Like clockwork, each and every Sunday evening, my Facebook feed starts to fill up with status updates of doom and gloom that directly relate to the impending transition from Sunday night to Monday morning. Messages such as “ugh tomorrow is Monday!” and “I don’t want the weekend to end!” start to show themselves to me and it honestly makes me feel a bit uneasy reading them because some of the people typing out those sorrowful messages are actually . . . educators!
From the digital word to the real world.
The same educators that type out anti-Monday status updates on Sunday evenings, sometimes they’re the ones who walk into work on Monday mornings and communicate their distaste for beginning of the work week in a very obvious manner. Whether it’s through huffing and puffing or whether it’s through crossing their arms and looking angry, they send a crystal clear signal to those around them that “ugh today is Monday!” and they “didn’t want the weekend to end!” And when that type of negative communication actually goes on INSIDE of the work building, potentially in front of students, well, that’s a very scary thing and that’s what really worries me.
You must watch what you say.
If you’re an educator that works with school-aged children, here’s the honest truth: whether you realize it or not, children are ALWAYS watching you. Always. The number of kiddo eyeballs that could be on you at any given moment when you’re inside of your work building is through the roof. So with that large number in mind, you need to make sure you’re ALWAYS on your best behavior because if you’re not, the kiddos are going to be the first ones to notice.
We never want them to think that it’s them!
Listen, we’ve all had a crumby Monday here and there before. That’s life and those types of bad Mondays are bound to happen. But we need to be mindful of HOW we’re communicating our occasional Monday blues within our work buildings because we NEVER want the children to say to themselves, “He doesn’t want to be here? Why doesn’t he want to be here? Is it because of me? Does he not want to be here because I’m here? What did I do? Maybe it’s ME that he doesn’t want to see?” We NEVER want them to think any of that because NONE OF THAT is EVER the case!
A challenge for you!
In the same way that I’m saying “Happy Monday!” to you today in the video portion of this blog post, I want to challenge you to deliver that same positive message today to the people you work with. Tell all of your co-workers (and students) HAPPY MONDAY! Why should we be saying “Happy Monday?” Well, because Mondays signify yet another week for us, as educators, to do everything that we can do to help every single student that we work together with. Today, we can push our youngsters in the right directions and we can plant new seeds in their minds so that all of their new knowledge starts to grow and continues to grow. And that means they’re that much better TODAY then they were LAST WEEK. So as you can see, Mondays ARE something that can (and should) be celebrated.
In closing . . .
Will you accept my Happy Monday challenge? Will you join me in announcing to the world HAPPY MONDAY?! I really hope you will because I promise you, this is going to be a good day and a good week for you and your students. So let me say it again, just in case you didn’t hear me the first time. Happy Monday to you, you beautiful speech-language pathologist you. Go get ’em, tiger. This is YOUR Monday to shine as an educator. You got this because you rock and you’re a super lovely person.
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