Vuja De- Yes this is a thing

Greetings, and Happy New Year! Are you all completely over Happy New Year? I am milking it for the entire month of January (clearly). I have noticed here in the academic world that there are a lot of pre-workers. If you don't know what that is and are wondering if that might be you check out Adam Grant's amazing Ted Talk here:
amazing Ted Talk

Adam's talk, made me feel a lot better about myself honestly because I don't fit in with the pre-worker crowd. I often wait until last minute ( not the very, very last minute I am a grown up) but you know until I start to feel and inkling of an overwhelming sense of doom if I do not do said thing. Then I produce very effectively.

I think functioning this way has upsides and downsides. One upside is when things change ( clinical scheduling anyone?) I win because I didn't waste my time on something that now has to be changed. One downside- I can stress people out who are not wired this way. I can stress myself out. I can stress students out. Many of my students are pre-workers. However- once my pre-workers learn to trust me..I come through I promise it can really be a benefit because of all those original ideas I have!

I am so interested in the different strengths and weaknesses we share as a team. Here at UNG's College of Health Sciences and Professions we are working through Gretchin Rubin's Better Than Before. I have been identified as a "Questioner-with rebel tendencies". This seems true for me and I have benefited tremendously from analyzing my own habits and why some things are harder to make happen than others. Working through this material also made me think about my students.

There are only 4 habit tendencies. A few of my students will be upholders, the majority will be obligers and questioners, and a few will be rebels. This framework ultimately has changed the way I make assignments, what I expect students to do and the way I think about their study habits. One issue I have experienced is that my students often have poor study habits. I now recognize that these habits really relate to how they meet both inner and outer expectations. If they are questioners and obligers they really do need some form of accountability for their studying. The upholders will study because it's expected of them, and the rebels will study if THEY want to. But for the bulk of my people, they are going to need some accountability.

The questioners will ask themselves WHY should I study, and what will happen to me if I don't . They will only study if it is an inner expectation for themselves. They have to internalize this expectation. They only meet inner expectations. Meanwhile the obligers will need something that triggers the feeling of an outer accountability measure. This could be as simple as an email "Did you study" they won't want to lie, or an online log of how many hours did you study- the public log holding them accountable. Think about it! This is a huge number of your students and could really change their study habits.

Hopefully students will grow and establish their own ways to hold themselves accountable, or find value in studying and not need a prompt or guidance. It's something to think about when working with this distracted generation that may not have the intrinsic mediators of self discipline we associate with at this level of learning. But I do believe it's part of my role as an educator to help them become "Better than Before". I know I'm trying- I'm learning my habit "loop holes" and trying to raise my self discipline to a level that will perhaps not be as good as a "pre worker" but you know...better.

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. :)