Category: being me

Be the change, being me

One breath at a time

Pernille Ripp

I have the lung capacity of a 70-year-old.

Several years ago, I was diagnosed with a genetic deficit in my lungs and liver. One that can lead to emphysema, asthma, and a whole list of other things no one hopes to casually collect. It made sense. Walking up the stairs while talking would leave me breathless, still does. And yet, hearing that my lungs were not the way they were supposed to be was a quiet devastation. One more heavy thing to carry. A moment where my imagined ending shifted, where my future suddenly looked smaller, more fragile, than I had planned for.

And then we did what people tend to do.

We carried on living.

I noted how biking uphill became harder, how running became officially impossible (not that it was ever my thing), how nearly every cold turned into bronchitis or pneumonia, how exhaustion lingered long after the illness had passed. How my body kept whispering, something isn’t right, even when I was trying very hard not to listen.

And my fear grew. Because living beside your own mortality, really beside it, is exhausting. It’s scary. It makes you feel out of control.

A year ago, I realized I needed to change the trajectory. That I was living inside a self-fulfilling prophecy of decay. Because I knew biking would be hard, I didn’t bike. Because I knew exercise would leave me gasping for breath, it did, and once I was out of breath I stopped. I avoided the very things that might help because they confirmed everything I was afraid of.

But I also knew this: the constant current of stress, needed an outlet. And sugar wasn’t it. Alcohol wasn’t it. Tears weren’t it. Rage definitely wasn’t it.

A change had to come.

So I signed up for an introduction to CrossFit, bought actual trainers, and showed up — wildly out of my depth, unsure of what I was doing, and hoping no one would notice how hard breathing felt. I didn’t do it because I suddenly believed in myself. I did it because staying the same felt worse.

What followed wasn’t a transformation. It was resistance.

It was showing up fueled more by desperation and anger than motivation. It was loud, angry music. It was the fear of being the first to die in a zombie apocalypse. It was learning that I will never like running, or be good at it — and that this does not mean I can’t do it.

It didn’t come from a big training program. It came from small steps. From doing a little, resting, and then doing a little more. From learning that my pace is not a failure, but a necessity.

My pace. My way.

How much of change is exactly this?

Not the sweeping programs. Not the inspirational speeches. But lacing up your shoes (I promise this won’t turn into an exercise blog) and seeing how it goes.

So on January 1st, I made the goal that I wanted to be able to run one kilometer in a month. I turned to ChatGPT and asked it to create a plan. Its first suggestion was to warm up by running three kilometers.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about how familiar that felt.

How often do we ask for a small change and are handed an overhaul? A new program, new training, new language — when what we really needed was permission to start where we are. To try one thing. To begin without confidence, without mastery, without pretending this will be easy.

I see this all the time in education. We want to support children better, reach them sooner, help them regulate, belong, and learn. And so often, the answer becomes more: more systems, more steps, more expectations, more work for the adults — while the children wait for us to fix everything.

And then we wonder why we burn out.

Because the truth is, we cannot meet every child’s need. And that expectation, implicit or explicit, is impossible to carry alone. What we can do — what truly matters — is show up. Notice. Offer presence, consistency, and a small, safe step forward. For some children, just knowing that someone sees them, waits for them, or trusts them to make a choice is enough to shift something inside.

The children carrying so much anger, fear, grief, and overwhelm spill it into our shared spaces. They trust us enough to bring all of that mess into school — even when we cannot fix it.

This work rarely starts with big interventions. It starts with the smallest possible step. Not because it will fix everything, but because it might shift something, and because we, too, need to survive alongside them. And so we start small.

Letting a child decide when a check-in happens — now, later, or not today — and trusting that choice as information, not defiance.

Creating one predictable question that never changes, not to extract answers, but to signal safety: Do you want me close, or do you want space?

Making the exit plan visible before it’s needed, and then honoring it without commentary when it is used.

Lowering the academic demand in the moment without lowering the relationship — fewer words, shorter tasks, a pause instead of a push.

