ME Time - Mindful Educator

  Devoted - being wholly committed, showing strong enthusiasm, involving deep dedication to goals and placing deep emotional and energetic investment into those goals.  Each year, I choose one word that drives my focus on my actions for the year. This year, my word is DEVOTED. Being devoted to my wellness, my family and my school & studio communities is going to take commitment, discipline and focus. Each day's actions will be in alignment to my goals.  Wellness includes mind, body and spirt!!! Each weekend, I've been meal prepping my breakfast and lunch. This week I've added a sweet treat. When I don't have a plan for what I eat, I end up choosing unhealthy and high calorie items that detour my entire day. I was on track through the summer, but then the stress of school and chaotic schedules messed up my diligence to my nutrition. I was munching on the office candy box, nibbling on lounge treats and stopping too often at Starbucks for a venti hot caramel macchiat...

  I rarely sit still. I don't relax like most people think of relaxation. When my house is clean and organized, I feel less anxious. When the grass is cut and clear, I enjoy sitting outside more. I love pulling weeds. It gives me such satisfaction taking the junk out of the ground and manicuring flower beds, by yanking them out and getting dirty. I don't typically sit and just watch television. I'm either on my phone scrolling or working on something on my computer. I'm a veracious reader of non-fiction, historical fiction or stories that involve warrior women overcoming societal norms. Never just fluff reading. Reaction being part of my nature, its been a growth challenge for me to PAUSE.  As a leader I've always believed that I needed to have all the answers, that I needed to have immediate solutions or that everything was urgent. This led me to burnout, making too many mistakes and going back on initial decisions. Being so reactive also caused me not think about ...

I like to be in control of most situations in my life. Planning for my family, organizing and knowing specific details regarding events in my families life or work events simultaneously relieves and enhances my anxiety. I am not a very spontaneous person. I feel more in control by keeping my Google Calendar up to date with personal and work meetings/appointments, activities and reminders readily reminding me of what needs to get accomplished throughout the day. Daily, I'm adding to my calendar, checking my calendar and adjusting events that I may need to cancel, move around or push back for another time.  I'm not good with just being. I have "to do" lists for regular household chores, work responsibilities and getting to the gym or studio routines. As a mom, leader, wife, I feel like I am constantly multi-tasking and sometimes I feel like everything is important. However, there are other times when I get too over scheduled, which then enhances my anxieties, because th...

Part of being a successful leader, is reflecting on what went well each school year and what you need to change in your own actions, instruction practices and personal or professional development. The phrase "We've always done it this way" is a dangerous mindset that hinders progress and innovation. We don't need to change for the sake of change, but we use data from assessments as well as the collective needs of students or staff as well as patterns of challenges or successes to develop possible action plans and solutions, for what's best for the school community.  Summer break for a school leader is not just for fun and downtime, which we desperately need to balance out our lives, but for deep reflection and development as well. There are times where I am all by myself in my building; all secretaries and custodians have left for vacation, project contractors are working on other schools and teachers are nowhere near coming into school to work in their classrooms...

Several times in my life, I've been told "you can't do it". One of my core memories is my high school college counselor telling me that I shouldn't even bother applying for college because I wasn't the best student behaviorally and my grades reflected my challenges with my social emotional mindset. I then became hell-bend in proving him wrong. When I became a principal in 2015, I wanted to find him and tell him that he was wrong, and that I did become successful. I was enough and I did have worth, even as a difficult student. I had become a strong woman, effective leader, loving wife and mother. But, it turns out that he passed away and I wasn't able to rub my success in his face.  But truthfully I didn't make the goals, sacrifices, appropriate choices or personal developments for him.  I did it because I truly believed in myself and knew that I could be more than the delinquent high school student. I had a fire within me!!!  Sometimes we thrive within...

  I recently attended a leadership meeting were we discussed what Abundance Thinking meant to us. In education there is always a discussion of needing "more". More resources, more people, more money, more time, more support, more, more, more!!! However, sometimes there is not a focus on gratitude, or innovative thinking for what is already right in front of us. Don't get me wrong, there are many schools and district that truly do not have equitable resources compared to others. Students and teachers deserve equitable support, in the form of quality educators, updated and rigorous curriculum and learning environments that are safe and engaging. Teachers and staff also deserve livable wages where they don't need to have second jobs or worrying about supporting their families. Those basic needs and supports are essential. However, even in affluent school districts, there are scarcity mindsets instead of abundance thinking.  During my discussion with colleagues during thi...