During my first few years of teaching I would arrive at school about an hour before the first bell would ring and those 60 minutes would fly by as I rushed to make sure everything was ready for the day. Sometimes I was lost in thought, repeatedly going through the mental reps of my lesson plan, trying to anticipate all of the things that could go horribly wrong. Other times it would be self-induced panic due to my brain coming up with a new idea the night before and I would be frantically trying to create my vision using an uncooperative table on Microsoft Word (seriously, why do tables never go where you want them to on that stupid program?). On other occasions I was desperately trying to finish grading an exam that I had held onto for weeks and promised the students I would return that day. As I sat in my classroom facing the school parking lot I would always spy the same couple of veteran teachers arriving at school 10 minutes before the first bell, calmly walking to class seemingly without a care in the world. How was that possible?
What secret did they know? Were they so incredibly organized and competent that they knew exactly how the day would go? Did they have years of lesson plans to fall back on and had the whole school year planned out already? Did they just never do anything new, so planning was a breeze? Did they utilize the classic 80’s grading strategy of “switch your paper with your seat neighbor and grade their work”? Did they grade nothing at all? Had they reached a level of complete apathy that it just didn’t matter what they did each day since they had tenure and only needed to tough it out for two more years in order to max out their pension benefits? Were they wizards? So…many…questions!
The longer I taught, and the more I got to know those veteran teachers, it really was a mix of all of those things, except maybe the wizardry. The longer you teach, the better you become at it. You make more efficient systems, learn better strategies, and gain valuable experience that allows you to innately anticipate student behavior, questions, and misconceptions. So now that I am entering year 20 of my teaching career, I’m able to arrive at school 10 minutes before the bell, right? Not a chance.
I still arrive an hour before the bell, and those 60 minutes still fly by. While I am more organized, and my grading practices have improved greatly, I still agonize over my lessons and frantically try to create things right before class starts. I change my agenda, come up with a new warm-up puzzle, or change the last question on a quiz because the other one just didn’t elicit the type of thinking I wanted to assess. I don’t think I’ll ever be a 10 minutes before the bell kind of teacher, because that’s just not who I am. Every single day of teaching is filled with large amounts of anticipation and anxiety, and if I didn’t arrive early, my whole day would be even more stressful than it already is.
Since I know this about myself, I have tried to be very intentional about reducing my stress and anxiety while at work, and to minimize the amount of work I do while not at work. If you know a teacher, you know they almost always take the job home with them pretty much every single day. They physically take the job home with stacks of papers to grade or lesson plans to make, or they mentally bring home the negative interaction they may have had with a parent, administrator, colleague, or student. The number of times I’ve lost an entire weekend because a negative parent email I read right before leaving work at 4:00pm on a Friday initiated an anxiety induced shame spiral is a non-zero number. Good luck sleeping this weekend, loser!
Shame spirals are never ideal, and avoiding them is preferable. So what strategies and practices have I learned that help reduce how much work I actually take home?
1) Answer all emails before I leave work.
Keeping up with the email inbox can be a challenge, but it only gets exponentially worse if I don’t take care of it consistently. My common practice now is to not leave work until I have cleared out my inbox. This means I have gotten quite good at writing succinct, to-the-point emails that answer the question and nothing more. Most parent emails can realistically be answered in one paragraph or less. The 504 plan update I need to complete really only takes 10 minutes. The Google form my colleague needs filled out is done in under a minute. Just get it done, and get the heck out of there.
2) Establish clear email boundaries with parents and students.
At the beginning of the school year I establish the 4pm rule with my students and parents at Back To School Night. I don’t link my work email to my personal devices, so if they send me an email after 4pm, I won’t see it until the next school day. I make sure to stress that if a student is having a mental health crisis there are much more effective people to communicate with who are available any time of day. I am not a mental health professional, but I provide them with emails and phone numbers they can use in case of emergency.
3) Make all copies before I leave work.
The copy machine is a fickle beast whose services are in high demand in the early morning hours. There may or may not be paper, toner, staples, or time for your job to be completed. After many stressful mornings I have finally learned to make all of my copies before I leave for the day. This has greatly improved my morning anxiety.
4) Only grade what is absolutely necessary.
Authentically grading student work and providing meaningful feedback is one of the most important and time consuming things I do. This practice takes a massive amount of time and energy. Knowing this, I have learned to strategically choose what I actually grade. I no longer grade any homework or much of the work done in class. Most of my classwork assignments are designed to allow students to correct their own work and assess themselves, so they have a clear picture of what they know, and what they still need to work on. When it comes time for an assessment that affects their actual grade I have time to do that because I am not inundated with scoring and recording meaningless busywork or random worksheets. I still take some of this home, but way less than I used to.
5) Keep a yearly paper calendar.
The school year is filled with special schedules, minimum days, early outs, lockdown/earthquake/fire drills, and professional development days. Knowing when all of these are at a glance is extremely helpful when planning a unit. Long term planning also relieves stress when it comes to supplies I might need for certain lessons. If I know I will be doing a lesson that requires students to use a large amount of sticky notes, I can ask ahead of time for those supplies at the front office. Sufficient planning ahead will mitigate the late night Target run the day before. I also like to have the paper calendar on my desk so I can always see it and it doesn’t rely on an internet connection. Paper never goes offline.
6) Sometimes average is good enough.
Not every lesson is amazing, nor will I be at my best every single day. While my goal is always 100% positive student engagement for every lesson, that almost never actually happens. If the lesson ends and I can honestly say that most of the students were highly engaged and felt safe in the room, I call that a win. I take some time after school to reflect and make some notes on what went well, what didn’t, and why. Then I move on.
Do I successfully implement all of these strategies every single day? Nope. Sometimes I break the 4pm email rule or forget to update my calendar. Once in a while I find myself grading a random classwork assignment and thinking to myself “why did I do this?”. On a drive home I’ll realize that I forgot to print some copies or update that IEP form. On average, however, I stick to these practices and I’m able to focus on my non teaching life once I leave my classroom for the day. One of my greatest joys in life is to come home without any work to do or think about and just do whatever I want (which is usually snuggle time with my perfect cat Puck).
What are some of the strategies you have implemented over the years to help reduce your own teaching anxiety and leave work at work? I’d love to know them. Please share!
EZMath Blog 