A February 2016 repost, just when I was beginning to deeply explore the no-planning, non targeting approach that is now what I consider a better way to do CI:
This burnout test requests that the reader do something a bit odd as they read further into this post. There is a short paragraph below. Don’t read it now. Read it when you get to it and, in the instant that you finish reading it, honestly assess your immediate initial reaction to it.
Instantly gauge how you react to the sentence in the instant after having first read it. What came into your mind in that split second. For this test to work, you must be totally honest in how you perceive your first reaction to the paragraph.
If you can do this in a totally honest way, you will have learned something very important, something that all teachers would do very well to consider if they are to avoid the burnout that is currently laying waste to so many careers (which is a gross understatement right now).
So here is the sentence:
It is just fine if I do absolutely no planning in my job as a teacher. Zero. Zip. Nothing. I don’t need to destroy a tree to teach my language to kids. Total paperless absence of planning including using planning periods to plan is just fine. My time is my own when I am not teaching a class. I can do that. It’s best for me and my students to never plan my classes. I have a right to not feel so tired and depressed at the end of a teaching day. I have a right to not have my job negatively affect my personal life. I have a right to just let the language happen in my classroom in the way the research says is best. I can be happy in my job with virtually no planning whatsoever, with no qualifications or exceptions., because I know how to use CI right.
Well, what was the first thing you thought? Did you think that the statement in italics is just not true, that you have to plan, lots, and that there is no way around it? Or did you think that it was true?
If you think it was true, then you will probably not be one of the legion of teachers who burn out trying to learn CI, because you will find and benefit from the wonderful interface that exists between CI and especially non-targeted CI (ANATS) and good mental health and plenty of free time for you and your loved ones.