The courage in pausing

 
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Volume 11

And just like that, summer has almost passed. Were you able to spend time recharging or did you continue to charge through life? If you have a little more time before the school year starts, please take a moment to plan something, anything, that fuels you. If you’re already back at it, I urge you to find your refuge -- something that you can incorporate into your days that gives you strength and hope.

The coming school year will be a challenging one, and all of the signs point towards school systems continuing to struggle reopening buildings fully and keeping them open continuously. We will all need our strength to navigate this. I'm personally experiencing so much as I look ahead to this school year:

  • Empathy, as I listen to educators expressing their rising anxiety and their wish for others to simply care for their physical and mental wellbeing.

  • Anxiety, as I see the COVID-19 delta variant positivity rates increasing and the CDC's new recommendation to have all students and staff mask up, regardless of vaccination status. Despite this mandate, just 20% of K-12 students currently live in states that require masks in schools and nearly that many students attend schools in the seven states that have forbidden mask mandates altogether (School Mask Policy Tracker).

  • Excitement for the educators who are gearing up to teach, uplift, and inspire a new batch of students who desperately yearn for normalcy and new ways to learn and collaborate.

My intent is not to scare you with stats or trigger anxiety about going back to school. I merely hope to raise awareness of how truly complex and difficult this upcoming school year will be. Everyone will need to work together, support each other, and continue to be as flexible as possible. My hope is that I see us all, whether you're a principal, superintendent, parent, EdTech brand, educator, or student, to not only prioritize your own self care but give extra care to our teachers. Listen to them, do what you can to change policies to support them, make their day with a special surprise or a simple recognition of their efforts -- and please never judge them.

Prioritizing your own self care is never easy but if this time has taught us anything it is that it's desperately needed and that no one should ever be judged for having the high level of self-awareness to know when to pause and refuel. Never forget that there is courage in pausing and sometimes stopping altogether. As this school year comes upon us, let's all make a promise to keep in touch with how we're doing mentally and physically and pay special attention to those that may be experiencing the brunt of it all.

Be well.

 

P.S. If you’re struggling on how to integrate self care in your day, this infographic by Believe Perform lists 10 ideas to look after your mental health at work.

Infographic: The Complete List of Post Types

Stuck in a rut and tend to use the same types of posts to your social media channels? This infographic reveals every single type of post you can create for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest.

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How to Foster a Meaningful and Engaged Education Community

We’re joining forces with Project FoundEd (a community of EdTech founders) for a couple of fun webinars that are a sneak peek of what we teach and talk about all of the time. Last week, we chatted about social media and in August, we’re rolling up our sleeves to talk about community. We’ll provide insights and clips of the recordings on our blog and on Twitter.