Teaching is a profession that can become all-consuming.
Which is fine if you’re ok with that.
This post is different.
As a teacher, perhaps you’ve had experiences where you:
- …have so much to do (lesson planning, marking, replying to emails, responding to parents) that you just don’t know where to start
- …feel your stress levels rise as you walk to teach THAT Year 10 class on a Friday afternoon
- …wonder if you’ll have to take any work home at the weekend
But I’ve seen posts and articles celebrating teachers that…
- …give everything in their lessons
- …devote their lives to their pupils
- …are always on the go to improve themselves
At the same time, teachers are supposed to…
- …take care of their ‘wellbeing’.
- …prioritise their mental health
- …make time to rest.
It has seemed being a successful teacher demands total commitment…at the expense of wellbeing.
It does – of course – depend on how you choose to define success.
Some teachers are driven, focused, and perfectly happy.
Others are cynical, disengaged, and actively negative.
Most move between the two extremes.
I suggest that being boundaried about our lives as teachers supports us being effective in the classroom.
Here are eight specific tactics to separate the person and the teacher. Try one out for a week, and see if it works. If not, then try another.
Take what’s useful, leave the rest, and see if any provoke your own ideas.
1_Instead of saying “I am a teacher” try out “What I do for work is teaching”
This separates who you are from your job. It doesn’t mean you can’t be effective or enjoy it, instead it allows you to create separation between teaching and other roles in your life (e.g. climber, guitarist, husband etc.)
2_Start each workday by writing down x3 things you are grateful for
OKOK so this might be a little harder – but if you’re in teaching and intending to make it work, then this will shift your mindset little by little. And it takes practice (I also wrote about gratitude here).
3_If you take work home, set specific times when you’ll work on it
It is ok to take work home. I don’t think I’d get done what’s needed if I didn’t. The school year has a particular rhythm to it – and there are times when it is more busy. Setting aside specific times – and sticking to them – keeps progress.
4_Do things little and often
One of my colleagues started his Masters and completed it last academic year. He also dealt with the pandemic, has two children at primary and secondary school, and set up moving house. At school he was in an associate assistant head role for a one year, and is a head of year. When I asked him how he did it – he said “little and often”.
5_Do. One. Thing. At. A. Time.
Anyone who says they can multi-task is lying. It is a myth.* Seriously. Doing one thing at a time allows us to get into ‘flow states’. I use brain.fm and Forest. I also know my phone can distract me. I put on headphones at my desk to stop interruptions.
6_Clarify your purpose – and refer to it
The colleague who said ‘little and often’ is also very clear about his ‘why’. I’m a big fan of this too. I created my own mission statement and I have it on my phone background. Clarifying and reconnecting with why work as a teacher makes it easier to do what needs to be done.
7_Plan out how you’ll use your time
I’m a big fan of doing this – because it avoids me going down rabbit holes when I’m not teaching a lesson. And it reduces the cognitive load of choosing what to do. Now of course – my day often gets blown out of the water – a cover lesson, upset pupil, wet break etc. – mean things change. But doing the thinking in advance gives me more space in my brain (frees up working memory) to adapt.
8_Leave your desk/ work area clear at the end of the day
Sounds obvious, but it really helps the ‘shut down and go home’.
Attempting to achieve work/ life balance is pointless.
I say it’s about being intentional. When I’m at school, I’m teaching. If I’m at home lesson planning, I’m lesson planning. If I’m on a train marking, I’m marking (and yes I’ve marked on the train!)
Ultimately, I believe we have a choice about how we spend our time. As teachers who want to be effective in what we do, being selective about our how we choose to spend our time and energy is essential.
“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”
Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
- Some scientists used to side with my initial gut instinct – they believed it was possible for people to do several complex tasks at once. So they started to get people into labs, and they told them to do lots of things at the same time, and they monitored how well it went. What the scientists discovered is that, in fact, when people think they’re doing several things at once, they’re actually – as Earl explained – ‘juggling. They’re switching back and forth. They don’t notice the switching because their brain sort of papers it over, to give a seamless experience of consciousness, but what they’re actually doing is switching and reconfiguring their brain moment to moment, task to task – [and] that comes with a cost.’
Hari, Johann. Stolen Focus (p. 46). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
James D'Souza 