Literacy Builders

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A is for Anxiety: Thoughts About Having a Less Stressful School Year

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No time to read? Listen instead!

Here, more than halfway through my summer vacation, I find myself scrolling through some of the tabs I have left open on my computer. I pause at one titled, “Ideas for Next Year.” I glance at what I have jotted–entries that read like ten-second sound bites–and remember dreaming about what I could do with these ideas when I “had more time.” I pause and wonder. Is this that moment?

As I think about this question, I feel my heartbeat quicken and notice a slight tightness in my chest. My first instinct is to say, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious,” but I pause because perhaps it is more serious than I realize. These “symptoms” are the same ones that steal half of every Sunday throughout the school year and now, they are threatening to commandeer what is left of my summer vacation.

These “symptoms” have a clinical name, of course. You probably know it–it is called anxiety. And anxiety is insidious–in addition to stealing our peace and joy when we have time off, it can leave us feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, and sometimes, physically ill. The bad news is that anxiety literally wears away our well-being. But, there is also good news: We don’t have to let it.

As the first post of the 2021-22 school year, I am sharing with you my commitment to reclaiming my life from anxiety. It is my hope that if you are one of the many who suffer alongside me, you will join me in this commitment. Just imagine schools where we weren’t all in the death grip of stress! Perhaps we’d skip down the halls, laugh more, judge less, and take more time to enjoy the beauty that is teaching and learning. Can you imagine this? This thought makes me giddy with excitement!

So…let’s just do this! Below is a list of some of the strategies I use to help bring myself back to center. I know there are tons of others and it is my hope that if you’ve tried other things that work well for you, you will share. Reducing anxiety is an important commitment and I know that if we band together to help each other, we can make the 21-22 school year the Year of Joy!

An Incomplete List of Strategies that Reduce Anxiety

Have To vs Get To
We all have a voice in our heads that narrates our lives. The one in mine is always listing the things that I “have to” do which can have a paralyzing effect on me. When this happens, I soften things by listing what I “get to” do. It’s funny how such a subtle shift in language can change how we feel about what needs to get done!

Third Person Self Talk
While on the subject of inner narrative, it is important to note that when we narrate our fears and anxieties using the “I” pronoun, we tend to be harsher than if we were, say, talking to our friend about the very same issues. For example, when back-to-school night is approaching, we might hear ourselves thinking things like, “I just know I’m going to choke the moment I open my mouth. I am so bad at public speaking!” This train of thought perpetuates anxiety by leading us deeper into the rabbit hole of fear: “I’m going to blow it. I just know I’m going to blow it!”

The good news for us is that we can distance ourselves from these fears by simply shifting our narrative from the first to the third person. Watch what happens when I change the language of this example: “Kim thinks that she is going to choke the moment she opens her mouth to talk. She thinks she’s bad at public speaking.” When I do this, I can hear the calming voice of my kindest friends. What would they say next?: “Don’t worry, Kim. You’ll do great.”

Breathe
Most of the people I know and talk to have a memory of being so scared as a child that they held their breath, convinced that if they dared exhale–even a little bit–whatever monster they were hiding from would see them and they’d be doomed for all eternity. Fast forward to adulthood and it seems that my monsters are still chasing me because I catch myself holding my breath–All. The. Time. My grown-up monster, of course, is whatever fear happens to be at the root of my anxiety. Lucky for me–and you–the antidote to holding our breath is letting it out. One of my favorite breathing techniques works like this: Inhale to a count of four, hold it for a count of seven, and slowly exhale to a count of eight. For me, this has an amazing calming effect, not to mention gives me the oxygen I need to think straight!

Notice and Name
Another strategy that I like to use right when I notice I am feeling anxious works like this: Sit or stand still and survey the area around you. As you look around, notice and name five things that you can see. Then, notice and name four things that you can touch. Next, notice and name three things that you can hear and two things you can smell. Bring it home by noticing and naming one thing that you can taste.

Doing this is very centering and helps us in our moments of overwhelm to know we are okay. I have found that this strategy not only works wonders for me, but can be great when we are working with students who may be feeling the wide range of emotions that come along with being a kid navigating things from playground disputes to bad grades.

Tapping
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)–also known as “tapping”–can be very calming and centering when anxiety runs high. This simple process begins by tapping on the side of the hand and saying (or thinking) a statement along the lines of “Even though I feel like I am going to choke the moment I get up to speak at back-to-school night, I love and accept myself.” Then, using your index and middle fingers, you continue by tapping on the following series of points on the body: between the eyes, on the temple, beneath the eye, beneath the nose, under the lips, beneath the collar bone, on the bra line beneath the arm, and finally, on the crown of the head. All the while, you are speaking your fears out loud which can serve as a release that allows space for more positive thoughts and emotions to flow into our consciousness. (If this interests you, I recommend www.thetappingsolution.com as a good source of information.)

