new adventure

Hi, my name is Kimberly Haggard, and I am not the best teacher ever. I feel and understand the exhaustion of doing the overwhelming job of teaching, on a day to day basis. My house chores mount when I'm busy, and my husband and daughter begin to feel neglected. How long can one simply keep powering through when you lose your why? What is why you may ask? It is your purpose. What is your purpose for teaching, why is what you do important, how can you make the world a better place? I thankfully have found mine again over the last year or so, but man, it is tough to lose your why. There are days I wake up and just want to stay in bed and not go to work. There are days when I can't go to sleep because the massive to-do list that is my life won't keep playing on auto pilot in my head. Occasionally when I get overwhelmed, I shut down and quit talking to people and become extremely unorganized and forgetful. I've tried a few times to start a blog over the last few years, and I've always stumbled and eventually abandoned it. Frankly, it's a bit daunting, exposing yourself to the great wide yonder-- and not knowing if anyone even cares or is interested in what you have to say. So I've decided if I am going to do this, I'm doing it for me, and the people like me. The blogs of people who have it all figured out and had gorgeous classrooms, and amazingly thoroughly planned lessons are inspiring. However being human I find myself a bit sad too when seeing and reading about it, and wonder why I can't seem to get this all figured out yet. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying I'm a blight on the educational system. I'm a teacher who consistently high scores on my evaluations, I love my students and I think most of them enjoy my class, and a few years ago my colleagues even saw fit to choose me as the teacher of the year for my school. Additionally and personally, I'm more than a bit snarky; I take things personally, and I talk too much. I'm sharing all of this to explain the transformation I've made over the last year or so. I have embraced minimalism.

Minimalism to some people is a terrible word, and it means things like boring, ugly, drab, unexciting, bland, etc. For me, minimalism is pure bliss. I have adopted it from my wardrobe to my home and now into my classroom. I adore minimalism. Minimalism is giving me the space to live the life I want to live. To transfer the concept to my music life, minimalism is giving me the space to eliminate the cutesy, redundancy, poor quality material and focus on high-quality folk literature and student engagement. Personally, I'm working on being the best person and teacher I can be. I can be jealous, quick to anger and slow to forgive. I've been working on making the most of my time with my students and not letting misbehavior and paper work take the joy out of my job. In this blog, I hope to share my new philosophy, ideas, and goals, for home, work and life, as well as funny things that happen in my classroom. If you are interested hop on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store, The Minimalist Music Teacher- Kimberly Haggard, and check out my rebranding and some fun products. I hope to be adding more items soon. Thanks for reading!