a word about your routines

The coronavirus. Politics. Racism. The economy. Life is tough out there, and it may get worse before it gets better.

I get it.

You have pressure at home and stress in your head. You're missing out on things. You're learning in ways you didn't anticipate. Your teachers are piling on work.

I get it. 

So why make any of this harder than it has to be?

Some of you are trying to pack a week of school into a two-hour Zoom meeting. That's not going to work.

A few hours ago I posted three messages: 1) Welcome to Week 6, 2) a note about today's Zoom meetings, and 3) today's journal topic and agenda. It's now just about noon. I haven't received a single email requesting a Zoom meeting, and the three posts - combined - have been viewed just 8 times.

That would be fine if everyone were performing at gold medal levels, but this weekend I posted a record numbers of crappy grades on the first progress report of the school year. Yuck. It's becoming clear that this is a simple matter of routine.

In a normal school year, you are on campus for nearly 40 hours each week. If you can't be kind to yourself, at least be fair to yourself -- stop trying to cram 40 hours into five.  This course gets easier the less time you spend worrying about it, as long as you remember to invest 30-50 minutes each day reading and writing. About the same amount of time we'd spend in class together if school were open.

Please email or schedule a meeting if you have any questions. Now, do yourself a favor and get to work.