Are You Having Fun Yet?
I know. COVID hasn’t left. Teachers are not all vaccinated.
Pressure
is mounting to return to in-person learning. Students have checked out at best and are suicidal at worst. Parents are tearing their hair out. People everywhere are falling apart.
Still. Are you having fun yet?
I know!
It’s crazy to talk about fun at a time like this!
But I am. (Crazy, I guess. Talking about fun at a time like this, for sure.)
In talking about fun at a time like this, I’d like to emphasize two things: separating and connecting.
Separating the things you have no power over from the things you do. Chanting the serenity prayer. Committing to turning the impossible into the possible.
Locking into the things you do have power over. Letting go of the things you don’t. Laying those burdens down.
(You know those things won’t go away. But ruining your life over them isn’t going to change anything. Other than your
internal chemistry,
which will make you ineffectual and unwell.)
And connecting. With students, of course.
Are you having silly (socially distanced) parties in class? Or online (which would be especially silly)?
How ‘bout weekly Extreme Dress-Up Days?
Do you have Wear-A-(Handmade)-Mask-of-Your-Favorite-Author (or Scientist or Historical Influencer or — imagine! — Mathematician) Day? And make everyone guess who their classmates are?
Do you bring a Mantra of the Day to your classes — or better yet, ask students to bring one — and live by it? And talk about how hard it can be to live by it?
Are you inviting your students to create a playlist for background music in your class? That you all can occasionally bust out and dance to?
(Fun can mean daring to do what the straitjackets of our lives normally forbid us to do. Creating thrilling challenges.)
Connecting with colleagues.
Are you meeting to talk about how classes are going, what’s working and what’s not?
Are you talking about how your students are doing? Which ones are flailing? What might be done about it? Which ones are thriving? What you can learn from them?
Are you checking in with each other, offering comfort and support? Praise and admiration? Are you keeping each other balanced by offering reality checks? About the things you can control and the things you cannot?
Are you asking each other what everybody is doing for fun?
Are you giving each other ample opportunity to inspire and be inspired?
Are you giving each other Air High Fives at the end of every day or week for having made it through? (Are you doing that with your students?)
I know it must seem heretical for me to insist that fun must be had in such stressful times. But if you think of fun as the experience of feeling connected, inspired, giggly, joyful — even for a moment — you can see how very very very important it is especially in such stressful times.
Mantra: Here’s how I’m going to have fun today.