Offering literacy as regulation: a book already on the desk, a familiar text reread, writing without an audience, reading without assessment.

Naming what you notice without asking for repair: Something feels heavy today. I’m here when you’re ready.

Returning to the child later, always later, to restore, not resolve.

It is allowing yourself to not be perfect. To say good enough. To try, live with it, and then, when it becomes familiar, add another layer. It is resisting the urge to rush toward resolution and choosing presence instead.

This is slow work. It is unglamorous. It is deeply human.

And maybe that’s why we miss it while it’s happening. Because change rarely announces itself.

And like taking small steps with your own health or fitness, it is done one breath at a time.

Today, I ran 2.6 kilometers. That’s 1.6 miles for those of you in the U.S. A new personal record. Something I didn’t think I could do a year ago, and not even a week ago.

And maybe that’s the point. Change, for me, for a child, for a classroom, doesn’t announce itself.

It slips in quietly, one breath at a time.

So do we keep breathing? Or stop?

balance, Be the change, being me

The Work That Still Works

Pernille Ripp

It has been ages since I have written here.

Not created content, not shared ideas, but simply written in the ways that I have been writing for so many years. A familiar refrain, a coat that fits just so, but left forgotten in a closet because who has time to take it out?

It seems I moved to Denmark and forgot parts of myself.

As with so many other things, there are many reasons. We moved back home, but home was something brand-new. I had to create a support system for everyone in the move, which also included two of my children receiving neurodivergence diagnoses that finally made so many things make more sense. I had to learn how to be a teacher in an education system that I have only ever been a student in.

And so I put my head down, and I took the steps every day, trying to get all the pieces to fit together, even though the instructions never came, and the pieces seemed to change overnight.

And I ran, and I felt I couldn’t share because what we navigated was too hard at times, too raw, too foreign—even though it shouldn’t have been—and I knew I would have found solace in sharing out, but also felt that this story was one that had little importance, while the world we had left behind seemed to light on fire. And it didn’t feel new or worthy, because the whole world is filled with glitz and glam, and influencers telling you that they indeed hold the key to happiness.

But now, I am here. Back in this space, still holding hope that there is a space to return to.

Because the work is still there. The need to shout for more sanity, to slow down, to get back to basics, even though there are so many forces that work against us.

And so we take the basic steps every day to retain dignity, to further understanding, and to create spaces where children get to be fully human.

This year, I took over a parallel 3rd grade, a bunch of incredible kids who, through circumstances beyond them, have had a slew of incredible teachers who haven’t been able to stay. And so, rightfully so, they demand a lot of the adults who now get to be their teachers, because why should they trust us to stay when so many others have left?

And so we have done what we have always done: we have slowed down. We have integrated morning meetings every day, we have reclaimed independent reading. We have taught conflict solutions for them to use before they come to us. We have talked, and talked, and talked—but not at them, with them—giving them ways to voice their worries, their hopes, and their ideas. We have differentiated the work, given them more freedom to move, to shape their learning, so that they too can answer how they learn best.

And I have wanted to share about all the progress that we have built, but is there really a way that something as simple as starting with a morning meeting, and how simply asking children to hold space for each other’s voices, can help another educator out there?

Because it is not flashy. It is basic. And it is being pushed out of our schools at alarming speeds, replaced with more learning, more rote, more prepackaged programs. And in this rush, we forget that gathering in schools is also meant to simply gather us. And when so many of our children gather more and more behind a screen, they don’t know how to gather on the floor unless we make the spaces for it.

Unless we hold on to the value of it.

Unless we stand steadfast and refuse to let the invented urgency of more curriculum drown out our common sense.

And so we plan for it, because we see the inherent strength of asking others to listen, to set their needs aside while others speak, to wait their turn, and then know that when they do speak, others do the same.

