Why is it November? 
musings of a young(ish)- academic

 When I first began teaching in the Fall semester of 2014- I quickly learned the rhythm of stress that teachers share with their students. I disseminate some knowledge- then they are supposed to learn it. Once it reaches a certain point, I assess this knowledge attainment (usually via an Exam). I remember feeling stressed MAKING the exam, but strangely calm on exam day. I was happy to NOT be taking the exam. A day or so after the exam the stress belonged to me again as I had to enter the grades and deal with what happens when you realize maybe you didn't disseminate as effectively as you thought you had. Or- let's be honest more likely the students didn't learn as effectively as they should have. But is that their fault? These are the questions that keep you awake at night - not really I sleep at night... so more accurately these are the questions that plague you during Savasana when you are supposed to be relaxing.  

                               Is it me? 

      I knew and took great comfort in the fact that it takes a " good teacher" at least 2 years to really understand their craft. There was so much I had to learn. I watched the documentary "Waiting for Superman" Wating for Super Man and realized I was in a really unusal juxtapostion. My own children are young school aged. This means I care about education a lot. I am up on the latest and greatest. I am also very aware of the trouble that it's in. When I would do academic advisement I couldn't stop thinking about the parents. These are their kids. This is the end of the line. They had made it. They got their kiddo into a great 4 year University, and they are sitting across from me. They need me to help them accomplish their dreams. I quickly got the message that students were not excited to learn, they were excited to get OUT OF SCHOOL. My dreams of making nursing school fun went up in smoke and I quickly shifted my perspective to one closer to parenting ( a subject I was much stronger in currently). It's time to eat your vegetables.

                                        Eat Your Vegetables 

 When you are in the teacher trenches you often hear " You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink..." but I had just survived the toddler trenches. I didn't have a Phd in Nursing but I did have a Phd in Stubborn (honorary bestowed upon by myself but it still counts). You CAN make them eat their vegetables. They have to want to. If the information I needed my students to learn was metaphorical vegetables how do I get them to eat them? There is always the weird kid who likes veggies (good for you). But you need everyone to eat them. I thought about the Jessica Seinfeld book 

" Deceptively Delicious" about how you can puree vegetables and hide them in things like brownies, and pizza and mac-n-cheese. Yassssss..... now I need to purree my content and hide it in things they like. 

                                          You Tricked Me! 

 In future posts I will delve more into some of my "recipes", and perhaps you'll share some of yours with me. Some of them turned out great, some didn't but I'm trying. I am trying to get some mental nutrition into these young, stressed minds that are so exhausted and have such a long way to go. When they would say " You tricked me! That wasn't on the exam!" I learned to smile and say, 

"Yes...but did you learn? Okay then, mission accomplished."

-my nickname "Tricky Cilli" .... I'll take it. :)