I’ve never held it together well when I cut sleep. Crash! I am staring down at hundreds of shards of glass that were once a plate I was trying to wash. Owww! A few choice expletives later, I sit down to look at the little toe I just rammed into the chair. Is it broken? Bump! I leap out of the car to pick up my big green plastic garbage can and stare in dismay at the coffee grounds on the driveway. Then I pick up the big items before driving over the coffee grounds because I have to get to work. The grounds will be easier to sweep up if I let them dry anyway. I pay careful attention to the road because I sense how tired I am, understanding that if the stoplights are with me, I should whip into that drive-thru line at McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts for more coffee.

Feeling exhausted right now is not a good plan. Ducking haphazard attacks by a new microbe requires alertness. Your goal should be to feel rested. This is no grandiose goal, not a New Year’s resolution to lose 50 pounds and run a marathon. Just make sure to get your rest. Take brain breaks. Eat when you are hungry. Most importantly, stop when you are tired.

If you are not done preparing the dinosaur webquest or the latest spreadsheet for Dr. X, put the world down anyway. Try to make a reasonable bedtime stick. When the phone alarm goes off, put the work away and go brush and floss. Sleep defogs the brain.

What people do when they are zonked can make all the difference to their health and emotional equilibrium. Some absolutely crazy demands are falling on teachers right now, as misguided administrators and frantic parents try to emulate school years of the past. This year is in its own category, but not everyone can accept that fact. If others can’t let go, though, teacher reader, you MUST. Driving while exhausted is acknowledged to be dangerous. Right now, living while exhausted can be dangerous.

Drowsy people make mistakes. Teachers are already at risk of catching COVID-19 simply by going to work. Evidence now suggests droplets can linger, suspended in the air, and may travel beyond that six feet set as the “safe” distance. Poor ventilation increases the risk of transmission and while many districts have worked fiercely on the problem of ventilation, not all classrooms are well-vented yet. See https://www.eduhonesty.com/safety-before-political-expediency/ for more on ventilation. And if you can open classroom windows, keep those windows open as much as possible.

The usual instructions for managing risk are well-known by now. For teachers, those instructions are often much more easily said than done:

1. Wash your hands regularly with soap and water for 20 seconds or more, or clean them with alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Mostly the sanitizer supply is holding up. Getting kids to use it — and not waste it or play with it — is not exactly a slam dunk though.
2. Cover your mouth and nose with a mask when in public settings or around others. Yes, eating complicates this greatly in some set-ups.
3. Maintain at least six feet distance between you and people coughing or sneezing. Ummm… we are talking about classrooms. Mostly the only teachers who can count on doing this are virtual or hybrid and at home.
4. Avoid touching your face.
5. Stay home if you feel unwell.
6. The CDC or someone should probably add this one for teachers: Make people clean the snot off their own faces.

Those instructions demand alertness, but little details slip when fatigue takes over. Hand washing or sanitizer may be neglected. Teachers are often nonstop busy going from student to student. And it’s so natural to bring your hands up to your face to brush back strands of hair, adjust slipping glasses, shift a mask, or just scratch an itch. Maybe you forgot your personal hand sanitizer and your hand travels to your face while driving home after pumping gas. Or you let social distancing go a little while shopping because it doesn’t seem worth the time to wait for an aisle to clear, and after all, it’s not for long and only once.

Eduhonesty: Planet Earth is a wild and crazy place right now, and many of us are tiptoeing on cliff edges. Today’s advice: If you can’t decide if you need a hug, one of those monster cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee, 6 shots of vodka or 2 weeks of sleep — pick sleep. Hugs to my readers.