Setting Work Boundaries as a Teacher - 7 Ideas to Try
I'm non 1 to fix New Year's resolutions, just something happened recently that spurred me to set a Big one for 2020.
My eight-yr-old stopped assertive in Santa. This may not seem globe-shattering, only to me information technology was. She's my baby, my last to believe. The idea of how much less magical next Christmas will be with none of my children assertive breaks my heart a picayune. And it drives home once more how fast my kids are growing up. We are entering the tween/teen stages (pray for us), so I feel like I need to exist on my parenting game now more than e'er.
This leads me back to my resolution. It'due south really hard to exist a great mom when I'yard bringing home and so much schoolhouse work. So in 2022 I resolve to exit the piece of work in my classroom.
Yikes. Like I said earlier, it'south a Big commitment. And I know the only way to make it happen is to be very intentional about how I spend my time. I will also need to tighten upwards my work boundaries and be consistent with them.
After lots of careful consideration and research and talking to inspiring colleagues who already live my resolution, below are vii activeness steps I will have to fix work boundaries this year.
1. I volition make the nearly of mornings & prep periods.
I am naturally a morn person. I experience the near warning and get my best work washed early. My husband is in charge of the morning routine at home then I can get to work early on and become a strong commencement to the solar day. I volition specifically focus on sending emails and contacting parents (see #6). Then later in the day, I have my prep periods to grade. And this is what I need to exercise every day. I can take 20 minutes at lunch to go be social and take much-needed adult conversations with colleagues. But during my prep periods, I must be an introvert. I must put my head down and become my grading done (see how I plan to achieve this with #5).
two. I volition spend one weekend day per calendar month at schoolhouse.
Here's the reality: Though #1 sounds great, I know there will inevitably still exist more to do than I can reach in my mornings and prep periods. And then I will take one Lord's day every month (Sundays work best for me) and spend at least 4 hours at school. This is actually something I've already been doing for years. The amount that I tin can get accomplished in that quiet, lonely time is astounding and really makes me experience prepared for the calendar month ahead.
3. I will transition from schoolhouse to home.
Teaching is such an emotionally and mentally draining profession. Still it's not fair to myself or my family to bring my stress and negative emotions home with me. To forestall myself from doing this, I need to decompress on my way home. For me this usually consists of diggings some uplifting music in my car. (Lizzo has been an incredibly helpful therapist this schoolhouse twelvemonth). For some people, striking the gym on the manner dwelling house may piece of work better. Some may need to cease and go a cup of java. Whatever you need to practice to shed the day, at least temporarily, do it. I will get myself an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription and go on rocking out.
4. I volition form gradually.
What I mean by "gradually" is that I will give lots of feedback on the formative, or "practice," work that I assign on a daily basis. But when it comes to the summative assessments, I will use my rubric (which my students will take seen since the start of the unit of measurement) to offer a concluding score. I volition non requite feedback on the final piece because all the feedback has been given over time. This allows me to grade the terminal cess mor quickly. I take also plant that by grading this way, it encourages students to listen to feedback and better grow their skills.
Some other manner to approach grading comes from i of my favorite blogs, Cult of Pedagogy, where Kristy Louden offers detailed feedback on the summative cess with the purpose of having students revise and resubmit. Angela Watson also offers several good ideas for streamlining grading in her Cornerstone For Teachers web log.
5. I will take dorsum my phone.
My personal cell telephone needs to be for personal apply. I accept already deleted the Outlook app, which immune me to check school emails on my telephone. I do not demand to be responding to a parent contact at 8 pm when I need to be putting my kids to bed. I can respond beginning thing the next forenoon when I become into work (encounter #1). I am as well separating my school social media accounts from my personal ones and will just update my schoolhouse accounts at school, with the exception of occasionally updating school-specific Pinterest boards … because I accept an admitted Pinterest addiction.
6. I volition create a parent contact routine.
Besides grading, the matter that takes the largest portion of my time is contacting parents. Only all teachers know that building those parent partnerships is crucial to being an constructive teacher. I use my school's online learning management system to postal service updates about curriculum, which parents can access at any time. What I struggle with are parent contacts near how individual students are doing in my class.
To overcome this struggle, I'thou going to divide my students into four groups and keep rotating through those groups each week. That means week one of the calendar month, during my morning work time, I will try to get a quick contact out to the parents of each student in grouping ane. Then the aforementioned with calendar week two and so on. If I can keep upward with this routine, each parent will become a contact one time per calendar month. I think that's a good start.
7. I volition prefer a growth mindset for myself.
I'yard a perfectionist. There. I said it. And a lot of other teachers I know fall into that same category. We want then badly to go everything correct for our students. But here's the thing: I encourage my students to adopt a growth mindset even so don't give myself the same grace to learn and grow. That needs to terminate in 2020. All of my plans for outlined higher up may not work out. However, at least I take a specific, intentional plan. I will have to acquire from my mistakes and tweak my routines equally I go. THAT'Due south OKAY. I demand to always recollect that I am doing the best I can and I am a practiced instructor!
We'd dearest to hear—how are you setting work boundaries in 2020? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.
Plus, how other teachers maintain work-life balance.
Source: https://www.weareteachers.com/work-boundaries/
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