Trick or Treat and Celebration Guidelines? School celebrations bring students together and create excitement for the school day. Halloween seems to be the favorite holiday celebration, but in recent times Halloween has caused a stir within the school communities and their school district. School districts are searching for alternate ways to allow schools to celebrate by encouraging fall-themed school wide events. The reason for this trend is to ensure that all students feel included in the celebration. Some students do not celebrate Halloween. There is legitimate concern of students whose parents choose to opt-out of the celebrations. Most relate it to a pagan holiday so many Muslim or Jehovah’s Witnesses opt-out but are concerned about losing valuable academic learning time. Students who opt-out of the Halloween festivities, work with the principals or teachers to come up with an alternate activity. Los Angeles Unified School District officials recognize that n...
Posts
Teacher Burnout and the Time for Self-care The topics of the professional development meetings at most school sites are all typically about the district mandated implemented to-dos to add to the weekly schedules. I left the auditorium at my school-site once again feeling overwhelmed with an angst of so many things to do and so little time in the day. “Oh yeah, take care of yourself; practice self-care” says the administrators and facilitators of the professional development meeting. But what does that exactly mean? In general, it means eating well, getting plenty of rest and of course exercise. I am sure there are more suggestions however it doesn’t really explain how to do this. Self care in today's teaching world is not a luxury, it is a necessity and we owe it to ourselves and our students the importance of taking care of ourselves. As I spoke to other teachers I gathered information on what are the key stressors and outlined various ways to manage the stress by implemen...