Scrolling through Twitter this morning reading all of the updates from my teacher PLN who were heading back to work today to start the 2018 school year.
Today was the 29th of January – the first day of school for many, but at my school, our first official day was January 19th. In the last 10 days we’ve had:
- 2 weekends
- 1 public holiday
- a return flight to Melbourne for a school conference
- a collegial team-building Escape Room experience
- a First Aid refresher course
- meetings…timetable revisions…meetings…planning time…room set up time…meetings…more timetable revisions
As mentioned in this post, I’m teaching every student from Prep-10 this year across various Year Levels. I’m also the eSmart Coordinator & Digital Technology Mentor. I get asked by teachers to help with student iPads & passwords (luckily I’m the second-in-line for this task, thanks to our official IT guy), asked by office staff to help them develop a Google Form to collect data on this, that and the other, or to help update the school website…plus I run the school Facebook page.
This year, I have to learn to say NO.
- No, I wish I could help, but I don’t have the time.
- No, I don’t know how to do that.
- No, that’s not a priority for me.
Or….can I just say ‘No’, without needing to justify it?
As I scrolled through my Twitter feed, I saw this tweet from Pip Cleaves:
I saw this, saved it to my desktop and printed it. I walked straight to the photocopier, picked it up…and pinned it to the wall at my desk.
THIS.
Thanks Pip.
teacherlearningjourney 
Haha, great minds! I saw his had emailed the image to. Self and was planning to stick it above my desk too… then a few minutes ,after I read your blog post!! Like you I thought this was a perfect quote to keep things inperspective. I find it hard to say no to things, slowly getting better but this will serve as a good reminder! 😀
Thanks! Sometimes things like this need to hit us in the face to make us take notice! Good luck with trying to say no!