I admit to feeling very skeptical when I started this. I felt weird when I did it and doubted how this could be helpful but as someone who stuck with it, I can attest that no other strategy that I do quiets my mind as effectively as this one!

As I mentioned, I know that this is a woefully incomplete list of strategies for reducing anxiety. However, I’m fearful that thinking too much about how to combat anxiety might create more anxiety of its own. (Wink, wink!) Please do share the things you do to minimize your stress and I promise that I will check back with you periodically to let you know how my efforts to claim 21-22 as The Year of Joy are going!

(As a side note, if joy and happiness interests you as much as it interests me, check out my friend Lisa’s Joy School. She teaches stuff like this and much, much more!)

What’s Working? Prediction Pyramids!

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No time to read? Listen instead!

Hey Everybody!

As many of you know, I went back to the classroom this year. While that journey, in and of itself, is blog-worthy, it is not what is on my mind today. Today, the thing that I am thinking about is this pattern that we humans sometimes get stuck in–when something bad happens, we just continue to think about that bad thing. So, for example, if we have a bad lesson or a bad observation or a parent gets cranky with us, we kind of begin to perseverate on that. Maybe you don’t do this–and if that’s the case, I envy you–but I know I do this and so, I’m thinking about what to do about it.

There is a personal growth principle that says, “Where your focus goes, your energy flows.” So, if we were to take the example of perseverating on the bad things that happen in our professional lives and apply this principle, it means that our energy is flowing toward our less than desirable lessons, events, and interactions. And by giving energy to these things, we inadvertently create more of these things! Ahhhhh! I don’t know about you, but I definitely do not want more bad lessons, events, and interactions. I want good ones! And I’m betting you do, too. So, how do we make that happen?

Answer: We focus on the good stuff!

So, here’s my question for you. What have you done lately that worked really well?

For me, it was this thing I called “Prediction Pyramids.”

I’ve been reading The Egypt Game with my sixth graders. In case you’re not familiar with the story, it’s about a sixth-grade girl who moves in with her grandma because her mom is off trying to be a movie star. She’s not super happy to be there and is displaying all sorts of attention-getting behaviors until she meets her neighbor who shares her interest in Ancient Egypt. Together, they invent “The Egypt Game,” which they play in an abandoned field near their apartment complex. All is going great until one day, they are frantically summoned home early. Something has happened.

When we got to this part in the story, my students, very naturally, were dying to know what was going on. But, before proceeding onward, I had them check-in with their turn-and-talk partner to brainstorm possibilities. Next, they considered which of their predictions were most likely and wrote it on a sentence strip.

Once each pair had something to contribute, we cleared the desks out the middle of the classroom and laid each of the predictions out on the floor. Then, I challenged the students to organize their predictions by putting the one that was most likely to happen on top and the one that was least likely on the bottom.

Students were jazzed about this task. They quickly rejected some predictions altogether and debated the merits of those that were left. Without me even asking them to, students grabbed their books off their desks and started flipping through pages to find evidence to support their thinking. There was jumping up and down and “Ooh, ooh, oohs,” and “Ohhhhhhhsss!” All the while, I just stepped back and said pretty much nothing.

When all was said and done, they were begging to read more because they just had to know–why were the kids in the story called home early?

So, that’s my story of what’s working to increase motivation and purpose for reading. Now it’s my turn to ask: What’s working for you?

From To-Do to To-Done: How to Manage the Tasks On Your List

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From To-Do to To-Done: How to Manage the Tasks On Your List

No time to read? Listen instead!

Do you have a to-do list that you’re working from today? If not, for the purpose of this blog, you may want to make one. Once you’ve got your list in front of you, continue reading.

When you look at your list, how does it make you feel? If you find that your list helps you to prioritize the things vying for your attention which in turn makes you feel calm and confident, stop reading this blog and proceed with your day! Ultimately, that’s the purpose of a to-do list!

I, however, find that to-do lists can sometimes have the exact opposite effect. When I make the list and look it over, I find myself suddenly caught in the web of all that I “have to” do.

  • I have to write a welcome back letter to my new students!
  • I have to run out to Target to buy stationery so that I can hand write those letters!
  • I have to draft a syllabus for each of the two different sections of English that I am teaching this year!
  • I have to pick the books that I want to read aloud on the first day of school!
    I have to figure out how to use Google classroom!

