There is a reason we have long summer breaks in education, a real one that only teachers and students can know. We need them in order to survive.
Since ours is emotionally a most demanding profession, we must rest for long periods of time. What we go through during the year in our buildings, in the invisible world, is brutal.
So I’m taking a break. June is calling me and I’m calling back. Time for some bike rides with Bryce. I’ll keep reading and checking back in here from time to time through June, making and reading comments, but I am going to grab my down time right now while I can. Other time stamped articles will appear automatically so the information won’t stop.
It’s been a tremendous year here, most certainly. The growth has been tremendous but has not come without a price. As jen said in a recent comment:
…I’m completely worn out, have been sick for 2 1/2 weeks and had a trying year (which we all know means big learning)…
We should be exhausted. We are not superhuman.
I strongly suggest that new people watch lots of videos (see hard link across the top of this page as well as click on the Videos category) and read back through the archives and also click on categories that they need information about and choose some articles to read on those topics.
So let’s get back into the groove after the July (Dallas, San Diego) and August (France) conferences.
Maybe it’s a good time to post this again:
“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone with everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
Thomas Merton