Unboxing Education

If you’re a teacher with or without ADHD, you know the importance of finding tasks that not only help you stay productive but also give your brain that rewarding dopamine hit. 🧠✨ The key is to match those tasks with how you naturally feel motivated and appreciated . Hack your brain by applying a framework to your tasks for maximum dopamine hits: 💖 The 5 Love Languages : Describe how people experience and give appreciation. 💡 Clifton Strengths : Focus on individual talents and motivators. ⚠️ Decision fatigue and analysis paralysis are real! Here are some ideas to get you started: 🔋 Dopamine-Boosting Tasks by the 5 Love Languages 💬 Love Language 🔧 Examples of Dopamine-Boosting Tasks Words of Affirmation 💬 Make positive calls or emails home; write thank-you notes; keep a wins journal; post encouraging sticky notes. Quality Time ⏳ Schedule focused 1:1 check-ins; collaborate with colleagues...

🧠 I have ADHD. Two of my children have ADHD. And still,  even knowing what I know now, it's a struggle. Why? Because when ADHD runs deep in your family, the symptoms don’t always feel unusual. They feel familiar . They feel like you. Like home. Like “just how we are.” But that sense of normalcy can be the very thing that delays support—and as both a teacher and a mom, I’ve seen just how important it is to name what’s happening and get help. 👀 When ADHD Runs in the Family, It Hides in Plain Sight ADHD is one of the most heritable mental health conditions— up to 80% of its traits are passed genetically ( PMC , EBSCO ). So when one child has ADHD, there’s a good chance others in the family do too, whether they’re diagnosed or not ( ADDitude ). That’s exactly what happened in my house. And in my classroom, I’ve seen it play out again and again: Parents say, “I did the same thing as a kid and turned out fine.” Families build elaborate systems to work around c...

  As digital devices become an essential part of everyday life, completely banning screen time is no longer realistic—or even necessary. Instead, families can guide healthy technology use with the help of simple tools and practical boundaries. Here’s how to strike a balanced approach that fosters responsibility, safety, and digital wellbeing. 1. Use Built-In Parental Controls Most smartphones and tablets offer free tools to set screen time boundaries: Apple Screen Time (iOS): Set daily limits for specific apps or app categories Schedule downtime (like no devices after 9 p.m.) Monitor usage reports Google Family Link (Android): Set app time limits and daily device limits Lock devices remotely Get weekly activity reports ✅ Tip: Pair these tools with a conversation. Kids are more likely to follow limits when they understand the why behind them. 2. Control Wi-Fi Access Through Your Router You can manage screen time for the entire household by ...

  Quick wins for overwhelmed educators Let’s be honest: digital chaos creeps in fast—especially for educators juggling lesson plans, student emails, curriculum files, and a thousand open tabs. If your digital life feels more like a junk drawer than a well-organized toolbox, this one’s for you. Here are 6 quick and doable ways to start unboxing your digital life—one tiny task at a time. Set a timer, pick one, and give yourself 15 minutes. That’s it. Progress over perfection. 1. 🚫 Unsubscribe From 10 Emails Time: 1-3 minutes per day Search “unsubscribe” in your inbox. Unsubscribe from 10 email lists you don’t read. If you notice emails still coming through, use the UNSUBSCRIBE in at the bottom of the email or report the sender as SPAM. 💡 Try Unroll.Me or Gmail filters to clean faster. 2. 🗑️ Delete 100 Photos Time: 15 minutes Open your photo roll or Google Photos. Clear out blurry shots, screenshots, and duplicates. 📁 Make a “Favorites” album to preserve the best. ...

Some days, I feel like I’m juggling flaming swords while riding a unicycle—on a Zoom call. Generated with Firefly AI That’s life as a teacher with ADHD. People often associate ADHD with kids, daydreamers in the back of the class, impulsive behavior, or forgotten homework. But ADHD doesn’t disappear when we grow up. For many of us, it follows us into adulthood—and for some, it’s not diagnosed until we’re already deep into our careers. I’m one of those people. And I’m also a teacher. The Daily Challenges Teaching is a job that requires organization, multitasking, emotional regulation, time management, and attention to detail. You know, all the things that ADHD loves to mess with. Here’s what that can look like for me: 🧭 Planning paralysis. I can see all the possibilities, ideas, and resources. But choosing one direction and sticking to it? That’s the hard part. 🕳️🐇 Hyperfocus rabbit holes. I’ll spend three hours crafting the perfect lesson slide deck—only to realize I forgo...

  TL;DR: Prioritizing social-emotional health in the classroom is crucial for teachers and students, with a focus on health over grades. Teachers should take care of their own well-being to effectively support their students, as they cannot give what they haven’t mastered themselves. Poor social-emotional health among teachers negatively affects student outcomes, emphasizing the need for schools to prioritize teacher well-being, leading to better staff retention and improved student outcomes. SEL for Educators: Teachers are people, too. In the practice of social-emotional  health  in the classroom, school leaders and teachers need to prioritize social-emotional health before learning. We have a saying at my school that a student is a person first, and our priority is always health over grades. Teachers need to take care of their  own social-emotional health  before they can address that of their student s. It is often said that you cannot pour from an empty cup,...

  Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of any work-from-home job is how to not be working. It becomes too easy to have one foot in the office at all times. I learned the lesson of unplugging in the most unlikely of circumstances, teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In the fall of 2020, I saw my virtual student enrollment soar from a pre-pandemic level of 90 students to 300+ enrollments. I was also trying to support my coworkers and just generally navigate living, and parenting, during unprecedented times.  Prior to the pandemic, I prided myself on my quick response times and my inbox-zero mentality. I worked on and off most of the day and usually late into the night. While busy seasons sometimes got my schedule off kilter, the catch as catch can method worked most of the time.  However, by the end of September 2020, it became clear that inbox zero would be a distant memory. I also rarely got all submitted assignments graded. I remember days when I would s...