Planning, assessing, progress reports, meetings, parent interviews,supervision duty, long range plans and on and on and on. Within less than four weeks the calm, balanced life that summer provided us with seems nowhere to be found. The demands of the daily responsibilities of being a teacher seem to be like a snowball going downhill as it just seems to be gaining speed and size with no end in mind.
It is critical that you care for yourself and create that balance between your work and personal life into your routine as early as possible. As is the case with most teachers, we sacrifice our personal wellness for the demands of our role. We eat on the run (if not skip it altogether), come in earlier, stay later, cancel out scheduled fitness time and give up personal needs for the good of our classroom. In the long run, this is not going to benefit anyone and will lead to increased stress in your work and personal life.
You need to set guidelines that you feel will allow you to fulfill your professional responsibilities and maintain a healthy lifestyle away from work. I use the following guides in helping me keep that balance:
– I find early mornings are my most productive time so I go to school early but leave 15 minutes after the end of the school day. On staff meetings days, I go in later.
– I look ahead at my entire week and plan my workouts around the demands of the week.
– I stay later on Friday afternoon so that I have time to reflect on my week and establish my plan for the upcoming week. That allows me to ensure my weekends are for family and I.
– Sunday night is my time to ensure my weekly plan is in place for the upcoming days.
Of course my best laid plans don’t always work out (reporting time, parent interviews etc…) and I have to adjust to ensure that I have completed my professional responsibilities. The key is that you have to work at keeping balance in your life and just as you would expect your students to give their best effort and balance school life and home life, so must you. A healthy teacher is more likely to have a healthy classroom.