And so, I sit in the light of my soon-to-be taken-down Christmas tree, and I recognize the need for simplicity. For recognizing and owning that I don’t want to create simply to produce. That what works for me still works. Basic, down-to-earth ideas that may not be flashy or glitzy, but at their core recognize the humanity of the children we teach.

And so, for now, I am here. I will share. I will hold space for those of you who are also running every day, who also feel that what you are doing is maybe not the flashiest of work, but Lord knows, it works. And we see it in the way the kids carry themselves. How they ask us whether we can do a morning meeting when our schedules are changed. Who want to share all the things they have been holding in. Who come to school knowing that when they are not there, they are truly missed.

Perhaps I was missed too, here. I am not sure, but I know I missed this.

being me, new year

When the Back-to-School Nightmares Start

Pernille Ripp

I had my first back-to-school nightmare yesterday.

Woke up feeling unprepared, heart in my throat, and all sorts of nervous. It was nothing special, the standard one where everything starts off smooth, and then all of a sudden everything falls apart. I am unprepared, lost, and being evaluated. I woke up in high alert, what do I need to do right now in order to not get there.

School starts August 11th in Denmark, and on that day I get to take on the role of homeroom teacher for two 3rd grades. I get to continue with the class that has made me a teacher in Denmark, and then I get to add their neighbor class to be mine as well. And the nervousness is real.

After all, how do you split yourself between two classes like that? How do you make sure that both classes know that they matter? How do you invent, create, reflect, and ponder without overworking yourself? How do you make each kid feel seen when you are split evenly between two communities that both need you in unique ways? How do you show up in the way that you know matters, when these new kids are wondering how much you will be their teacher and whether *you will be with us a lot, Pernille?*

It almost feels like I am welcoming my second child, hoping that my heart will stretch enough to love widely, knowing that it will.

But tell that to my nightmares.

In the past, I would have thrown my into prep wok, spending countless hours planning, conceiving, creating. I would have gone in for hours, trying to get it just so, trying to work my way through my nerves. Making copies until I could feel my anxiety ebb.

But not now. Not anymore. Instead, I garden. I bake. I go to cross fit. I read. And sure, I dream a little. I reflect on how I want that first day to be framed. I consider how I want to get to know them, and how we want to continue to build their community.

So I plan. But differently now, a plan where I don’t drown, and summer just feels like the checklist item to be done before another school year. I plan for presence. For slowness. For the moment when a child looks at me and wonders, Are you really here with us? and I can say yes—not just with my words, but with the way I show up. And to do that I need to not work. I need to not stay in that space where teaching takes up most of me. Because that doesn’t fill me in the ways I need to be filled, in order to go all in.

So I give myself permission to pull back. To trust that stepping away is also a kind of preparation—that rest is not a pause in the work, but part of it. Because when I give myself space to breathe, I make space for them too.

I think about how I want that first day to feel. Not just for them, but for me too. I want it to feel calm. Possible. Like a beginning, not a performance. I want them to know I see them, both classes, both groups of humans who deserve a teacher that isn’t running on empty.

And so, instead of drowning in to-do lists, I remind myself of what I already know: that the magic isn’t in the deeply detailed plans or the laminated name tags – although those will come. It’s in the way we build trust, one small moment at a time. It’s in the way I let my heart stretch and make room—just like it always has.

If you’re waking up from your own back-to-school nightmare, you’re not alone. This time of year is heavy with what-ifs and should-dos. But maybe the work isn’t to prepare more. Maybe it’s to believe more—in who you already are, and the teacher you’re still becoming.

We’ll be ready. Not because we’ve done it all, but because we’ll be there. And that matters more than anything else. We’ll be ready, because that’s what we do.

being a teacher, being me

How are you breaking your productivity guilt?

Pernille Ripp

I cannot be the only one who navigates productivity guilt.

You know, that feeling of never having accomplished enough as an educator, or adult, and therefore not deserving of rest.

The bad news? Productivity guilt can lead to major health implications, I know this, I have had major health implications the last 5 years of being a teacher such as anxiety, a weakened immune system leading to multiple pneumonia and bronchitis bouts, and high blood pressure.

