The Check in - Feb 2025
Welcome to The Check In!
This year I committed to writing more. Reviving this blog and The Check in is how I’m living up to the commitment I made myself. The goal is to post at least once a month sharing what’s going on in the SciOdyssey by TisDrJ universe and my own little world.
Here’s what you can expect in The Check In this month:
Last Month in SciOdyssey
Life with Dr. J
Last Month:
January was quite a whirlwind. I spent most of the month cleaning up behind the scenes to make your experience in the TisDrJ universe smoother. My goal has always been to make biology teachers’ lives and jobs easier and I’m excited for how the changes will support this! Changes included several updates to The Lab including a new community hub and a new home for the resource library.
Life with Dr. J:
A friend of mine, Ravynn Stringfield (she’s a published author with a new book coming out soon!), introduced me to the idea of a word of the year a few years ago. Since then, I’ve found selecting one or two guiding words for each year to be incredibly helpful (much more so than resolutions). For 2025 I chose two words: transformative & discpline.
Transformative.
Transformative represents my hopes and goals for the year. I’m leaving my current teaching position at the end of the year to move back to my home state where I’ll be moving in with my sister to help with childcare for her and her husband. I haven’t lived with another person long term since 2018. So this year is bound to be transformational for me. The trick is working to make sure the transformations are ones of growth and positive impact.
Transformative is also directly connected to the work I do here with SciOdyssey by TisDrJ. This year I plan to do exponentially more to support biology teachers. I’ve seen how the lives of teachers I’ve worked with have changed. The freedom and joy they feel and how that’s translated into their students feeling the same. This is work that’s transformative for not just classrooms, but lives and I’m so pumped to be doing it.
Discipline.
Discipline represents the actions I have to take to meet my goals. If I don’t push through on the days where I’m looking at the world and feeling rationally furious then I’d never get anything done. On the opposite side, I’m notorious for never taking a break and not taking the time to celebrate my wins.
For me, discipline is focusing on the little things. Keeping my goals in focus but not getting lost in the big picture. January was more of success in this than I could have ever imagined! This might be the first time in my life that I’ve been productive in ways that didn’t ignore my needs. My approach was to focus on small daily commitments to myself.
The result was two notes to myself that have been incredibly helpful in the mess that is the US political landscape:
1. 'Stick to the plan over and over and over again.' I have that written on sticky notes all over the place. To remind myself that it’s staying consistent and committed even when it often feels like our work might be for nothing.
2. 'Even as the world feels like it's spiraling out of control I can make my bed.' That's written on the white board in my room. And it's just a little reminder to myself that while there are many things in this life I cannot control, there are also many that are. And to focus on that. Even if it feels silly and pointless.
Coming This Month:
A way to get more in depth support from me (think my brain in your pocket)
TWO masterclasses on building student confidence in your everyday instruction
Three more Black History Bellringer Sets
In the middle of the general chaos that is education right now, I hope you are finding pockets of joy for you and your students. Joy matters.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for hanging out for the first iteration of The Check In. I can’t wait to see how it grows and transforms this year. Thank you for being here.
With love and gratitude,
Dr. J
