After experiencing so much success using Google Calendar and Google Sites to not only lesson plan better and easier, but to also improve my communication of class activities and due-dates to my students (and their parents), I decided to host and record a series of workshops showing teachers how to do the same.
I hope this video series helps you save as much time as I have, while also helping your students better plan and manage their schedules in order to succeed in your class. It will also make you look like a school or district “technology in education” leader, while making your job easier.
Two Quick Notes:
If you would like your school to use Google Calendar for computer lab and library bookings as outlined in this video, have your IT Coordinator watch this video … they’ll get it
As a teacher who’s run countless simulations in my classroom, I’ve always been amazed at how willingly my students assume different roles and identities. Don’t think only children or teenagers like getting into role. The truth is our ‘identity’ is actually pretty slippery. For a lot of people, ‘who we are’ can change fast. It’s just a strange and fascinating fact of human nature. If you don’t believe me, check out this video on the Stanford Prison Experiment before reading on.
So how does this relate to teaching and reducing your stress for the coming year?
For starters – and I’m only speaking from experience here but there’s got to be research out there that validates this – switching between identity roles is mentally and emotionally draining. Think back to a time when you started spending time with a new group of friends or co-workers who were really different than most people you spent time with. I bet you caught yourself saying new words and doing different things. Their ‘new’ personalities probably started seeping into your personality, you identity. For example, a good friend of mine started talking like Tony Soprano after watching 3 seasons in one month.
I believe most people are inclined to avoid these encounters of ‘newness.’ It’s like we’re hardwired to take the path of least resistance. It makes sense: it’s mentally and emotionally easier to have one identity role and one world-view instead of two or three. Granted some people can effortlessly switch between and maintain multiple identity boundaries with ease, I believe most people can’t. Their psyche attempts to unify them. There’s something within us that tries to find ‘identity equilibrium.’
I AM ‘TEACHER’
One of the biggest adjustments of my life was teaching. I think it’s true for most new teachers. I went from normal-guy to ‘teacher’ in less than a couple of months. I had to organize discussions, evaluate work and talent, make rules, and do whatever it took to enforce them. I was 23. I was becoming ‘teacher.’
And I found myself saying and doing things that I promised myself – just months earlier – I would never say or do.
It was as if my subconscious was willingly assuming the stereotypical ‘teacher’ role because I had to. It wasn’t me. Was it?
I wasn’t letting kids go to the washroom until their work was finished (because that was what the math teacher said I’d be smart to do).
I was yelling at students in the hallway for being (because that’s what the teacher across the hall did all the time and I thought I should too … but I’m always late).
I spelled-out swear words in the staffroom (because that’s what the ladies in their 50’s did and I didn’t want to offend them … but I never spelled out swear words).
I found myself, when marking, scoffing at really innocent spelling mistakes (because that’s what the English teachers I sometimes ate lunch with complained about all the time: bad spelling).
I even read a note that I caught being passed around aloud to the class! (I don’t know why I did that, I hated it when teachers did that … unless it was written by a girl I had a crush on).
I even (and I’ve never told anyone this) said to a group of senior students who were laughing, “Quit having such a good time.” Who says stuff like that? Oh yeah, ‘teachers.’
The point is that I found myself saying and doing all those ‘teacher-ish’ things my teachers did when I was a student … things I didn’t like or just expected them to because they were ‘teachers.’
And, worst of all, I found these new ‘teacher’ parts of me seeping into my out-of-school personality.
I was in the midst of a major identity tug-of-war. It was like I was in the Stanford Teacher Experiment. I felt I had to wear the hat that everyone talked about. I was becoming ‘Teacher’ and it was utterly exhausting, emotionally and mentally.
EPIPHANY
I can understand why we teachers have the reputation we do. Teachers absolutely have to set rules and enforce them if they want anything in the classroom to be accomplished. Classrooms are incubators of chaos just waiting to run rampant.
But, after months and years of soul searching, here’s the epiphany I had … and the heart of what I’m talking about:
You can set classroom rules and enforce them as yourself. You do not have to – just because everyone else has – assume the ‘teacher’ role to do this.
