Announcing #totallyrossome: A Look at Being All In

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Abraham Lincoln is credited as saying "Whatever you are, be a good one."

It's a fantastic quote. It speaks to how educators live their lives. In education, we spend our time playing a balancing game. We want to be all of it. We're teachers, mentors, bookkeepers, managers, standardized-test administrators and scorers, parents, surrogate parents, counselors, taxi drivers, delivery men and women. There's the home, the school, the classroom, and our online, connected ed arena. We want to be all of it, and we want those around us to know that we are all these things for them. It's the giving nature of educators committed to helping others. Many seek to find the balance in their lives that will keep all them as happy as possible while letting down those who inhabit the various arenas as little as possible. Trying to be good.

In high school, I had a friend whose parents were splitting up after 21 years of marriage. Her mother said to us one afternoon over homework and Oreos, "In a relationship, it can't be 50/50. You've got to be willing to give 100% of yourself."

And there's the rub. From the mouth of a woman whose life felt like it was falling apart and a conversation that took nearly two decades to ruminate. It's about a commitment to what we want to be. If we really want to wear each of those hats, and we want to wear them well, we can't look for the balance of ourselves. We have to look inside of us for the ability to commit to the ideal that whatever it is we're being at whatever time it happens to be, we're going to be the best that that we can.

With this in mind, #totallyrossome is borne. Each Tuesday, at 10 PM EST, 7 PST, we're going to talk about committing to being totally in. Whatever "in" means at the moment. Whatever "in" calls for. It's about focus on the tasks that make each of us educators. And parents. And colleagues. And friends - you get it.

For our inaugural chat, Tuesday, July 28, we'll be talking about summer preparation.

Some links and things to get your thinking underway for the first #totallyrossome:

• What have you already done this summer to get ready for the upcoming school year?
• With some schools around the US getting ready to start, have you completed your goals for summer preparation?
• What haven't you been able to accomplish this summer in preparation?
• What keeps you from achieving your full list of to-do's?
• How can you commit to preparing for the school year in the summer you have left?
• The Myth of Having Summers Off by Heather Wolpert-Gawron 
• Year-Round Schooling: How It Effects Teachers by Matthew Lynch
• Top 10 To Do's for Teachers During Summer Vacation by Melissa Kelly (Always love top 10 lists for their insistence that they've cracked the code.)

I'll see you Tuesday night, and you know I'll be totally in.