Downshifting

Posted by Tricia Ebner on Thursday, 06/25/2015

I’ve done this now for 24 years. I’d love to tell you I’ve gotten better at each year. Sadly, I haven’t. This is just as big a challenge for me now as it was after my first year.

I’m talking about downshifting: transitioning from the pell-mell pace of the school year into the easier, more relaxed pace of summer. Some years have been really, really hard. The year my son was two was especially rough. I was used to constant activity and decision-making from the 5:00 AM alarm to my own bedtime at 10:00 PM. The first six hours of summer break showed me clearly that my own go-go-go pace didn’t match his two-year-old pace. It took me weeks to become comfortable with the slower speed.

Every year I feel a bit “off-kilter” the first week or two of summer break. I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. My husband will find me nervously checking my calendar to make sure I haven’t missed any important appointments or meetings. Finally, this year, I realized why I struggle so much with this transition.

I’m not having to multi-task and make decisions at the pace and level I do during the school year. Even weekends during the school year are filled with multi-tasking and quick decision-making, as I try to make the most of those “relaxed” hours during the week. My brain has been working at a fast pace, so it takes a bit of work just to relax.

This graphic(link is external) explains the pace of a teacher’s mind during the school day. Making four decisions per minute sounds incredible, but at this point in my career, I don’t have a hard time believing it. I’m guessing those are decisions such as: “Should I call on this student, or that one?” or “Hmm, do I need to liven up this lesson because that student is looking a little sleepy.” Some are major instructional decisions: “So half the class didn’t understand this based on my formative assessment; how do I go about making this clearer to them?” Others are more personal in nature, such as, “Should I grade these papers now, or do it tonight when it’s quieter at home?” This decision-making aspect of teaching has been of interest to researchers for a while; Larry Cuban summarizes some research comparing jazz musicians, NBA basketball players, and teachers in this blog(link is external) from 2011.

What’s also interesting and a little bit scary is that that research suggests multitasking is bad for the brain. I can believe that, too. I am usually really cranky the first week or so of summer break. The constant worry that I’m forgetting something nags at me; I’m really not forgetting anything, but because there aren’t demands of making hundreds of decisions on me, I feel a bit lost. After a week or two, I settle into the summer routine, and I do better.

I’m really curious how other teachers handle this transition. What do you do to shift yourself from the school year routine to summer?