It’s been a long time since I’ve interacted with this little corner of the internet. Soon after my last post was published (April 2020!) I started a doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University and all of my free time went to academic reading and papers.

Though I’m not quite done with the degree *fingers crossed for a Winter 2023 finish date* now that my oral comprehensive exams are behind me, I’ve been itching to do a bit more blogging.

Books I finished this week:

• Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh: A new favorite! I am delving back into a yoga practice and this was the perfect volume to remind me of the major tenents of nonviolence and mindfulness.
• Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May: I loved Wintering in 2020 – the perfect encapsulation of the COVID experience of falling into a restful sleep. In this volume, May explores what it is like to come out of that time of rest and rejoin the world. She puts words to all of the things that I’ve been feeling about the “post-COVID” world.
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: Achebe’s work is the shared spring text for the 10th grade English course I am teaching this year – Power, Justice, and Authority. It was interesting to revisit this text in light of conversations my class had about the nature of masculinity in Othello this winter.
• Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance by Jessamyn Stanley: Another book inspired by my recent return to yoga! I appreciate Stanley’s thoughts on decolonizing yoga and making it a welcoming space for everyone, without divorcing it from its historic and cultural origins.

Articles I read around the internet:

• How to Make Your Days Off Feel Like a True Break : As a workaholic with ADHD, it’s easy for days to blend together. I appreciated these concrete tips to take a step back and reduce burnout!
• Want to be healthier? Hang out with your friends. : I spent last weekend in Cape Cod with a group of friends and it was so rejuvenating! This article confirms everything I feel about the value of friendship.

Research that caught my interest:

I’ve gone down a rabbit hole about teacher self-efficacy this week! Between that and my coursework readings about empathy, it’s been an interesting exploration of the role of SEL skills in teaching.

• Teachers’ Social–Emotional Capacity: Factors Associated With Teachers’ Responsiveness and Professional Commitment
• Exploring the consequences of teachers’ self-efficacy: a case of teachers of English as a foreign language
• Do teachers’ achievement goals and self-efficacy beliefs matter for students’ learning experiences? Evidence from two studies on perceived teaching quality and emotional experiences
• Teachers’ social goals and classroom engagement: The mediating role of teachers’ self-efficacy