Generation Next
Paying attention to daily details is the key to classroom efficiency
I
made it. I endured years of college,
countless hours of classroom observation
and student teaching. I managed
to get the necessary endorsements and
passed the correct certification exams.
I even managed to find a job in the state of Michigan and can’t complain about my salary or benefits.
I felt pretty darned good about walking into the first day of school as a professional teacher. I proved the “naysayers” wrong and was completely prepared.
Not so fast.
After my first full week of teaching, I remember thinking there was a great deal I didn’t learn in school. Sure, I could write a lesson plan front and back, and I could discuss multiple intelligences and learning styles in depth. Yet, I wasn’t prepared for the daily details that one encounters as a teacher. Small, yet essential tasks that will make or break classroom efficiency, not to mention your sanity.
What about e-mails, parent contact, colleague contact, paperwork, inputting grades, professional development, conferences, committees, contract language, IEP meetings, department meetings, staff meetings, detentions? The list could go on and I can’t pretend to have found even half of the answers. Still, I’ve discovered enough to make some of these tasks more manageable.
Let’s start with e-mail. I have a love-hate relationship with e-mail. Sure, it makes communication faster and more convenient. Yet, it can be overwhelming. It isn’t unusual to receive more than 30 e-mails a day. Filtering e-mails is a daily task that costs time and energy. I manage this task by creating folders to help me prioritize. These folders include: parent concerns; teacher concerns; administrative notes; meeting dates; and respond ASAP. Most important, don’t wait too long to respond to any communication.
I recommend developing an engaging and constructive warm-up for students at the beginning of each period in order to attend to e-mail. It should be just enough time to allow you to place e-mails into folders to view later.
In language arts, for example, I like to challenge the students with a tricky grammar question. Recently, I put this on the overhead: “They were laid to rest.”
Students had to tell me if it was grammatically correct and back it up with the rules we learned about the troublesome verb, to lay.
Paperwork is much more than grading papers. It’s a detail that can cause a great deal of distress. I have managed paperwork by having students create their own hanging files at the beginning of the year.
Each file includes separate folders for graded work, work in progress and absentee work. I have found these files to serve many purposes. I use them to teach my students a life lesson. Much like a bank statement or receipt, students may present their graded “documents” in case of a grading mistake.
The folders also serve as a place for me to file work for students who are absent. Make-up work was a huge headache for me. I fretted over remembering who was absent, when they were absent and what we did on that day. After handing out assignments, I simply place a copy in the absent students’ folders.
As a second-year teacher, the best advice I can give my new colleagues is to continue to develop strategies and systems to help manage these tasks. Create them, refine them and STEAL them!
Finally, to all new teachers: You will have days when you feel confident that you made the right decision and you’ll believe you can survive 29 more years in this profession. Then, there will be other days when you question even one more year.
I’ve learned to do my best every day, just as I ask my students to do. And that’s all any of us can do.