Supporting Your Loved Ones in Education During Back to School Season

 Do you have a significant other, bestie, sister, or loved one in education? Is it August? Then this post is for YOU. 

During back to school season, your loved one is feeling a huge range of emotions - from excitement to anxiety, from enthusiastic to overwhelmed, from joyful to depressed. Sometimes, all in the same week... or day. There's a LOT to do and little time to do it. How can you lend a hand and show them some love and support? 

While everyone receives love, appreciation, and support in different ways (do you know their Love Language, for example?), here are a few ways you might show some them love! 

1. During the first week of school, celebrate them. Take them out for a meal to celebrate their first week back! Listen to their stories, their worries, and their excitement. Pro tip: while making plans to do dinner out on a Friday night sounds good now, they may be toooooo exhausted at the end of that first week - even if it's a short week. A Saturday night dinner date or a Sunday brunch with the besties may be more enjoyable. ;) 

2. During the first week of school, send them a few bucks one morning for a caffeinated beverage, if they're a coffee drinker (not all educators drink coffee, believe it or not!). They may need a little extra boosts during those mornings!

3. Shop their Wish List. Now - this post is not going to get into the absolute absurdity it is that educators are funding their own classrooms. That's another post for another day, but if you are able to shop their Amazon Wish List, it's super appreciated. Take a few minutes to check out their highest priorities on their list and send them a little note of encouragement! 

4. Want to support their list but don't have funds to do that? Boost their post on social media by liking it, commenting with a note of encouragement, or sharing their post. It does something to the algorithym and allows other folks to shop their list. 

5. Don't take canceled plans personally. The first few weeks back are absolutely EXHAUSTING. Truly. If they send a text that says, "I'm so sorry to do this but I cannot do dinner tonight after all." Respond immediately "No problem at all!" with a heart emoji so they know you received it and they know you're not mad! 


6. August is hard. Sunday nights are hard. Many folks in education get some type of Sunday Scaries experiences, and many of us also get those anxiety-filled Back to School Dreams... so just go easy on your friends and loved ones in education. Their minds are filled, their hearts are filled, and their bodies are exhausted! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Language Proficiency Tool for Teachers

Image
 One of the most popular posts from my former blog (Innovative EL) was this- so I knew I had to get it back up and available for folks on my new blog!  This tool is based on WIDA performance descriptors. It is meant to serve as a starting place for educators who may not be as familiar with supports and scaffolds for multilingual learners. Each page features one proficiency level (printed twice: so page one has Level 1 at the top and also at the bottom for easy printing). Please note that these are based on general composite scores, and not on language domain scores. Ready to access the tool? Click here!  A deeper look into each individual students' scores (which I absolutely recommend providing to anyone who supports multilingual learners) can be found in the WIDA Name Charts (available on the WIDA website).   These charts are a fantastic resource that I'd recommend printing and giving to each classroom teacher, content teacher, social worker, psychologist, teaching assistant,
Read more

"I Need" Cards: Printables for Newcomers

Image
At the beginning of the school year, I always encourage folks to prep a ton of these in anticipation of newcomer students that will arrive throughout the school year. Please note that this is one example of a template. You can open the templates, go to FILE and MAKE A COPY so that you can customize these to better fit your needs! This sample template I have ready is for English/Spanish newcomers . I Need Cards - please note that this template has the same tool but presented a few different ways. These are a tool that I reference in my proficiency snapshot tool for classoom & content teachers (a scaffold I'd recommend for level 1 students). As students are beginning their language journeys in English, they may just feel comfortable raising their hand and pointing. As they grow in confidence and have had ample time to practice, they may say these sentences out loud. Here's a quick TikTok that walks through these. **I recently (9/10/23) used AI and digital translation resour
Read more

Reflections, Celebrations, & Goals

Image
 It's MAYYYY! This means a lot of different things to students and teachers. As many of us are starting to receive preliminary scores back from annual language assessments, I wanted to share a few templates that you may wish to use with students you serve! For any of these templates, they're all viewable. If you would like to EDIT any, please go to FILE & MAKE A COPY so you can tweak these to meet your needs!  Stems & Frames Goal Settin g: This doc has stems that are tied to Conditions Needed to learn, Goal Setting, and Action Steps. Celebrations & Reflections     This doc has stems for Celebrations, Maintenance, and Reflections Interpretive & Expressive Goals     This doc has stems and frames to set goals for interpretive & expressive language skills. Simple Template by Domain     This doc is a very simple template for a goal by domain. Last Year/This Year Simple Template by Domain     This doc looks like the one above, but it has a space for students to re
Read more