Am I going to be this tired everyday after teaching?
http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/10/29/first-year-teacher-halloween-isnt-only-dark-day-october
Some days are tougher than others, but there is good
news. Managing a classroom is somewhat like driving a
car.
http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/10/29/first-year-teacher-halloween-isnt-only-dark-day-october
You start with the basics…10:00 and 2:00. Just like drivers
ed. You need to stick to a structured routine and have firm expectations. Just
like learning to drive, you need to minimize distractions because it takes
concentration and conscious thought to pull it all together in the classroom.
As with driving, after a lot of practice, you can relax a
bit and still maintain control. It is less effort, but when the “terrain” gets
challenging, you know to go back to 10:00 and 2:00. This might be needed when
you get a new class or when an unexpected dynamic takes place. No matter what,
you need to know where 10 and 2 are and be able to go back to it whenever you
need. The rest of the time…relax and enjoy the ride. Enjoy the kids.
It does get better! 10 years (gasp) later much of what I do is modifying and arranging, rather than creating, which takes significantly less time. I think teachers find ways to manage their time better as well, as every year could be a black hole. If I had 6 hours a day to dedicate to planning and prepping, I would be able to find use for those 6 hours. You have to pick and choose.
ReplyDeleteI find that my classroom management is about finding what works for me, the proverbial "bag of tricks" that older teachers talk about. High schoolers will always be teenagers and although they think everything they see/do/say/think is novel and nobody could have possibly ever seen/done/said/thought it before, after a few years of teaching I'm much better at managing situations that arise in my classroom, mostly because I've dealt with something similar in the past.
Working part time also helps with the exhaustion :)
I think it really depends on what you teach and how you teach if you're going to have periods where you don't feel exhausted. Even after 10 years of teaching, I'm up late most nights just trying to get caught up on everything. Part of it is I teach language arts classes so it takes longer amounts of time to read through essays than score a simple multiple-choice quiz on Flubaroo or something like that. I also have more preps. than some teachers, and the preps. I do have change from year to year so I feel like I'm starting from scratch every time.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to that, how you teach plays a big role in this. My workload is pretty demanding because I change things up to cater to the groups of students I have in the class because what works for one class will not necessary work for the next. I also use a lot of formative assessment which means I have to find out where my kids are and then figure out what direction to go from there. Some times this means, we have to go back and re-teach some things which means I have to create more lessons. Other times, it means we are ready to move on and can some times even skip things.