All Things Urgent, Important, and Seasonal

Happy Groundhog Day! I figured today was a fitting day to take down the Christmas tree.

Actually, I think that January 7^th is a much more fitting day for dismantling all things Christmas.

So why am I still sweeping up plastic needles on the day that the National Rodent shows his furry little face?

1. The Mid-Winter Jicker.

Our dad made up a holiday to celebrate the middle day of winter- January 16^th (with Nov 1 as the first day and March 31 as the last). He borrowed a phrase from Dr. Seuss’ story I had Trouble in Getting to Sola Saloo. Every year, we throw some kind of Mid-Winter Jicker party. Broomball on ice. Taffy-making. Decorating socks. That kind of thing. And you can’t take down the Christmas tree until after the Mid Winter Jicker.

MidWinter Jicker 2010. I'm reading the Dr. Seuss book that inspired the holiday.

 

2. Life.

This was supposed to be my relaxing semester. You know, the one where I go skating on the local rink between classes. Play guitar. Enjoy my last semester of being a carefree student.

As it turned out, taking four classes and working part time does not leave a lot of leisure time. I can hardly keep up with my dishes, let alone go skating! I’m wondering, if I’m stressed out now, how am I going to handle my first teaching job?

Then I remembered a little book that my mother (of 6 children) had. It’s called Tyranny of the Urgent by Charles Hummel. The gist of the book is that there is a regular tension between the things that are important and the things that are urgent. And usually, urgent things squeeze out important things.

from www.olivetree.com

 

For example…

In the classroom…	Important	Not Important
Urgent (demand instant attention)	A student has an allergic reaction and needs medical attention	You get an email saying that your library books are overdue.
Not Urgent (can wait)	You want to teach students how to use reading strategies.	You haven’t cleaned the gunk out of your computer keyboard in ages.

 

It’s easy to do the urgent/important things first and the nonurgent/unimportant things last. But how can you choose between urgent/unimportant and important/nonurgent?

For example, what if you’re in the middle of teaching those reading strategies and somebody knocks on the door? It’s students from the grade 8 class selling candygrams. It’s urgent- Valentine’s Day won’t wait forever. But relatively unimportant. Yet, nobody wants to be the Valentine Grinch. What to do?

Teachers are constantly faced with choices about priorities. It’s hard to say no to urgent/unimportant things. However, I believe that teachers need to work hard at saying yes to important things, even if they’re not urgent.

So. If Valentine’s Day rolls around and the Christmas decorations are still up, don’t sweat it. You’re probably doing something important.