“I promise, if you need to, if you want to, I’ll walk the track with you,” he said.
May 2024.
Already.
In schools, we have much to do, much we are asked to do and much that we take upon ourselves. We have full calendars, overflowing plates, and deadlines – many of which we truly cannot miss. We work with students and adults who present challenges to us, who make demands on our time and who, on occasion, may cause us stress.
Stress happens.
At this time of year in particular, we sometimes feel stress, sometimes feel strung out, and sometimes feel we are not at our best.
So, please, listen to me: walk the track.
Somewhere in your building or on your grounds, I trust there is a space you can walk – an open, extended space where you can get out of your typical environs, get moving, get a pace on. Hopefully there is someplace you can go when you need to stretch your legs.
Perhaps there is a track.
Getting up and walking is more than a chance to change your venue and your vantage point. It is a chance to get up and get out, to exercise whatever feelings have built up in you by exercising yourself. It is a chance to shake off ennui and frustration and to do something proactive to assist in your own renewal. It is a chance to refresh and renew and get ready for the next item on the stretch run.
A person with whom I used to work and whom I respect very much made a pledge to our entire leadership team one May not too long ago and I have not forgotten it.
“I promise, if you need to, if you want to, I’ll walk the track with you,” he said.
I think I should have taken him up on that request more often than I did.
I am at a new school. It has a track.