Are You Overwhelmed as a Math Teacher?...

... ​Here are the balls you can actually drop

PERMISSION GRANTED TO DROP SOME OF THE BALLS.
(Just pick the right ones.)

Here are some non-essential things you are probably still doing and how to stop.

Math teachers, are you feeling overwhelmed? Maybe a little beat-down or disheartened?  You’re not alone.

In fact, it’s pretty universal. First, take a step back, take a deep breath, and make sure your own glass is full before you try to fill others’.  If you need help with the teacher self-care end of things, revisit this blog post: How to Relax as a Teacher (without just wasting time).  

Once you start to feel rejuvenated you must take a look at your classroom and address what’s necessary to avoid burning out again in the future. You may need to drop the ball.  We’re always scared to drop the ball, but some are actually ok to drop. Not all of your daily tasks are equally important, even if sometimes it feels that way. 

Of course, some of the “balls” you are juggling are very fragile and cannot be dropped, or they could break. But others may be the kind that will bounce back. And some are non-essential and can be dropped altogether!

As a teacher, you are sometimes going to have to let some things go so you have time and energy for other responsibilities. Keep the breakable balls in the air, but drop these other less critical ones to save yourself!

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Grading

1.  Stop lugging around piles and piles of your students’ notebooks; instead walk around and grade notebooks while students take tests.  Before you pass out a test, have the kids place their closed notebooks under their desks, or even on top in the corner if they have room. As you walk around the room supervising test-taking, flip through the notebooks, check that everything appears to be there (a very quick skim will usually do the trick), and jot down a grade right then and there.  
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2.  Stop grading everything; instead only inspect what you expect.  Grading daily homework assignments for multiple classes will surely lead to burn out, and honestly isn’t all that effective.   Only grade what’s important to help the students learn and grow. A good rule of thumb is that if it’s not an assessment, and kids have self-checked it (like for homework), just a score for completion will do. It’s also ok to tell kids as they work on classwork that you plan to collect it. Without officially committing to whether you will grade it or not, you inspire them to do their best just in case, while maintaining the option to either grade it or not later on.

​3.  Stop taking time to sort papers, and instead put students to work.  If you do take a completion grade for daily homework assignments, or assignments like daily warm-ups, ask students to be your helpers.  For example, if you have five collected stacks of daily warm-up quizzes sorted by day the way you gathered them throughout the week, have a student sort them into stacks for each student and staple.  Then, you can can check all five assignments for the same student at once, give a single grade for the full week, and save a ton of time.

Extra help/ tutoring

1.  Stop giving students so many different options to meet outside of class; instead limit your “available” hours.  Your job is to teach your students.  If they need extra help with a concept it’s totally reasonable for you to open up office hours at lunch or after school.  It’s also totally reasonable to want and need time outside of your school’s hours for prep time, or even  just for you.  A solution is to limit your “available” hours, whatever that may look like to you. Set a schedule for extra help, and stick to it. It’s good for students to take responsibility to learn to plan ahead when they need you, and not always count on you to suddenly be available on short notice whenever they realize it too late.

​2.  Stop tutoring one-on-one; instead assign specific days for specific groups of students.  Allow only your Algebra 1 students to come on Mondays before school, and your Geometry students to come on Wednesdays after school.  Mixing class periods is usually fine, as long as the content they are reviewing is the same. By tutoring groups instead of tutoring individuals, you will save a ton of time, and often they actually can help each other too.

Administrative Tasks

1.  Stop writing the standard on the board each class; instead write out a specific, standards-based goal and have a volunteer read it aloud at the beginning of class.  This frees up some time and energy, as well as allows students to comprehend what they will be learning.  Trust me, the students do not care about the exact standard.


2.  Stop checking emails all day long; instead make it clear that you are teaching and focusing on students when they are in your classroom and will not be able to reply to parents or others during those times. Once before the first bell, and another check during an afternoon free period should be enough. There is no need to check it constantly, and no one should expect a reply in the morning, and then another one continuing the same conversation at lunchtime. That gets overwhelming very quickly. If anything is urgent, then someone who does not get a reply within an hour and feels they need one can call on the school phone.


3.  Stop doing simple tasks like updating the classroom website, bulletin boards, and homework calendars; instead ask for student helpers.  It’s probably not too hard to update the class site with daily homework or important updates, but it does it take a few minutes of your own time and mental space- time and space that could be of better use.  Have a rotation of students whose job is to update the class site for you each day.

4.  Stop creating everything from scratch; instead use templates. There are templates available for games, classroom websites, newsletters to send parents, conference forms, and so much more. My doodle note templates are one way to save yourself a lot of time while still providing engaging lessons. We also have plenty of tips on how to make the best of templates in class here: Using the Templates

At the end of the day, it comes down to what’s best for your students.  Only you know what’s best.  Maybe dropping one of these “balls” would be detrimental to your students, or place your job in jeopardy.  In these cases, obviously don’t drop the ball.  

You need to assess in your own classroom if there are some tasks that are okay to let slide.


What responsibilities do you think are okay to drop in order to put your students first? Feel free to comment below. 

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