Back to school...get behind me guilt

We're headed back to school tomorrow.  It has been a good break.  I've made a huge snowman with son.  We've travelled back to Iowa for Christmas.  We've gone sledding.  We've played with the dog.  We've went shopping.  We've done about all we could to avoid anything school related.  Now, on the eve of our first day back, guilt is setting in.  I have an intense feeling of guilt for not planning enough, learning enough, exploring enough, etc for this next semester.  I teach in a program that is not set in stone.  I teach photoshop, illustrator, indesign, after effects, final cut, basics of photography...and on and on.  I could make it easy on myself and stick to covering one program in depth, but I think it makes my program even stronger if my students are exposed to more.  I have students with a variety of media arts skills and I somewhat feel like it is my responsibility to always be covering more- including whatever is the newest technology.

I think many teachers go through this.  They long for breaks to catch up or to plan for the future.  When breaks happen, you get a moment to breath and notice you have a family that you've been ignoring.  After years of teaching, and being a pastor, I've learned that work will never be finished.  There will always be something else to do, something to read, or an email to respond to.  I've learned how to prioritize, yet the guilt does creep back in the night before school starts back.  Here's to ignoring the guilt in  2013.