The good news – it doesn’t have to be this way. But as someone who is still trying to break productivity guilt habits, it is hard to break. The educational system is set up to make us constantly cross our own self-imposed boundaries. And the needs of our communities can be so high. So finding a way to still be productive while also knowing when to work can be a process in itself.

After learning more about productivity guilt, I wanted to share a few tips and ideas for how to recognize t, and more importantly, how to do something about it in order for you to feel healthier. I cross-posted this on Instagram but wanted to make sure I shared it here as well.

If you are not sure how to cut down on your workload, I will gladly help alleviate some of it. Just let me know how I can help. 

Here are a few ideas for how to recognize and lessen productivity guilt so you can get back to living the life you deserve.

Be the change, being me

Living in the Rain

Pernille Ripp

It has been seemingly endless days of rain in Denmark. A drizzle. A storm. A dusting. Sideways, straight down, diagonal to hit every part of you, relentless, endless.

Every time you go outside, the rain pelts you, the wind blows up your umbrella – you arrive just a little bit soggy. Your hair a mess. Grateful for the shoes you at least did think to wear, knowing that the ones you pined for would have left your feet a soggy mess. Layers, wool, and waterproof – such is the fashion these days.

The sun hides behind endless clouds giving us a slim 7-hour window of being greeted by it – we leave in the dark, we come home in the dark. The forecast meticulously studied, my body naturally gearing itself toward any windows that offers just the smallest bit of light. Has my seasonal depression phase started?

Image from the Copenhagen Post – my rainy images don’t look this nice

It is what I had warned my husband about. He who had only ever experienced the glory of Danish summers, the long nearly unending summer nights stretched ahead. He, who thought, we should take the chance offered us to build our life in a new country.

I tried to warn him. Doing the best I could to give him the absolute reality of what it means to live in a country where hygge originated. There is a reason for the lighting of all those candles after all. Did he really understand what a Danish winter would feel like after months of rain and wind? Was he sure he wanted to give up the pristine winter days in Wisconsin where, sure, the cold can kill you but the beauty also leaves you breathless? It might last longer but it had skiing, sledding, and surprise snow days. Not everyday drudging through the rain, not the wind in your face as a constant companion.

As I complained yesterday of how soaked I was after my bike ride to the train station, lamenting how the rain is wearing me out, he told me I had it all wrong. Had I considered how little it had rained? How few days we have truly been soaked through? How warm we have been for so many days?

That perhaps I could focus on other things while still feeling the rain?

That I had made him believe that the rain would be nonstop starting in October, soaking us until March, and instead we have had glorious fall-colored days. Had I forgotten how the sunshine beckoned us outside, the color of the leaves changing so slowly that they seemingly hung on for months?

Had I forgotten the days with snow? Where our winter-loving children bounded out the door to build a snowman before school. Where their red noses and glistening eyes told us all about the snowball fight they had at school – “…with permission, mom!”

Or what about the days filled with ice? Our footsteps finding any small frozen-over puddle that we could just to hear the satisfying crack as the layer of ice broke by the force of our foot?

Or the days that already felt like spring, how the sun slowly is coming back but until then we light our candles, wear our wool-socks, and still continue to go outside, embracing this season that soaks the earth. Living in the moment, rain or not, breathing in the wonders of this season.

A difference in perception so grand that I don’t know how I missed all of the things he noticed?

It makes me think of teaching. Of how my relentless optimism finally ran out in the midst of the pandemic. How I started to see more rain than sun. How every new opportunity quickly felt like a challenge. How I mustered every day, slipping on my practiced smile, but cried so often in my kitchen.

How I so often heard only the complaints of the kids who hated what we were doing. How I so often focused on the few that clearly disliked me, our class, and our school. How in the season I was in, I only felt the rain because I couldn’t feel everything else, I didn’t have the energy to. I didn’t have anyone with power left telling me to look for the good because so many of us were drowning.