If looking at your list finds you, too, caught in the same web of “have to,” the first thing I want you to do is stop…and breathe.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Do this for as many times as you need. Remember: nothing at all gets done when we are absolutely paralyzed by everything we “have to” do.

The next thing I want you to do is revise the title of your list. It is no longer your “To Do” list but rather, your “Get To Do” list.

Now, pick something from your list and insert it into the following sentence stem:
I get to (insert item from your list).
Example: I get to draft a welcome back to school letter.

As a point of comparison, insert that same item into this sentence stem:
I have to (insert the item from your list).
Example: I have to draft a welcome back to school letter.

Do you feel the difference? The words “have to” make me feel tense. The words “get to” make me feel playful, excited, and might I say, even a bit giddy. The energy of “get to” is light whereas the energy of “have to” heavy. Shifting our language can have a profound effect on how we feel about what needs doing.

Now, let’s talk about how to prioritize what’s on your list. If you knew the me that was me a year ago, I’d tell you to look at the list and circle the thing that feels most pressing and start there. Truth be told, I still sometimes do this. But more times than not, I don’t find it to be the best approach. What I often find is better is to begin by looking at the list and asking, “What here am I most excited about?” When I give my attention to the thing that I am most excited about, it gives me energy. With more energy, I build my capacity for productivity.

Another strategy that can work well when you are prioritizing the tasks that need doing is looking at the list and asking which will take the least amount of time to complete. If everything on your list feels big and overwhelming, then be intentional about peppering your list with tasks that you know will be quick. For example, I added “Throw away markers that no longer work” and “Put books underneath desk back on bookshelf” to my list because I knew that it would take little to no time to do these things. I fit these little tasks between more taxing tasks which gives my brain the break it needs AND allows me to cross something off my list which I LOVE doing. Watching the tasks on my list disappear makes me feel accomplished and the more I do, the more I want to do!

As you think about your “Get To Do” list, the last piece of advice that I would offer is to be sure to add what I like to call a “non-task” task to your list. A “non-task” task is something that takes zero effort and can serve to center you if you become overwhelmed. For example, sometimes I add a bullet point with the words, “ “Be happy” or “Look around you and notice something you are grateful for.” Not only are these things quick and easy to do, they are important reminders of the real reason our lists exist in the first place– to experience this great journey of living. In the end, is there really anything greater than this that we “get” to do?

Good luck with making your way through the things you need to do to begin the school year and if you have other hacks that help you, please share!

Lego Block

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In my basement, we have an old dresser.  If you were to open any one of the six drawers of this dresser you would have to tug a little because each drawer is filled to the brim and overflowing with Lego.  But that’s not the only place you’ll find Lego in my house.  Bins of Lego can be found tucked behind chairs and stacked neatly (and not-so-neatly) on bookshelves in every room.  And of course, if you look in the heaters and other small crevices of my home, you will find errant pieces and casualties of epic battles that occurred at one point or another. Why so much Lego?  Because I am the mother of a ten year old son who is an absolute fanatic.  He plays with them all the time. 

Except lately. 
Lately he has been digging about in other bins in search of other toys to entertain him. One day, as he busily worked at creating a Smurf village complete with construction paper gardens and domino fences, he glanced up from his play and said, “In case you’re wondering why I’m not playing Lego like I usually do, it’s because I have Lego block. I can’t really think of what I want to build right now so I’m hoping that by playing other things, it will give me a new idea of something to build.”
Lego block. Pardon the pun, but my son has Lego block. Like writing, the act of building a rocket ship or army tank or fighter jet is a creative process which encounters an occasional bout of gridlock.  And like writers who cook or clean or read or recite a poem or take a walk to help clear away the congestion interfering with the creative process, my son recognized that he, too, needed to do something to release him from the claw of “Lego block.” He knew that playing with other toys and trying out different games would help stimulate his creativity and help him find the inspiration he needs to create a new masterpiece.  But what’s more, like a tortured artist committed to his craft, he was so guilt ridden about turning his attention away from his work that he felt the need to justify his behavior. 
The gratification of creating a masterpiece can be exhilarating, but it can also be frustrating and that frustration can be paralyzing.  The feeling caused by not knowing what to create next or how to move a piece forward is the source of great angst.  And that angst is a feeling shared by all artists.  Anybody who has ever created anything knows it.  The trick is knowing what to do when it happens.  Do you sit there until the beads of sweat turn to blood or do you take a break and do something productive until the mental rotary in your brain releases you onto an open highway of creativity?  If you have writer’s block or painter’s block or Lego block, take a break and remember, short departures from our work require no justification.