Stop Working After Hours and on Weekends

My friend Hans posted "What do you tell your spouse if they don’t understand why teachers work after work hours and on the weekends?"

Friday Night

The profile I created "Friday Night" is specifically for those of you who are looking to get your Friday nights and weekends back. That you want to work smarter not harder. So I could not pass up an opportunity to offer some tips.

Parkinson's Law

In a nutshell Parkinson's law says a task takes as long as you have. If you have 3 hours, it will take you 3 hours. If you have 3 days it will take you 3 days.

DO YOU HAVE BOUNDARIES ON YOUR TIME?

As a teacher there is always something else to do. Do you allow yourself 24/7 to get your work done? Then it will take you 24/7.

High School English - No Outside of Work

My husband teaches high school English. HE HAS NEVER BROUGHT WORK HOME.

This is not 100% true but true enough that I can not remember even once him doing work at home or on weekends. We have 5 kids and he prioritizes being at home when he is at home.

Set Your Hours

Literally this is what I do. I set my hours I am willing to work and I stick to it! If you do not stick to it, then you do not have boundaries on your time and you are back to working 24/7.

My husband and I both go in early to work each day. School starts at 8am, we try to get there by 7ish. I personally set aside some of my morning time before I go to school to do lesson planning. This is before my kids wake up. This is a bounded amount of time. Once my kids wake up, game over. So then getting to school early gives me some time to center myself for what I'm doing that day and answer some emails.

My husband teaches full time so he has a prep period. He stays after school for a bit each day, waiting for our youngest to come over to the high school after he is done with school. So he's doing about an hour after school gets out.

Since I only teach part time, I stay at school for a little after my last class. But then I have other work to do.

KNOWING THIS IS THE ONLY TIME WE HAVE BUDGETED TO DO SCHOOL WORK WE ARE WAY MORE PRODUCTIVE IN THAT TIME.

Also, it impacts what you assign and how much you choose to grade.

Do we stay a little later when grades are due.. sure. Do we have to stay late for back to school night? Sure. Do we have to give up a Saturday night to do prom duty? Sure.

DO NOT GRADE EVERYTHING!

You absolutely do NOT need to grade everything. This is a rookie mistake when you first start teaching. I was looking at my exchange students grades for Algebra 2 yesterday. We are 7 weeks in and there are about 10 things in the gradebook total! Even I don't get it down to that few, but I'm feeling challenged....

Entering grades and doing paperwork is my least favorite part of the job.

Obviously we have to do some data entry but consider how you can reduce it!

Self Grading

I try to use more self grading activities (like http://quizizz.com which I prefer over Google Forms because they are pre-made and are gamified and many other reasons... but at a minimum use Google Forms! )

Reflection

Reflection is powerful for learning! I can get a better idea of how a student did on an activity based on their reflection than actually looking at their work sometimes. This saves me a ton of time. AND IT IS BETTER FOR LEARNING! When students reflect on an activity, they think about the learning and thus they learn more.

Self Evaluation

I tell my students to evaluate themselves on an activity. For the most part they are very honest. There is only a few students I have to say my assessment overrides theirs. Also, your high achieving students will mark themselves down. Tell them they are not allowed to mark themselves down without permission 🙂

This helps me a TON! I have them submit the score. These are for smaller things. It is also better for them to take ownership of their learning so double win!

Your Spouse Misses You

I am sure you have seen the meme going around Facebook that says to take care of yourself and your family first. If you were to die your work would replace you tomorrow. Your family can not replace you. During WHAT HOURS is your time with your family sacred and you will NOT do school work?

SO WHAT if it doesn't get done

My best without burning out is good enough. Sometimes something does not get done. Sky has not fallen yet.

If you care about your students. Build relationships. Give your students grace so you can give yourself grace. YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH!

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I am here for moral support and ideas on how you can take your life back if that is what your goal is! Please use the weekly sign in just to say hi, vent, brainstorm, seek resources, etc... It doesn't matter what the 2nd question asks (I try to mix it up) you can just put whatever support you need into the 2nd question.