How I tried so hard to feel like I was enough to do all the things asked of me. And I just wasn’t. I am not sure anyone is right now.

And I tried to see all the good. I knew it was there. I knew I was lucky. But in a broken system that only demands more of you without taking anything away, we are made to feel as if we are the problem, rather than the system itself. And so often we are too afraid to say anything. After all, who wants their kid taught byt the teachers who complains?

But I wonder about the difference in perception from us to our students. Would they also say that these years have been the hardest years? Would they also say that the system is broken? What would they say if we asked them?

How often do we ask them?

I asked my students all the time what I could change, how I could grow, what else should we do? I am glad I did. After all, we cannot enact change if we don’t know what to change.

But I often forgot to ask them what we should keep? What they loved or liked? What worked for them? What did they see as positives?

And I wish I had. I wish we did it as a school. I wish parents did before they complain about what teachers are now doing.

I wish we offered educators up more true chances to take a moment and recognize the good. To be recognized for the good. For us to have a moment to breathe and relish that we are doing hard things every single day. That many kids do enjoy coming into our spaces. That many children do like being in our classes.

And not in a superficial way by giving us a donut, or a jean day, or some quickly written email. But by a full recognition of how despite the educational challenge being as hard as it is, we still show up. That despite all of the craziness surrounding education, we still come to teach every day, every kid.

And then we fight to keep the good. We fight to keep the components that make school meaningful; the plays, the assemblies, the read alouds, the contests, the time for creative writing, independent reading, experiments and experimental learning. The curriculum that asks us to think critcally and speak bravely. The texts that show us what humanity really looks like.

And we are protected by the administration. And by the community. And by the kids themselves.

Perhaps a dream, but a glorious one nevertheless.

And perhaps we recognize that yes, the rainy days will continue, the wind will continue to blow us back, but with others surrounding us, we will get to a new season. That within the rain and the wind, there will still be moments where we look up and marvel. Where we can stand in a moment and say that, yes, this is where we are meant to be. That for many kids we teach, this is not the worst season. And so we embrace those moments longer than we do the bad. We open our arms, tilt our faces to the sun and stand still knowing that this moment right here may not make it all worth it but it makes this day worth it.

And we take it day by day, sometimes hour by hour if we need to. And we fight, and we push back, and we raise our voices to reestablish the boundaries that have been wrestled from us.

And we plant our feet, squarely in the soaked earth, and we plant the seeds that the rain allows us to nourish, knowing that some day, the kids we teach will grow up to be teachers themselves, to be parents, and community members, administrators, school board members, and politicians, and that hopefully they saw us embrace what it meant to teach courageously. What it meant to set up boundaries. What it meant to fight for all kids to be safe within our spaces. And what it meant to weather the storm when we could but also walk away when we found ourselves alone.

I know the rain will continue even as we inch nearer to spring. I know the short reprieve we have right now as I write this is shortlived, after all I saw the forecast. But I will put on my trusty boots, I will continue with my day, and I will still go outside, better equipped, with a mind at peace with this moment in time. Knowing that while the rain soaks me it also soaks the seeds we have planted for a future we cannot see yet. How about you?

aha moment, Be the change, being a teacher, being me

On Change

Pernille Ripp

We have settled in. Sort of anyway. The kids know how to get to school, when to leave, where the parks and library are. We meal plan, have Friday night movie nights, and try to be outside as much as possible as fall is here and the leaves are changing. We have ideas for how we want to fill our time and sometimes they come to fruition. I have never felt so adult in my life.

And yet, I still feel unsettled. My routines are partially in place, I get to work on time, get home on time, cook meals, and put the kids to bed. But the other things that make up a life are still not there really. I am out of my reading routine, I am not sure when to call people that I normally talk to, I am posting on social media at the wrong time. I don’t even feel like I know how to dress anymore. And what am I even anymore now that I am not teaching kids actively?

