Presentation Reflection:I am so grateful that I teamed up with Karla and Sandra as they really motivated me to put in my best and kept me on track especially due to me crunching out my part of the slides. (No joke if you go back into the history on the slides you will see I was cutting it close.) They were way better about putting in their portion of the assignment than myself and I hope I didn't stress them out by my delay in plugging in my portion which I conveyed to both of them. They were also the ones who suggested the assignments which I fully agreed were the best of the bunch and may have enjoyed a little to much when working on over this weekend's free time. Overall, I think we did fantastic as a team and they were wonderful to plan, work, and present with! Activity - 1Onward has been a fantastic read and I can’t believe we are at an end for our Masters! It has been such a grand adventure and so very worthwhile! The activity Look Around You from page 624 in the Onward workbook had me spending a large quantity of time on my illustrations and just enjoying the experience of creating in general. It has been wonderful keeping up on spending more time creating work the past few weeks and I am hoping to continue this meditative routine. This activity also connected well with the silent appreciations practice explained in Onward on page 295. I illustrated the gratitude I felt towards my other half; seeing me for who I am, humoring me when I am down, comforting me when I need it, and being a listening ear to everything. He thanked me for making his teeth look better than he thinks they look but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Activity - 2I also spent a good chunk of time investigating what imaginary and mythical creatures I wanted to illustrate for this activity! There are a few I would like to continue to illustrate (namely the curious owlcat and the humorous jackalope). As I reflect on the imagery I just want to continue to work on it but need to say goodbye to a fantastic endeavor, farewell... and here’s to new beginnings! Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
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Activity 1On page 262, in Chapter 10, of Onward, Aguilar writes “Do what you can to find flow” (Aguilar, 2018). This weeks activity The Closet in My Classroom did assist in my own state of flow that was missing last week when I epically failed at Chibi me. I began this activity with considering where I would want to walk when in the midst of feeling not up to the task of teaching. A relaxing walk in the woods would be nice. As I begin my lines I allowed myself to not worry about perfection or if the trees looked realistic. I focused on how lines moved and the thickness and then later on how the color blurred acrossed the wet areas of the paper. Reflecting on this activity makes me wonder if I allowed myself to set more time to find flow, if I could become better at falling into that mindset. Activity 2The activity for Chapter 11, Tackle Your Complaints, really made me focus on what I could change about my behavior, what was within my control and influence. It also made me consider how I can be more forgiving of myself for complaints that are outside my control and to just “let go”. One action I want to get going on is setting time aside for my family. I ALWAYS have some sort of work to catch up on and it forces me to put spending time with my own kids aside. If I plan days out of the house then I will be away from my computer/work bag and the daunting “to do list” of the constant pile of grading, planning, writing, organizing, ect... Doing this action would then hopefully make me feel like I am not missing them grow up, that we are creating happy experiences/memories, and also give me more focus when I do have to buckle down on the “to do list”. This especially blends well with the section in Chapter 11 of Onward, Use Your Energy Where It Counts. The mantra from this section being “what really matters?”, what should I use my time for during the day I am pulled so many different ways. What later on down the road can I look back on and think that was so worth it. So here’s to change, surprise of the unknown, and the opportunity for adventure! Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Activity - 1For the activity “The Awesome Anthem” on page 449 in the Onward workbook I created a circular frame and my reflection as a chibi (chibi is a Japanese slang word describing something short [a thing, an animal or a person]. ... The term is widely used in Japan to describe a specific style of caricature where characters are drawn in an exaggerated way. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibi_(slang)). It did not turn out the best and I used my new metallic gel pens when I really should of sketched out in pencil first. However, for the speech bubble I wrote “YOU ARE ENOUGH!” in the hopes that if I continue to tell myself of my worth it will help with the doubts in my mind. I found the information provided in Chapter 8 of Onward to be hopefully as well and wish to build my own compassion towards others in a healthier way. I often feel bogged down by the struggles of others and I unhealthily soak in the stress of others. I need to practice overcoming compassion fatigue and train my brain not to activate when experiencing others suffering. There is only so much I can do, I have limits and I need to build this thought process into my teaching. I am enough as I am and there are events outside my control that are not up to me. These thoughts need to be happening in my mind more instead of trying to take on too much and getting bogged down by what I can not do for others. Activity - 2Chapter 9 of Onward had the suggestion of keeping a time log which I think would be an excellent check of what I do throughout the day and what I really am spending my time on considering what I wrote in our activity Beliefs and Assumptions About Time on page 499 was that I feel I only have time for work, paperwork, gradwork, planning. Which are things I set aside time for but have daily distractions that may cause me from focusing and finishing in a timely fashion. I would like to have time to take care of my own health better, wedding organizing (especially now that I have less than a month left), taking the family out, seeing friends, and it would be nice to get to a movie at an actual theatre. I also thought of what I am using my time for that could be used for a different purpose and it included: binge reading Webtoons, social media scrolling (even though I really don’t feel I do this often but it’s still a waste of time) and I also have sleeping wrote down but I am having issues sleeping to much just from mental exhaustion lately. Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Activity - 1Towards the end of Chapter 6, in Onward by Aguilar, is a section called Learn to Say No. I desperately need to take the advice from these pages, I am often overcommitting myself. I need a reality check of what I can successfully accomplish with my time when I’m helping ten different people with various projects that I get talked into. I need to be more self aware and ask “what do I want to do?” to become better at saying no. This week's first activity Sixty-Five Ways to Care for Yourself made me realize how little I take care of myself as well. Some of my favorites from my own personal list were to lift weights with my other half (he's a health nut and had way more marked off on this list!), home facials, girls day with my tinys, family movie night, and to start park hiking again. I already successfully did the weights this morning and hopefully as the week continues I will check off the other self care to dos! Activity - 2The activity for Chapter 7 was to create a photo collage of what matters to me. As I reflect on my photos over the week and I look through my phone, facebook, and instagram it's blatantly obvious that family, events/experiences, and friends are at the top of my themes in my images. It’s also obvious if I want to be more present for these important themes in my life I have to get my work stress under control and one way to do this would be to shift my mindset to focus more on the “Bright Spots” in my career. The section Deal with Emotions in Chapter 7 of Onward was one I thought I could easy apply when I am experiencing stress at work. I feel the four-step practice of RAIN would be a good reflective practice when I am feeling overcome with emotional stress.
Activity - 1Chapter 4 in Onward has been my favorite of the chapters so far and really stuck out to me due to my position as a shared teacher. I spend my mornings in one school environment and then my afternoon in a different school. I really like my school district as a whole and enjoy both buildings, however, being a share teacher often makes me feel like an outsider. It makes me feel like I don’t fully belong to either place and due to scheduling I am often left out of school wide celebrations/events that are held monthly. My first year teaching I had the time to eat in the teachers lounge and I will always be so appreciative of the advice and kindness I was shown by two of the veteran elementary teachers who I ate with. The year after that I had to spend my time pumping for my second child. After I returned to work I never did get back to eating with others at the school. In this sense I do relate to the section A Dive into Fear. My fear of not belonging causes me to avoid my peers in the workplace (Aguilar, 2018). My antisocial tendencies cause me anxiety that make me feel that I have diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain. I over analyze every interaction I have and am constantly on the look out for others nonverbal communications. The activity from pages 220-223 was intriguing as it made me realize the traits I really value in my close friends. I connect well to individuals that are brutally honest, people who are not afraid to tell you how it is. On the other end of that I reflected on a trait that makes me the most wary, those who complain openly and harshly about others behind their back. These are individuals I avoid because in my mind this is an individual who would do the same treatment to me. I find it strange that I avoid this in my peers but I’m upfront when my students do this and combat this behavior in my classroom regularly. Students do this so often it is draining to keep up on, my go to method is to state that the comments they are saying are hurtful to me because I respect that individual and that when they speak that way it makes me wonder what they say behind my back. This works pretty well with students who I have a good relationship with and varying effects with others. Activity - 2In chapter 5 I found myself relating with the information on mindfulness and meditation. That mindfulness assists with focusing on the present, being in the moment and that through practice you can change reactions you have to certain situations/stimulus. Information from this chapter and from our guest speaker, Steffany Kroeger, came in extremely useful this weekend. This weekend I was taken on an adventure in celebration of my upcoming marriage. Four of my closest friends surprised me by showing up and taking me on a weekend excursion to Kansas City! While there I used a few techniques I had learned from Steffany Kroeger in class. One example I can explain best is how I am always worried I will not remember an experience to the fullest and all I will end up having are the photos. Through practicing focusing on the five senses while downtown I was much more at ease in this new bustling environment. Some examples include; the sounds of the commuters and tourists on the Street Car, the smells of the market food stalls, the macro details hidden in the Union Train Station architecture, the tastes of the local cafes, and the tactile of the plant life that was incorporated throughout the downtown area. Even though my friends had to toss out the timeline they had prepared it was all worth it for the spontaneity and being allowed the freedom to enjoy the city on our own time instead of by what a schedule suggested. By practicing those suggestions I felt more intune to my friends, surroundings, and the experience of our excursion. Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Activity - 1The Lesson About Strong Emotions on pages 105-106 in the workbook surprised me in how analytically I reflected on the prompt questions. I often thought back to knowledge I had learned in psychology classes and then considered how I personally viewed what life experiences had taught me. It also made me realize that I could be helping my students understand their feelings better. I often practice empathetic listening but I could do better by telling empowering stories to those I find struggling. Another reflection to these prompt questions was the feeling of “out of body”. However, when experiencing these emotions in the moment it can be difficult to think about them rationally and why you are feeling what you are. In Chapter two, on pages 56-59, the book Onward speaks about practicing body scans when a strong emotion hits. It talks about how you can start checking your own non-verbal communications and practice understanding yourself better so that you can have a more positive body awareness and better responses to experiences that affect your emotions (Aguilar, 2018). This is a quality I would like to practice and become better at. Activity - 2The activity Problematic Core Beliefs, on pages 174-177, in the Onward workbook made me analyze how I'm often my own worst enemy for my mental state. I scored myself high on the lack of trust and self-sacrificingness problematic core beliefs. These core beliefs cause me to negatively think about issues that are often out of my control or to be unreasonably anxious in social situations. The self-sacrificing belief often overloads my workload. I continually say yes to others and then feel shame when I have let someone down because I had too much on my plate. Lack of trust belief stems from a past relationship experience of verbal and emotional abuse (Psychology classes in college helped me realize that I needed to get out of that poisonous relationship but the after effects still stick with me). I often feel overly anxious about fostering new peer friendships because I worry I’m not good enough or likable enough. Even with these pestering problematic core beliefs I do feel I am overtly optimistic. I found the end of Chapter three to be uplifting with its information on being optimistic and how doing so would assist with my problematic core beliefs. The bullet list from pages 91-92 in Onward were especially satisfying as I considered if I, myself, held the thoughts on enjoying the process and seeing everything as part of your journey, finding solutions to problems instead of constantly complaining, and avoiding negative people (Aguilar, 2018). Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Activity - 1The activity “Purpose: Why I’m Doing This” on page 16 was refreshing because it allowed me to consider the full story of why I started my path to teaching and the roads I traveled to get here. In chapter one of Onward on page 41, the reading spoke about how finding your purpose can take time and that it’s far better to explore and find what you really love compared to just wondering blindly (Aguilar, 2018). This section of the reading is very much true in my own path to education. When I first started college I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life but as I continued to take classes and grow as an individual I found that what I thought I wanted versus what I really needed were not one in the same. I usually give people who ask “Why did you become an Art Teacher?” the short and sweet version but the activity asked “Don’t edit yourself, and be honest.” and doing so displayed all the little variables along my path that then ended with me taking a leap of faith to apply to the University of Northern Iowa. Reflecting in such a way also made me appreciate the struggles I went through to get to where I am now, because without those experiences would I even be who I am? Activity - 2Our school is currently implementing fitness watches to prompt staff to sleep more, exercise regularly, and to build healthy coaching supports. The activity “Behavioral Change: Identifying Grain Size”, pages 62-62, fits extremely well with this endeavour my school district is currently testing. So far the hardest aspect of this is to meet the required 2.5 hours a week exercise. I’ve already broke down the time intervals to 10 minute spurts to start building better routines to fit in my crazy schedule. What I really feel has been missing is the mindfulness aspect of health from this district endeavour and hopefully with this class will gain a better mindset. From the activity I have set one new goal to help with my own mindfulness. This goal actually is spurred on by the section Personality: The Way We Are in Chapter one of Onward, pages 26-27, where Aguilar talks about our personality tendencies. I went to the suggested site (www.16personalities.com) and learned more about my own tendencies (Aguilar, 2018). From the information provided from my quiz it made me start to wonder if I was allowing myself enough time to just be by myself. I am constantly surrounded by others and often feel drained even when it is time spent with family and friends. My new goal for myself is to wake up just 30 minutes earlier than I currently am and just doodle, by myself, with my coffee before anyone else rises. It will be interesting to see if doing this will create a positive change in my own behaviors and my energy levels that I currently battle with. Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. |
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