Teaching is tough! It doesn’t matter the age of the pupils you’re teaching or the type of school you are in, the job is hard. It’s really difficult to communicate to a non-teacher just how all-consuming the job is, or why you can’t switch off from it when you get home. It’s also difficult for others to comprehend just how many problems, questions, demands and stresses you deal with in the average lesson, let alone the full school day or a year! So, here are my top ten tips for keeping your sanity whilst teaching the future Einsteins of today!
1) For anyone starting off as a new teacher its important to realise that things do get better. Everything gets easier and quicker and you’ll soon discover that something that used to take multiple hours, now only takes you a few minutes. This is especially true for planning. I remember scrutinising each individual lesson plan and writing them all up with every possible differentiation technique I could squeeze in and each with their own individualised resources. I would run the lesson over and over again in my head before I taught it and would, in some cases, even dream about it the night before! This all passes. Planning takes minutes, not hours and no, differentiation and individualising work never goes away, but it no longer requires the same amount of brain space anymore. You can begin to reuse things you’ve done before and you can remember ideas and lessons that have worked well in the past and execute them quickly and simply. Push through the initial planning – hang in there!
Musings of a High School English Teacher 