And so I dream of the things I want to do, waiting for that right time. When life has finally settled more. When the kids seem to be okay. When I feel right for longer stretches of time. But when will that happen? Do we ever really feel well-rested and fully ready to take on anything?

Change is hard when ordinary life is overwhelming. When we tread water and try to just make it to the finish line of the day.

Change is hard when we have been in the same place for a long time. We know how to make things work, so why rock the boat?

Change is hard when we have to worry about the daily lives of others, make sure that we don’t up-end too much because who knows how it will reverberate in the future.

Change is hard when it is just us trying to make our way.

It seems there is no time when change is not hard.

I have wanted to winter bathe for years. In Wisconsin, there wasn’t much time for it. But here in Denmark, it is everywhere. I spoke my idea aloud to my husband, tried to sign us up for a membership (sauna included after the dip) but was told there were no open member spots.

Friday night, I got sick of waiting for the time to change. For life to feel under control enough for me to take more on. After all, there is no guarantee that that will ever happen. I cannot think of a time in my life when time was abundant and energy was too.

So Saturday morning we drove to the ocean and ran into it. 53-degree air temperature. It was not warm, not winter either. And we ran out and huddled in our towels and laughed. This morning we did it again.

Enoe is gorgeous and 10 minutes from our apartment

We don’t have access to the sauna. I don’t have my flip-flops, they are in a shipping container coming our way. We each have one towel which tends to be damp most of the time. There is sand everywhere in our car. We are probably not doing it right, I think we are supposed to sit in the water for longer.

But we feel alive. And we like it. And we want to do it again. It was just the change I needed to feel good about the now we are in.

Change is funny that way. We can wait for the right time in our lives to finally change. We can wait for the big moments such as a move across the world to finally change. We can wait for others to tell us, to make us. Or we can simply take a step and make the change we have wanted for so long.

I could have waited for our membership to go through. I could have waited to get the right gear. To grow bolder. To grow older. For the time to feel more right.

But I didn’t. Because the change was needed now.

How often do we wait for the right time in our classrooms to change? How often do we think, “next year”, or when I switch grades, or when the time is better. Or even when I am not just trying to survive every day. Our routines save us time and time again but at what cost?

So what are the changes you have been dreaming of? What have you been too afraid to do?

The time will never be right, so consider what you can tweak? What can you replace so it doesn’t feel like more is added? What is that unit? That lesson? That shift in practice you have wanted to try?

If you are scared, tell yourself it is a pilot. Allow yourself to try and know that it doesn’t have to be permanent. We jumped at the chance of moving home because we knew we could return to the US if it didn’t work it (it wouldn’t be easy to relocate don’t get me wrong but that door is not closed).

If you feel there is no time, audit your schedule; where can you fit it in? (What might you pause in order to try something new).

If you feel there is no support, involve your students in the planning. Their excitement often carries us through.

If you don’t know what to change but know there is a need; ask your students. What works? What doesn’t? What are their dreams and hopes? What can you plan together?

I spoke of moving home to Denmark for years, casually mentioning it, and always thinking “some day.” But to take the leap, to say yes, and actually do it has been the scariest adult thing I have done since having children. And it is easy to get paralyzed by that. It is easy to feel like that change was enough change and now we settle into our routine as quickly as we can.

But it turns out there are still many other new things to try.

The change continues. What is the life I have wanted to have for so long? What are the routines I wanted to change? How do I want to raise my children? How do I want to live my one and precious life to quote Mary Oliver?

Because we can wait for the time to be right.

Or we can embrace the time that is now.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, change never is, but it can make us feel alive again.

Don’t wait. It’s not as scary as it sounds.

In fact, you could say, come on in, the water is just fine.

PS: Are you looking for coaching or virtual presentations? I am available and would love to support your work. Whereas I am physically located in Denmark now, I can travel if needed. In fact, I will be in the US and Canada in February 20223.  If you would like me to be a part of your professional development, please reach out. I am here to help. For a lot more posts, resources, live and recorded professional development, please join my Patreon community where most of my sharing takes place these days.