It all started with a yellow bird: the American Goldfinch. After seeing a steady stream of Northern Cardinals flit in and out of my backyard for the last couple years, it was exciting to see a bird this vibrant. Within a couple weeks, I put up some new bird feeders, and even got a new pair of binoculars for my birthday. Continue reading
In his book The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman sets the stage for his analysis of the 1990s by setting up how generations tend to view each other, a theme he’s built on across many of his essay collections:
“Younger generations despise older generations for creating a world they must inhabit unwillingly, an impossible accusation to rebuff. Older generations despise new generations for multiple reasons, although most are assorted iterations of two: They perceive the updated versions of themselves as either softer or lazier (or both). These categorizations tend to be accurate. But that’s positive. That’s progress. If a society improves, the experience of growing up in that society should be less taxing and more comfortable; if technology advances and efficiency increases, emerging generations should rationally expect to work less. If new kids aren’t soft and lazy, something has gone wrong.”
In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education piece, James M. Lang and Kristi Rudenga discuss combining intrinsic motivation strategies with extrinsic motivators that have come under scrutiny, like deadlines, grades, and punitive course policies.
These recommendations speak to the moment many educators find themselves in: We’re no longer in the acute phase of the pandemic, where instructors and students are doing the best they can amidst historically challenging circumstances that necessitated changes to many educational norms. Now, we’re grappling with a gray area that’s just as challenging, as we try to decide which educational norms need to be reinstated and which “pandemic lessons” should be integrated into our practice moving forward.
A quick note before I move into the post–if you find that your feelings run deeper than just your work, or that the challenges you face are pervasive or problematic across other areas of your life, I would encourage you to seek professional counseling or therapy with a licensed mental health professional beyond the recommendations for approaching your work outlined below. Always remember that it’s important to prioritize mental health for youth and young adults.
We all likely know the feeling by now, even if we might still lack the specific terminology to explain it. We’re tired, despite sleeping relatively well. We’re feeling “off,” but we’re not sick. We’re feeling lonely or disconnected, though we still get along with our coworkers and students. We may forget project details or course deadlines, or just find it hard to be excited about starting a new endeavor or covering topics in the classroom that once interested us. Is this burnout, or something else? Continue reading
I recently participated in Interactive Health’s webinar on “The Power of Mindfulness” and it reiterated a theme that’s been in my heart, “living in the now.” This message has resonated with me because that’s what we’ve been talking about at my church recently. So, hearing it again, through a secular medium, was emphatic. I bet the idea of being present seems almost impossible to most of us; well, at least for me, it does. Our minds are constantly wandering back and forth. We focus on the past. We think of what we could have done, or said, or what we did do or say. This leads to feelings of regret, guilt, and shame. We focus on the future, wondering whether we’ll get that new job, or that raise, or whether that relationship will ever get better, and the list could go on. This results in feelings of fear, anxiety, and depression. But here’s some advice, how about just be present? Live in the now! This quote by Bill Keane helps put things in perspective, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” Being present isn’t about being careless or mindless or totally ignoring the past or future. It is about channeling our focus and awareness effectively. We acknowledge the past to understand what is and use the present to shape what will be.
So, how can we be present?