If you re-read my new-teacher memories, in most cases I felt I had to say and do ‘teacher-ish’ things just because. But we don’t have to, I realized. And at a certain point I got so tired of switching between roles (not to mention so weirded out by all of my ‘teacher-ish’ out-of-school behavior) that I made a promise to ensure that my ‘real’ self would not be overtaken and continually stressed by the ‘teacher’ role that was creeping in. It’s a promise that I’ve kept with joy. It’s not only reduced the stress that I believe comes with switching roles, but it’s enormously improved all of the relationships I’ve had with students, parents, and even other teachers.
The promise was this:
I will never say or do anything in the classroom that I wouldn’t say to a friend, family member, or acquaintance out of school.
And, after initially struggling to stick to this promise, I found myself enjoying the profession more. I found myself being more ‘real’ with my students and seeing them for who they really were, not just as students.
So here are some bits of advice for this coming school year that exemplify what I’m talking about:
Teachers are human. We can be human. We can talk to humanly to our students.
Teachers have feelings. Don’t be afraid to express your feelings to your students.
Everyone likes being respected. Explain why you personally like being respected to your students and ask them to do the same.
No one likes being ridiculed or picked on. Buck up and let them know – as yourself – that because you don’t tolerate disrespect in your personal life, you won’t tolerate it in the classroom. And then stop tolerating ridicule and cruelty in your personal life.
No one likes bullies. Tell them that. Share a story about a bully you’ve encountered in your personal life. Tell them how you felt. Don’t hide behind the ‘teacher’ mask and say no one likes bullies just “because.” Get real with them.
In other words, be your self!
And if who you are doesn’t match up to some of the rules that you want your students to abide by, do one of the following instead of hiding behind the ‘teacher’ hat and saying just because:
Change the rule, or
Change yourself
If you don’t, you run the risk being viewed as a hypocrite by your students.
BENEFITS
Trust me, the benefits of being yourself – instead of assuming a ‘teacher’ role that isn’t quite you – will be endless,
Your students will like you more because they’ll be able to relate to you.
When they like you they’ll work harder because they’ll want to follow your lead (i.e. not because you told them to).
You’ll start to question a lot of what you say and do as a teacher, discarding the bad and hanging onto the real and good stuff.
You’ll start becoming a better person,
You’ll start becoming more confident because your identity will be more integrated,
You’ll start inspiring your students,
You’ll begin developing real, life-mentoringrelationships with your students, not the typical ‘teacher’-student relationships,
And you’ll like it,
All of the above will, if you haven’t guessed, decrease stress and make teaching waay more satisfying and enjoyable.
So, Sanity Saver #5 for the upcoming school year is …
If you’re a teacher, you’ve been through 4 years of university, if not 5 to 8 years. In other words, you’re a professional. Sadly, many teachers do not conduct themselves like the professionals that they are. They should. And when you think of how true professionals treat their time, it’s like gold, and the bills they issue to their customers reflect that. You should too.
This post is not just about marking once a week. It’s about treating your time like a professional. It’s about setting appointments with yourself so work doesn’t seep into your personal life. It’s about getting things done quickly and effectively … like a renowned lawyer, accountant, doctor, or executive would.
be your own secretary
When I think of how much time most teachers waste in a given week, it really baffles me. But the mental energy wasted is even more baffling. I really think a lot of it stems from mismanaging our non-classroom time.
This year, start viewing yourself as the professional you are and treat your time accordingly. No, you won’t have your own secretary. Instead, be your own. Seriously, for 30 minutes a week, imagine that you are your own secretary, one that’s looking for a really big promotion.
When you slip into your personal secretary mode, your job is to think of two things: managing your boss’s time and delegating his low-priority tasks.
1. TIME MANAGEMENT
manage your time like a professional
Step back and view your hours and days like highly-coveted time slots that require scheduling. Remember, only one thing can be done at a time, so if you want ‘your boss’ to get things done, you’ll need to make ‘appointments’ for each task item.
One of those task items will be marking. Your boss hates marking. He doesn’t like interruptions when he does it. You know he can never get it done when he tries marking in front of the TV. You know that he never gets it done when he’s tired because he always complains about it to you (and you hate hearing about it). And you know that it takes him 2-6 hours to do.
So, at the start of the week, do the following for your boss.
