my chest and tensing of the shoulders I get when I feel a sense of panic at not being able to accomplish a task.
It’s embarrassing to confess. It is just high school Mary! Geez! It is not an emergency room! It is not the end of the world!
And what kills me the most is that I see it in our students. They live their lives without sleep, enslaved to the scores of external exams, pressured by family and society, rushed from period to period–from test to test–weilding the weaponized language of mental health, lost in their phones, isolated from their peers, building habits that not only will affect them, but our future society.
(see what I did there with that paragraph? oooooozing with drama and intensity and urgency)
All of our ankles are twisted… aren’t they?
Can we all just calm down?
I’m working on it.
Breath in.
Breath out.