I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but teaching is a very demanding and time-consuming occupation. Yes, technically teachers don’t (usually) report to work on weekends, holidays, and over the summer, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t working. In fact, most teachers use this “free” time to grade papers, attend school functions, write lesson plans, attend conferences and workshops or other training, or do many other activities that require preparation for their classroom and students. Time is one of the most valuable assets of teachers, who just don’t seem to have enough of it.
As physical and human resources dwindle in our schools, teachers are being inundated with more tasks at an alarming rate. Planning periods are no longer used for planning as they are consumed with meetings, training, assemblies, or required activities other than teaching (i.e., supervising students, sitting in for a teacher who wasn’t able to get a sub, helping with lunch duty or hall duty, impromptu meetings with parents, proctoring state tests, dealing with emergency situations and crises, etc.). Teachers need a proper amount of time in order to adequately prepare for the daily activities of their classroom, but this time is becoming more elusive to capture, and teachers are left feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and swamped with the deluge of activities that takes away the ability to prepare. It’s no wonder many teachers resort to monotonous lecture/worksheet style lessons every day.
Over my 14 years of teaching, I discovered simple tips that helped me take back the precious time I needed in order to be prepared for my classes that day. These strategies helped me increase my productivity overall by saving a few minutes here and a few minutes there, and that eventually added up to being able to enjoy my weekends, holidays, and extended breaks again.
- Arrive to work 30 minutes early. Yes, this took some dedication and was often very difficult to do because I was in charge of dropping my kids off at daycare in the mornings. But believe me, 30 minutes before the school day starts is not the same as 30 minutes after the school day ends. The presence of administrators, teachers, coaches, and counselors in the building is significantly reduced a half hour before required reporting time. This means a) the teacher who likes to talk your ear off and sabotage your precious time probably hasn’t arrived to school yet, b) the copier is available for once, c) you can work in your room with the lights off, virtually unnoticed by students (or anyone else), and d) you can prepare for the rest of the day in the not-unlikely event that your planning period is suddenly stripped from you.
- Enlist a student helper. If you enjoy doing something other than worksheets in your classroom (hooray for you!), you know that many activities require some level of preparation for which you rarely have time. Laminating and cutting 8 sets of matching vocabulary cards on different colored paper takes time. Walking to get several pieces of butcher paper, upstairs and to the other end of your huge school may burn some calories (and it’s good for your step count), but it takes time! Enlist a student helper. Some student organizations require their participants to earn so many hours of community service (such as National Honor Society), and some schools have a block or period built specifically for student aides. Although student helpers shouldn’t help with sensitive tasks (I wouldn’t recommend using a student aide to copy an IEP), they are very useful in handling the trivial tasks that take your time. Think of tasks beforehand that a student helper can do for you: change your calendar, decorate your bulletin board or decor, organize materials in the classroom, and prepare activities. Ask a trustworthy student if they can help, or reach out to the sponsor of the NHS to see about getting you a student helper. You may need to be ok with handing over some control in order to save your time, but it’ll be worth it.
- Invest in a cordless mouse. I know how silly this sounds, but hear me out on this one. Most schools issue their teachers a laptop with a touchpad. A touchpad is so much less efficient at getting the job done! For example, to scroll up a page requires you to move your hands off the keys, take 3 or 4 awkward swipes with a mousepad using both hands, find the keys again and then continue typing. To scroll up a page takes just a quick turn of a wheel with a mouse. The last school district I worked for had an extremely difficult program for writing IEPs. We had to constantly select predefined choices and maximize any box that into which we planned on typing. My cohorts who used a touchpad always asked me how I was able to get through my IEPs so quickly, and I told them it was because I used a cordless mouse. I even bought a cordless mouse for one of my co-teachers for Christmas (they usually go on sale at great prices around back to school time and Black Friday). The time is saves may seem insignificant, but with as much time as teachers spend on the computer, a cordless mouse is almost a necessity to work efficiently.
- Put your cell phone away. We expect our students to put their cell phones down so that they can be distraction-free and ready to learn efficiently during class. We should hold these same expectations for ourselves! I had a habit of getting my cell phone out in between bells, during lunch or my planning period, or sometimes even during the last few minutes of class. I found that sending a few texts to my friends or or checking my e-mail or bank account during these times really started to add up in terms of minutes of the day. Once I decided to put my cell phone on silent and in my purse, locked up in my filing cabinet, I was no longer distracted by it (especially during my planning period) and was able to get my work done in a more streamlined manner. I did make exceptions every now and then, such as when I had a sick child at daycare or when my husband was overseas and the only time we could chat was for a few minutes during the workday. I’m not on any form of social media, so that was one less addiction I had to quit, but social media will absolutely rob you of your time (and is often toxic anyway, in my opinion), so if you must keep your phone out on an emergency basis, fight the urge to check your Facebook during your work time.
- Let students grade their own papers. I know this is a controversial practice, but there are benefits to students grading their own papers. Not only do students receive immediate feedback on their efforts, but it saves you a ton of time! It’s like grading 30 papers at once! I allowed my students to grade papers that were for a participation grade or a small percentage category of their final grade. Every now and then, I would let them grade a quiz or something more significant, but only at a designated desk near me with a red pen and no other writing utensil. Of course, grading math papers is a little easier than full-blown essays, but if you can find something for the students to grade to take the burden off of you, it will save you a lot of time in the end. There are some disclaimers with this practice, however. Students are usually more honest with their own grading if they have developed a good rapport with the teacher. Additionally, I never let students trade papers to grade. I heard a story one time about a teacher who allowed her students to trade papers for grading. One student who performed poorly was bullied by the student who graded his paper, and that student’s parents sued the teacher and school district. I don’t know if the story is true or not, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance! For these same reasons, I also never let a student helper grade papers for me.
- Speak up. If you feel your time is being unjustly taken from you, speak up and advocate for yourself! Administrators forget what it’s like to be in a classroom, and how time-consuming all of a teacher’s efforts are. They often impose more requirements that require even more time from teachers and will continue to do so if they are not challenged. After 14 years of teaching, I surely wasn’t afraid to speak my mind. At one school I worked, the administrators required majority-freshman teachers to stay after school for a mandatory meeting one day. The focus of the meeting was to discuss the overall poor academic achievement of the freshman students and how we could help them become more successful. Eventually, the meeting led to the discussion of staying after school to reach these students. I, of course, spoke up. I didn’t feel like I should be required to stay another unpaid 2 hours after school, twice a week, to help students catch up on classwork or re-teach the same thing I taught all day simply because the student stayed up all night playing video games and decided to sleep during my class. In my opinion, there were other ways of reaching these students during the scope of the normal school day. Of course, I voiced my concern more diplomatically, but the notion to require mandatory after-school tutoring was eventually dropped. Teachers are often coerced into giving more of their unpaid time into their already packed work week, and they are made to feel guilty if they refuse to do so. Don’t let someone make you feel guilty that you have a life outside of teaching! If you feel like your time is being unjustly taken from you, I encourage you to challenge it. Check your contract, reach out to your district’s advocate, and speak to your administrators.
Time is undoubtedly one of a teacher’s most valuable resources, but there never seems to be enough! Try these strategies to help save yourself some time and hopefully you will be able to take back your weekends, holidays, breaks, etc. Teaching is certainly an important profession (the most important one, in my mind), but time for yourself and with your loved ones is even more important. It is difficult, but try to find the balance in your time to help keep yourself mentally and physically prepared for the challenges of teaching.
What are some strategies that you use to save yourself some time? I would love to hear!