Collect an inventory of how much stuff needs to be marked by next week
Delegate or delay low-priority marking tasks (see below)
Determine how long it will take to mark high-priority tasks
Look at your weekly calendar and identify free time slots
Select one day – and one day only – where there’s enough free time to get the marking done
Ensure a good chunk of that time occurs when your boss’s energy levels are high
Select a location where few – if any – interruptions will occur. That means picking a time when your boss won’t get interrupted by Larry from the classroom – I mean office – next door.
Tell your boss that this appointment is urgent and he should get in top shape for it.
And when your boss grumbles about it, remind him that if he doesn’t finish the task in this appointment, it’s going to nag and nag and nag at him until it does. So he needs to just get it done.
2. TASK DELEGATION
There are only so many hours in a week and only so much can get done. As the world’s best secretary, you know this oh-too-well. And your boss (remember, that’s you) works for an underfunded and under-resourced company that always expects more from him that he could ever deliver on his own. He needs help. He needs you to delegate the low-priority tasks to those under him. And those people are his students.
In this case, it’s determining what he – the chief executive teacher – has to mark, and what items could be marked by his students. You know your boss has some control issues and sometimes thinks that he has to do all of the marking on his own. That means you – his secretary – must make these decisions for him.
You need to delegate as many low-priority marking tasks to one of three people/groups:
the class (i.e. mark as a class)
the student (i.e. self-evaluation)
a peer (i.e. peer evaluation)
Seriously, do you know how much learning, meta-cognition and discussion opportunities occur in class, self, or peer marking activities? Tons! So utilize them and don’t think you – I mean your boss – have to mark everything! Especially you, English/literature teachers!
And if your boss protests about the impossibility of marking only once a week, remind him of a couple of things:
marking is but one of many, many jobs a teacher has to do, so it should only occupy a fraction of your professional time
you do (believe it or not) have a personal life for which you should also reserve time for
you don’t have to be a superhero, you can only do so much, and no one’s going to give you a trophy for doing extra marking
in fact, doing extra marking likely won’t make a difference … because
it’s not as important who marks the student work as much as whether it gets checked for completion, because
what gets measured gets done, so delegate the measurements (i.e. marking) to ensure higher frequency, and
select key, unit-ending pieces of work that really demonstrate student performance and understandingto mark, and delegate the rest to the class, the student, or peers.
So, Sanity Saver #3 for the upcoming school year is …
In Getting Things Done, productivity guruDavid Allen brilliantly explains that we are either attracted or repelled to a task. If we can slip into the task without having to work through a series of pre-steps, then we’ll likely roll up our sleeves and get it done. If, however, the thought of doing the task seems daunting, or makes our mind go blank, then we’ll avoid it like.
It’s simple: attract or repel.
In my opinion, the biggest make or break factor in staying on top of things and wanting to get things done in our classrooms is having a clean desk. Trust me, I know.
For the first five years of my teaching career, I was a messy desk guy. I actually took pride in my messy desk believe it or not. I also, however, rarely did my planning and marking in my classroom. I did it at home with all of home’s distractions. Without knowing it, my desk repelled me.
Then, after listening to a Brian Tracy audio lecture (for which my friends still hassle me about), I tried doing what seemed to be the easiest suggestion to implement: always keep a clean desk.
The results, no joke, were incredible. It was like the difference between the ice at the beginning of a hockey game just after the ice has been cleaned and the players jump on the ice all excited to get started, versus the end of a hockey game when everyone’s exhausted, tired, and annoyed with the gazillion grooves and chips in the ice.
I got things done, big time!
If you want to quickly test it out, just look at the pictures below and think of your gut reaction to the questions beneath them:
or …
It’s simple:
more tasks than we can handle cause stress
we’re either attracted or repelled to tasks
we need to create an attractive situation where we want to get tasks done
we won’t get anything done if our “work alter” (i.e. desk) repels us
so, decide to own an attractive, clean desk … which will
help you decrease task load by getting things done … which will
decrease your felt stress
So, Sanity Saver #2 is the most concrete of all five, and you have one week to test it out before we introduce our next one …
There are only so many hours in a week and only so much can get done. As the world’s best secretary, you know this oh-too-well. And your boss (remember, that’s you) works for an underfunded and under-resourced company that always expects more from him that he could ever deliver on his own. He needs help. He needs you to delegate the low-priority tasks to those under him. And those people are his students.
The results, no joke, were incredible. It was like the difference between the ice at the beginning of a hockey game just after the ice has been cleaned and the players jump on the ice all excited to get started, 
