Cutting Down the Over Time

As most teachers probably know, the first year of teaching is ridiculously time consuming. For a while I felt as though my entire life was spent planning, creating handouts or tests or quizzes, responding to parents' or other teachers' or administration's emails or phone calls, and photocopying like a madman. I would get to school at 6am and leave at 8pm. After a couple weeks of that even a work-a-holic like myself begins to feel as though they need to schedule time away.

Last week, however, events in my district forced me to arrive at school no earlier than 7am and leave no later than 3pm. While I still planned at home, I needed to use my planning period efficiently in order to prepare myself for the following day's lessons. (For those who know me, the ToDo lists were abundant.) To my surprise, I was able to accomplish most of my in-school work in time.

Now, don't be fooled into thinking that I was able to finish everything at school in my one prep block. I still planned and graded and recorded information and emailed from home, but there were no early-morning or late-afternoon copy sessions. It required a little more forethought on my part, but in the end I was less stressed out about the next day because I'd already planned for it. It's funny when extreme circumstances can force you to raise your expectations of yourself and perform better than you thought you could.

The best part? I was able to spend a small amount of time each evening on relaxing and doing the things I needed to do for myself. I found that, by doing this, I was better rested and happier when teaching classes.