The practical teacher survival tips listed below can be used by all teachers, and educators; from early childhood educators to kindergarten teachers, to elementary teachers, secondary teachers, and even stay at home parents.
We are all educators alike, and face similar challenges. Whether you are a veteran teacher to the field, a newbie, or teaching a new course, or grade, you will be faced with challenges and you should also embrace your accomplishments.
Apply these practical tips so that you can continue to laugh and learn while fulfilling your role of being one of the most important beings in the lives of your students and learners.
These practical teacher survival tips will serve as a starting place for you to manage teaching responsibilities, regardless of where you fall on the survival spectrum.
1. Start!
This may seem like the most obvious practical teacher survival tip, but sometimes we underestimate the amount of time some tasks take.
If you start early, you are less likely to become overwhelmed during the first weeks of school when you should be building and nurturing relationships with your students and parents.
2. Year At Glance
Starting with the end is mind is a super smart strategy to employ in order to stay sane, organize your teaching schedule, and set yourself up for a successful year.
Create a ‘Year At Glance’ bulletin board that you can refer to. If you don’t want to use a full bulletin board you can use a large sheet of paper. However, if your students are older enough to understand, I encourage you to use a bulletin board that they can see as well. Students do well when the environment is predictable and routines are established, so being able to see the year at glance and what’s to come, keeps everyone informed and on the same page.
Block off your ‘Year At Glance’ bulletin into large sections like months, semesters, or large units. Block off holidays, PD Days, special school or centre events, and/or exam/test days.
But don’t expect this to be set in stone! The best teachers are flexible and adjust their teaching methods to meet the overall interests and needs of their students. So you may be extending a unit or theme longer than you initially thought… or shortening one.
You will never know until your class starts grooving together, and you understand their learning styles and how you can meet their needs and interests.
3. Flag It!
Now that you have completed your ‘Year At Glance’ bulletin, flag any major work periods that you will need. Do you need to create large units? Prepare for tests or exams? Flag them right of the bat, so you can prep appropriately.
Here are some examples of flagged work periods:
- Creating thematic units and activities
- Marking tests and projects
- Preparing students for more complex subjects
- Sorting and organizing report cards, projects, or activities
- Preparing for field trips or special school events
Flagging important events and periods on your ‘Year At Glance’ is a critical survival tip, because it is inevitable that things will come up along the way.
4. Create To-Do Lists
Looking more closely within a month or semester, make a to-do list of tasks that need to be completed within that period. Make a list of tasks, subtopics, details, and even potential lesson extensions. The more you prepare for, the better prepared you will be!
Spread the work out so that it is as evenly distributed as possible. Like we’ve noted earlier, things will surely come up, so it’s important to make sure that you give yourself ample time in between tasks.
So you should also build in time for the unexpected. There will be unforeseen challenges, schedule changes, new responsibilities, and mother nature may even make an appearance in the form of snow days. If you build in time for unexpectations, they won’t disrupt your entire schedule.
5. Find ‘Me Time’
Perhaps one of the most important of the practical teacher survival strategies is to build in time for yourself.
Yes, you are your most important resource! So if you are constantly overwhelmed, and rushing to get things completed half-heartedly because of time constraints, then you are doing yourself a disservice… and a disservice to your co-teachers, learners, and students.
6. Be Reasonable
Wouldn’t it be nice to have the most organized classroom, the best classroom management strategies, your students meeting all of their learning expectations, and a beautifully laid desk with a fresh cup of coffee every morning?! Of course it would be!
But sometimes (even as the super teacher you are), it’s not humanly possible to have everything completed as perfectly as we wish.
Of course that is not to say we shouldn’t always aim for the best for our students and selves! But it’s important to always remember that you are human, and other factors can and will impact your perfectly laid plans.
The best survival strategy to offset this is to do less. Sacrifice quantity for quality. Because, do you really need another set of colour coordinated classroom posters??
7. That’s My Bestie!
Find yourself a teacher bestie as one of your teacher survival strategies. You will need someone to talk to when the going gets tough.
Don’t let the frustration build. Find yourself a bestie and talk it out when prepping, in the lunchroom, or when you and your bestie can make time. They may need an ear as well, so make sure you are a supporting bestie to others too.
Honestly, you’ll be surprised how resourceful, flexible, helpful, kind, and understanding other teachers can be!
8. Communicate with Everyone Involved
Always communicate with all the individuals involved in ensuring that your ‘Year At Glance’ plan is a success.
Do parts of your plan include parents, co-teachers, students, your principal, or your custodian? Then share the details and ask for help well in advance.
Be mindful that they too will have a plan and other responsibilities that they are attempting to manage. The more time and details they are given in regards to your plan, the better.
9. Plan Purposefully
Your ‘Year At Glance’ plan was purposefully created for you to see the bigger picture and to plan for it. Flexibility will be important, but so will returning to your plan to keep it current.
As we talked about before, things will change… which will then change other aspects of your plan. So it will be important for you to periodically return to your plan and see how things are flowing.
10. Write Everything Down
While you may think that you will be able to keep track of everything, I assure you that it’s best to write everything down.
When your teacher bestie needs materials to finish off her unit planning, or when your planning team organizes a meeting, you should document everything as a reminder.
Initially, this will feel like a tedious task, but it will be one of the most useful of the teacher survival tips. You will eventually become so accustomed to writing everything down that it will become second nature. And so will crossing them off the list as you accomplish them.
11. Never Touch Something Twice!
My mother used to say this to me endlessly when I was younger. She always stressed that it’s best to just deal with something once, and never touch it twice. I didn’t realize how true these words were until I became mother and a teacher!
Whenever something crosses your desk, do your best to deal with it immediately. Putting off filing or tasks for later will almost always equal time wasted or time expanded. Things will inevitably take longer as you relocate the materials you need, or if you forget about it completely until it’s too late!
In fact, staying on task is a skill you will want to master in order to increase your overall productivity.
12. Laugh
I know that you may find yourself feeling stressed and overwhelmed, but try to deal with your tasks with a sense of humour.
An optimist laughs to forget; a pessimist forgets to laugh.
Tom Nansbury
Efficiency will be essential while applying these teacher survival tips. But above all laughter, politeness, and the optimism of knowing that everything will work out in the end will be most important. Be the positive influence of support, laughter, and energy that you wish to see.
13. Learn
Similar to teacher survival tip #5, learn to find balance. You will absolutely need to maintain a form of balance in your work and social life.
It won’t be easy. You will get frustrated, and be exhausted at times. But if you don’t fill your own cup and work towards your intellectual, physical, and spiritual pursuits, you will have nothing left to give to your students.
Final Thoughts
As teachers and educators we give so much of ourselves to others. But that’s ok, because this what we signed up for right??
Even still, it’s so important to find ways to make things easier for yourself so you can get back to enjoying the connections you make with our students, parents, and co-teachers.
Knowing that we are doing the best we can is such a priceless and rewarding feeling. Especially when we see how much our students and learners benefit from our continued effort. Use these 13 practical teacher survival tips to make sure you can start laughing and learning with your students.
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