Where can I find the off switch please?

  Below is a Blog post that I wrote at half term...and been so busy over the last three weeks I've only just got around to uploading it...I rest my case.

After 30 years of full time teaching this is my final half term. I will be going freelance in September but this is my final school holiday where I will be returning as a full time teacher. I decided that it would be a restful half term& I would recharge batteries....all the usual clichés. Penthouse apartment booked on the East coast (if you are going to do it – you might as well do it in style is my motto), books, camera .....oh and laptop, iPhone, novel for year 7 next half term, books I’ve been meaning to read....oh that’s right where is the off button I seem to have mislaid it.

So far this week I have done really well but it’s Wednesday and I’m starting to twitch! I had several conversations on Twitter about posters on resilience for our staff training next week, favourited several tweets to look at websites properly at the weekend, I’ve read a novel for my yr 7 special needs English group, I’ve taken and edited several images to turn into ‘quotes posters’, I’ve e mailed about articles, I’ve started reading ‘Dancing about architecture’(P Beadle) and Bounce(M Syed),  I’ve bought resources that will be useful for Mantle work, I’ve saved the newspapers from the Jubilee coverage because  I will be able to use them next term....

I’m regretting not sorting out Internet access as I want to update my blog so I’m typing an article to upload later...and breathe! My Husband is out walking (in the rain – it is the East coast in June after all!) and I’m thinking about how to switch off! If you are a teacher I think you adopt a different mentality.

Squirrel – you hoard and save. One pink fishing net, shells, several union Jack flags, a hat which is a tiger’s head,  the Times newspapers from the last few days – because you can and will use them in the classroom.

Hamster – there is this treadmill, you get off but the temptation to get back on is too great – just one more go, just one more article, just one more tweet, just one more e mail......

Bear – you spend the first couple of days of any holiday hibernating, slobbing out in tracksuit bottoms sloppy socks and wondering how you manage to get up at 6am normally.

The work ethic is too engrained and even when not working I’m thinking about what I should be doing and when I can fit it in. I promised myself a week off so why can’t I do it? Maybe I don’t really want to and the ‘yes’ factor of finding that one off article or the ‘lure’ that you need for you next lesson is too great.

During term time I sometimes feel overwhelmed and there is never a time when I can say I have got to the bottom of my ‘to do’ list. The app ‘do it tomorrow’ is great – it even makes a ‘whooshing’ sound when I cross something off and if I don’t cross it off...it automatically transfers it to ‘tomorrow’. The good thing is when an item has been on my list for a couple of weeks, I’ve not done it and nothing drastic has happened as a result...I just cross it off anyway! Reminds me of a deputy I worked with who had two cardboard boxes under his desk, all correspondence went into the first and only got transferred into the one that was his ‘To Do’ box if someone asked him for it.

Is there such an animal as a sloth? If you are a committed teacher can you ever stop? I would be happy with a pause button but don’t hold out much hope.