From Me, To You
Hello, lovelies!
The school year is almost ended! Other than a couple of meetings and a little bit of odds-and-ends paperwork, I’m officially finished for the semester. It’s been a wild ride, jumping into teletherapy midway through a school year with a school that was struggling with the impacts of an SLP shortage.
Wild, yes. Rewarding, definitely!
I’ve really loved teletherapy.
When the pandemic first hit, and we were thrust into teletherapy with no guidance and no resources, I wasn’t sure if something like this could be for me. Going into it intentionally, however, has made all of the difference.
I’m going to be writing more about what I’ve learned later, but I thought I would share with you today the things that I have really enjoyed about it.
I really enjoy being at home. I thought working from home, but still interacting with people almost every day, would be more draining than just being at home with no human interaction. And sure, it probably is a little. But overall, being in my own environment has had a huge positive impact on my motivation at work. Knowing that I have the freedom to grab a cup of tea, wrap up in a blanket if it’s a bit chilly, or go for a walk between sessions without fear of being reprimanded has done wonders for me.
I appreciate the physical distance. I deeply loved my years at a 2nd-4th grade elementary school, with students running for hugs during morning duty. But… as an introvert, and probably an HSP, the amount of physical interaction that has been required of me over the years was a lot. I’ve had many, many students who require a lot of hand-over-hand scaffolding, like to grab and hold my hand during sessions, or become physically aggressive when they’re overstimulated. In some ways, I’ve started to feel even more comfortable connecting to my students through a screen because I know there’s a physical distance there—I’m not having to physically protect my space, which often came across as also emotionally or mentally distancing myself.
I prefer communicating via email and text with occasional video chats. One thing that drove me a little bit mad in a school was getting stopped in a hallway, having people pop by my office, or chats between sessions. And this is nothing against collaborating with my coworkers! It’s important and necessary for our students’ success, and I’m here for it! But goodness knows, once you’re off by 5 minutes, the whole day is in chaos! In the teletherapy setting, the people I work with are much more closely involved in my schedule and how we all stick to it. So while I might spend 5-10 minutes at the end of the day video chatting with my support personnel, most of my communication comes through email. Because I’m not there in person, this is expected and everyone is amazing at keeping up with it. It’s a win-win.
I’m feeling the love for my job again. All of these things combined with so many other little differences have made teletherapy a breath of fresh air. After 9 years in a traditional school setting, both the big and little things about the job were wearing on me, and I was seriously questioning whether or not thing was something I wanted to pursue at all. The change of pace, with its introvert-friendly characteristics, have led to a joy in rediscovering what I love about the field. And that’s pretty brilliant!
A Bit of Happiness
Last week was a week of all the warm, fuzzy feelings from my kiddos! From students not wanting to leave sessions to students wanting to know if I would be back with them next year, I was feeling the love.
But my favorite moment wasn’t a comment, it was a smile. One of my students has been working on fluency for many years, and this year his goals were to work on self-advocacy and becoming more comfortable with his speech, even when it was disfluent. For his last session, we did a few speaking tasks, and then I asked him to write an email to his new teachers for next year, expressing the things we’ve been working on this semester. As I praised his email and his confidence, the biggest grin broke out across his face. He couldn’t stop it! You could see the pride on his face as he realized how much he had grown in such a short amount of time.
It’s worth it all.
And let it be a reminder—praise your students. They need it.
From My Speech Room
I haven’t had any therapy this week, and last week I used most of the same things as the week before! But, I will shine a spot on this product from Growing Firsties!
I really enjoy this product for scaffolding inference skills. It’s worked across almost every group because I can use it at a picture level, sentence level, or passage level. For teletherapists, it’s super easy to screen share and then use writing and annotating tools to point out key details, provide additional scaffolding questions, and type out answers. Students can also use typing tools to work on sentence structure and explaining in writing.
New From A Happy Learner
Tis been a nonexistent couple of weeks on A Happy Learner outside of daily updates on stories. But this week—this week!—I’ll be sitting down to plan what products I want to develop over the summer! You can help me out out!
Link Love
I finally got around to doing some baking this week after craving it for nearly a month! This is my go-to muffin recipe. I like to make a blueberry batch and a chocolate chip batch.
And, if you’re like me and creating a sourdough starter from scratch didn’t work for you, my starter from King Arthur is invincible. I like to think it’s because I named him Boromir. What a beast.
(An aside: In the midst of typing this, I Googled “Boromir” to see if there was an appropriate GIF or meme [there wasn’t], saw an article entitled Sean Bean on why Boromir is his favorite onscreen death, was led to a YouTube video of Boromit’s death scene, and was crying in about five seconds.)
I’ve been completely inspired by Marie’s (of ThanksMorris) skincare routine that led me down a rabbit hole of Primally Pure’s blog posts and products. I haven’t used any of their products yet, because I’m in the middle of using what I have, but I’m very intrigued. From their focus on natural ingredients to their partnership to recycle empties, they seem right up my street.
I’ve been eyeing up some of Everlane’s basic tees in an attempt to refresh my summer wardrobe a bit but have been less than inspired by the color choices. I ended up doing a free seasonal color analysis and it feels so right. (I’m an autumn).
Finding Balance
If you have a menstrual cycle, might I gently suggest that you pay it extra attention this time of year?
I’ll share a story. I’ve made it no secret that the time leading up to my trip to England was extremely stressful, for a variety of reasons. I followed that stress up with two long-haul flights, jet lag, being constantly on-the-go, and then jumping straight back into work when I got back. The trip itself was great and wonderful and completely worth it. BUT, I severely neglected myself in the lead up and return and, boy oh boy, did my body let me know.
After nearly two weeks of panic, I eventually started my period on day 42. Then, I had a near nervous breakdown on day 2. I’m feeling much more back to normal now and still, I’m reminding myself to take it easy. I know that my body and my mind are still recovering and need time to rest and recharge.
Because I’ve kept up with my menstrual cycle for so long, I’m able to notice its nuances and its changes with relative ease. When I live in sync with it as much as possible, I’m able to find balance far more easily than when I neglect it and try to live the same way all the time.
It’s easy this time of year to neglect ourselves. Try not to! And if you’re interested in living in sync with your cycle, check out someone like Claire Baker, FloLiving, or Sunsoulistic. Go as sciency or as woo-woo as you like. Just me mindful of the fact that, yes, those of us with a menstrual cycle operate differently than those of us without one. Live accordingly.
Don’t forget to share what products you’d love to see next school year! Stay strong and love on yourself.
Cheers,
Christin ☕️
P.S. I’m sending this on a random Wednesday but keep a weather eye open for A Happy Reader this Friday! 📚