Therapy Thursday | September 7 – Geography & Math Made Easy

Don’t Wait Until You Are “All Caught Up”

Don’t wait until all the papers are graded and entered into the online grade book, lesson plans are complete, and all your admin work is finished — let’s be honest, as teachers we never catch up! As soon as you finish one set of papers, three more stacks have piled up and are waiting to be graded, along with lesson planning, admin work, emails, entering grades, etc. Let’s be honest, we always feel behind. So, don’t wait until you are “all caught up” or for that “big break” to find time to reflect, release and recharge. Make an intentional decision and start now!

At the beginning of my career, I was up at 5:30 each morning, out the door by 6:45am, and standing in my classroom by 7:15am. I worked through my lunch breaks trying to catch up and stuffed my bag full of papers, and to-do as I headed out the door. Once I arrived home, out came the papers to grade. I took 30 minutes to eat and back to work, I would go until 9 or 10pm at night — then I was working on the weekends to prepare for the next week’s lessons. I was easily working 80 hours a week. It began taking a toll on my mental health, so I decided to enforce boundaries — not to work on the weekends. As years went on, the work didn’t lessen, in fact, more mandates and requirements were placed on teachers. Even though I had mounds of work that needed to be done, I started taking an hour a day to run, something I had enjoyed for years since college, which helped balance me and my stress levels. I realized I would never be caught up and stopped waiting for that “big break” in my work to start taking some of my time back.

Here are some other things I did to lower my stress:

🟢 I chose what papers I graded in detail and which ones I gave completion grades for.

🟢 I started giving projects that required only 1-2 assignments to be graded per week. (I had 180 students at a time)

🟢 I took advantage of all my breaks and planning time when there were no parent meetings to grade the shorter assignments and get them out of the way.

🟢 I multitasked by going to a restaurant after work to eat soup and grade papers and/or design lesson plans, so I could have time once I got home to do something else I enjoyed.

🟢 I designed my own alternative assessment tests and asked fewer questions, therefore, there was less to grade. I knew what I wanted my students to know after each lesson, and I designed my assessments around more open-ended questions.

You will need to get creative and find out what works for you and what shortcuts you need to put in place to keep yourself mentally healthy, but again, don’t wait until you have time. It is up to you to make time.

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