The Sizzlin’ Challenge is still hot with two weeks remaining.
As you ease back into the full steam of the school year, keep your summer in your sights, hanging on to the joys you gained while challenging yourself and your loved ones to do healthy activities.
Think of all you were able to accomplish so far: Fun rainy day activities, new veggies, new walking paths, new ways of helping out, composting, reconnecting with loved ones, and doing something you’ve always wanted to try. That’s a great list! And, given the fabulous photos, you’ve proved that you’re creative enough to make great things happen.
As work gets back to its old tricks and the stress meter begins ticking, staying grounded will require a fair amount of that creativity you’ve exuded. Being creative, in fact, engages the brain in a way that allows new thinking to surface and thus brings about new strategies for dealing with all kinds of complicated stressors. If we are indeed in the business of making Vermont schools less stressful and yet more productive for all, then we are part of a whole system that needs some good, creative thinking.
Each and every one of us is a piece of the puzzle, each contributing to the solution in our own way. If we can each work toward righting our sides toward those around us, we can all interlock and reveal the beauty that makes the whole picture.
At the most rudimentary level, then, it begins with us. How can your creative mind and body open to the possibility of a low stress school year? Begin with your own exercise in creativity. We put a few examples in parentheses on the challenge brochure… You know, the basics like “dance, sing, paint, etc.”. But there is poetry, journaling, drawing, playing (anything), cooking, storytelling, making up a game, building, crafting, quilting, YOU NAME IT!
The point is to set yourself free so your mind and body are willing to take on the new and exciting year with an open and compassionate spirit.
The great systems thinker Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline) reminds us that no one gets up in the morning and makes a great evil plan for the destruction of paradise. What happens instead is the great American free-for-all that allows us to chug along feeding off whatever is there without realizing the consequences. When we turn around and look from whence we came, if we don’t like it, we so often say, “It’s not my fault. It was the ‘system’.”
And yet, we are the system.
Grab hold and own the part of the system that is yours so that we can all begin to solve this problem we call “excessive stress” together. Leave no one behind, not classroom teacher, nor para, nor maintenance, nor IT, nor nurse, nor food service, nor bus driver, nor coach, nor principal, nor parent, nor union rep, nor superintendent, nor business manager, nor… Nor student.
We are the system. Therefore we are the solution.
A great year ahead is firmly within your grasp. Harness your creativity and fly.
We’re so looking forward to seeing your pictures this week. Enjoy and good luck ramping up the school year. One more Summer Challenge week to go!
See you on the PATH Ahead.