Have you ever taken a ride on Kingda Ka roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure? You get in a seat with the high-velocity harness, waiting for the click to secure you. Unlike other coasters where the suspense builds as you climb, this one rolls the passengers up a few feet and then has you wait a minute or so before lift-off. There’s no clear signal of when you’ll lift off, but then POP you can feel yourself lifted upwards like a slingshot hundreds of feet into the air, then the usual lull just before the apex, then down the twisting ramp. By the time you and your fellow passengers come back downward, it feels less like a rocket launch and more like a dizzying glide.

The ride from launch to base takes almost exactly a minute (yes, I checked), but it feels like forever until it’s not. If that’s not the most appropriate metaphor for the academic school year, I don’t know what is.

Looking forward, we see just up ahead a deluge of midterm exams, benchmark assessments, standardized tests, meetings with parents and fellow educators, and so many events to plan. At the beginning of school, I always had good expectations for how I wanted the year to go. I’d have a a handful of goals I’d set for myself and another handful for my students. As I gained more years of experience, I also knew to control those expectations so I could hold steady for the year. By year six, Winter Break felt less like a rushed escape and more like a well-timed end of a paragraph.

That takes time and experience with doing the work, and helps when you’re getting back into the swing of things again. With less than a week left until you get back from break, give yourself the space to start a new paragraph.

When speaking to teachers, principals, and other educators, it’s evident that people are tired. But they’re also tired of being tired. On paper, the job is still the same. The social and interpersonal parameters of the job have changed significantly. Even so, a significant number of people want to do something wholly new. Here’s a good list of things I’d do in preparation for the new year (applicable in multiple situations):

1. Make a list of people that merit a one-to-one conversation. If there are any lingering things from 2023 that you haven’t had the energy to address, this is a good time to build up the energy (and talking points) to have the conversation. The break might have cleared their head, too, and help everyone do their work better. The best time for the conversation doesn’t have to be now, but it’s better to do it before the rush of the year hits again.
   
2. Write down a small list of commitments and principles for yourself. Did you intend on reflecting every Friday? Or did you want to visit at least one classroom that you rarely get to see? Did you pick up a book that everyone’s talking about? Set the commitment and make it part of your habits. You don’t need to share them with anyone, if that helps. Really, if you did this exercise in the beginning of the year, you can tap back into them. To the extent that you can do right by what makes you a better person, the better.
   
3. Find other things outside of education that deeply interest you. Educators often internalize – forcibly or unintentionally – signals suggesting we need to be “on” 24/7. Unfortunately, it also means our spheres of influence (friends, spouses, family members) rarely get a sense of the fullness of our humanity. Pick up that instrument. Take the remainder of the week to binge-watch that series. Look up routes around your school that you’d walk/drive/bike through to get some fresh air. We are more than our work, and we’re better for thinking through that.
   
4. Remind yourself of your community. Education can often feel like a solitary act because it’s just us. For teachers and paraprofessionals, it’s usually just you and the students. For principals, it’s usually just you and, if you’re lucky, an assistant principal or dean, and even then. We can break that by reminding ourselves who is in our social community. An exercise I sometimes do is to create concentric circles (I like this one) and figure out who you’d put in those rings. It’s not that you’re ranking people, but it’s to help you maintain connections when things get hard. Because they always do. “Who can you turn to?” is always an appropriate question, in the classroom and outside.
   
5. Create a healthy boundary for what you’re doing. Some of the most hostile moments I’ve seen in my career come right around testing season. It’s no wonder: the students read everyone’s energy even when we think we’re hiding it. It’s probably best for us to take a few steps back and think about the purpose of the day, the month, and the remainder of the school year. While the narrative about student behaviors has been disheartening, they’re also reflective of the world and the moment. Show some grace. Follow protocols so it’s less personalized. Take responsibility for what you directly did, but let go of what’s not yours to carry.

Taken together, this advice hopefully serves as a way for educators across the board to feel seen. It’s not that this is a definitive list by any means, nor is it a perfect list, but it’s a start to a conversation we’ve all needed to have for some time. The idea of “resting” and “healing” has felt flaccid when not backed by a set of actionable items to do for us all. This also means that the advocates pushing for better working conditions have our work cut out given how unrelenting the “learning loss” narrative has been. We push on.

In the meantime, enjoy whatever’s left of the break. By the time the new year starts, here’s hoping you’ll enjoy the ride especially when you know what’s coming.