Description: This week, the Squad is encouraged to PLAY! Take note of how you feel after purposefully moving stress out of your body!
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to episode 25 of season four of Self-Care for Educators. I'm your host, Tina Boogren. This week's invitation is, let's incorporate recess into our day, every day. Us. Ourselves. Just for fun. I looked up the definition of recess, in terms of what we think of recess, right? As educators. And, here's what it says. It says, "recess is a general term for a period in which a group of people are temporarily dismissed from their duties." Ooh, in education, recess is the American and Australian term where students have a mid morning snack and play before having lunch or after a few more lessons. And, I love this idea, and it relates to so many things we've talked about before, but it's worth pulling it back.
And, there's something so whimsical and fun about thinking of our break during the day as recess. So, I want you this week to have recess every day, your own recess, not when your students are at recess, or maybe it is. Maybe you decide that you are going to go outside. Those of you that have recess at the elementary level, most likely that you're going to go outside, and you are going to play with your students, or maybe your recess is after school, but before you go home, and you are going to play, right?
Do something that is not work related. I want to go back to this definition again. I love, I just love this. So, "recess is a general term for a period in which a group of people are temporarily dismissed from their duties." Doesn't that sound good? Like we're tapping out. Done and done. That temporary ... How long are you going to give yourself for recess? As many of you know, my recommendation is at least 15 minutes every single day if you can and decide what are you going to do with that time. And, rather than just calling it our 15 minutes, let's call it recess and make it more fun. I love anything that sounds more fun, and I want you to put it in your calendar.
Right? Recess. My recess. Our recess.
Maybe you and a colleague make your own recess time and you go shoot baskets out on the playground or you go run around the gym or you take a lap around the track or you meet in someone's classroom and each person has to bring a funny video to share or a song that you can have a dance party to or I don't know a gazillion things. You're going to talk about a podcast that you listen to, or do a little book study or take time to read during recess. Maybe recess is sitting underneath a tree with your book and allowing yourself to read for 15 minutes or write or paint or draw or color or look for a new recipe or add something to your vision board, create a new Pinterest board, find a new way to braid your hair or to, I don't know, do, add to, add to your own personal style. A gazillion things that we can do.
Again, I just, I think I'm going to update this in my workshops where I talk about the time and having 15 minutes a day. Let's keep that, but let's think about it as recess that we are temporarily, what is it again? Let's see ... Temporarily, temporarily dismissed from our duties. Boom. That feels so good. We're going to tap out and do something fun. What I know about habits is for many of us, absolutely myself included, we'll do something for a little while and then we kind of lose it. And, once we lose it, it's gone. And so, maybe you attended one of my workshops or events and you implemented the 15 minutes a day that's just for you and then over time you kind of lost it because things get busy and life gets in the way.
So, this is the invitation to bring it back and to call it recess and see what that feels like. I want you to enjoy recess every single day this week. Reminders here is that you're not gonna feel guilty about this. That this is something for you, that you are doing something that brings you immense joy. It's not for someone else. It is for you and you're not going to feel guilty about it. You deserve to have recess every single day. The benefits of this are massive. You can get your, if you can get yourself outside, maybe you move your body a little bit. Maybe you laugh. Maybe you're connecting with someone else. These are all reminders of how we can move stress out of our body. Remember the phenomenal book Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagosaki that remind us that we need to purposely move stress out of our body every single day. Like our life depends on it, because our life depends on it. So, this week I want you to enjoy recess. Yay.
As always, thank you, Brooke. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're so grateful for you. Thank you. Solution Tree and Marzano Resources for this incredible career that I have. And, to you, my bad-ass Self-Care Squad, I'm so grateful for you. I just picture, ah, as I close my eyes and think about all of you, I picture you out like playing foursquare or, oh my gosh, just skipping around the playground or shooting baskets or snuggling up with a book and really, really, really enjoying a few minutes a day that's just for you. Make it a great week.
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