Sick Days, Mental Health Days, and Making Life Easier (Episode 60)

      Today, we�re back with our series How to Leave on Time and NEVER Take Papers Home Again gonna crack open the topic of Pre-Sick Days and discuss how teachers should use them.
       Watch the YouTube video here >>> https://youtu.be/62HXRz_L8xA

       How many sick days does your school give you this year?
       How many personal days?
       How many do they make you pay for?
       How many have you used?
       How many did you use last year?
       What did you use them for?
       Are you saving them all up for the end of your teaching career and retirement?
       Of course, they're called sick days for a reason, so you want to make sure you have enough of those when you need them. But we want to add a layer of ideas to the topic of sick days.
       My thoughts on this started one day when someone cracked a joke and said she was going to take a �mental health day.� I laughed, of course, but then got to thinking how great an idea that sounded.
       This idea might be something you already think about or it might be brand new. What do you think about using your sick days before you actually get sick so that maybe you won't get sick or worn down?
       1st, let's get all the talk about retirement and maternity leave out of the way.
       In some states, you're unused sick days add up, and there's an incentive to not use them so they add up as paid retirement days or extra years on your years of service. If that's your goal, that totally makes sense. In this increasingly tough national teaching environment, we would ask you to consider if feeling less stressed and more rested might actually prevent burnout and get you closer to retirement?
       And if you're planning on having a child, take that into consideration for maternity or paternity leave.
       And now that you've thought about all that, then let's dive in.  
PLANNING
       Ever feel like you're behind on your planning and it's wearing down your soul? Before you get actually sick, why not take a day every other month to plan ahead. Take 1-2 hours and reflect on the past weeks and how effective they've been. Make notes for next year. Take 1-2 hours to plan the upcoming months. Or if you did this last year, you get to upgrade last year�s plan. You might even pick some strategic spots in the year schedule for this planning day, so it can get you through the next part of the year. 
GRADING       ...the never-ending monster! What if you planned 1 day a quarter for catching up on and organizing your grading and grades? Think about what that would do for your mental health and stress. But seriously, can we zoom out for a second on that? We're learning more and more that mental health is not just mental � IT IS physical health. No longer do we have to smirk and crack a joke about �mental health days� or �mental sick days.� Mental health and sick = health and sick. So if we're stressed over how far behind we are, we aren't well. For reals! So don't feel bad about getting healthy and getting caught up.  
R & R
       Invest 1-2 days a year into preventative health. Relax. Explore. Adventure. Connect. Go to the beach, mountains, mall, lake, amusement park. If you have personal days too, combine them together next to a 4-day weekend and take a trip. We took a whole week off at the end of Christmas and went to China for 2 weeks. Sure, I had to talk with my principal, make sure it was a good time of year, assure them I had great lesson plans and a solid sub, but then they were fine with it and I came back rejuvenated instead of exhausted. And sure, you've gotta really make sure those bases are covered so they'll say yes again next time, but don't be afraid to stand up for your health and use those days.
LESSON PLANS
       And for those 1-day absences, now that we're thinking strategic about our health days, here are 2 ideas:

1. Develop purposeful, helpful activities that fit into your standards and can be executed by any substitute teacher. Then you don't have to feel bad or fearful that your absence will be wasted.
2. Purchase some useful lesson plans and resources that would fit those spots in your curriculum. Websites like www.TeachersPayTeachers.com can be super helpful for this.

       Hopefully this helps take you further into the conversation of how to keep yourselves healthy and peaceful in the long term. Now go take some practical steps toward using your Pre-Sick Days, so you can work toward health and balance.
       Hop on over to watch the video and share your thoughts in the conversation.

Rethink Your Commute for Peace & Efficiency (Episode 59)

      Today, we�re back with our series How to Leave on Time and NEVER Take Papers Home Again going to get real practical about using our commute time to make our day more peaceful and efficient.
       Watch the YouTube video here >>> https://youtu.be/62HXRz_L8xA

       I know mornings can feel rough. Many days, our hugest success feels like simply leaving the house with all our clothes on. But once we're in the car, we�ve got a chunk of time to do something with. Let�s talk about how to use that time to really make an impact on the rest of our day.
       You gotta get to work somehow: car, train, subway, bus, bike, walk, carpool. You have some amount of time it takes to commute. Don't underestimate the value of this time. And don't think it's not enough time to really make an impact. It can be huge.
       Instead of just vegging out or letting that time happen to us, let's talk about ways to repurpose our commutes for peace and efficiency.

• Pensieve & efficiency planning
• Soul Care, meditation, music, & Audiobooks
• Relational phone calls � Phone Errands

       Everyone is going to use this time. But now you're going to repurpose it to make a difference.
       Your 1st step might be to use your next drive to brainstorm ideas that you could use your drive for. Get them all out. Then next drive come up with a plan. Put it in order, then hold loosely to it. Write it on a notecard and keep it visible in your car, so you see it every drive. Be interruptible for life, of course, but now that you have a plan, you�ll know what to do next each day.
       Then put it into plan and get started reclaiming this time to have more peace and efficiency.
       Conversation of the Day: What is something you could do during your drive to work that could make your day more peaceful or efficient?
       Hop on over to watch the video and share your thoughts in the conversation.

Boundaries, Excellence, and WorkLife Balance (Episode 39)

       Today, we talk about how we teachers can still be excellent while holding firm boundaries between work and rest ... and how we can model and teach our students how to do this too.
       Watch the YouTube video here >>> https://youtu.be/RZgBYb3lshk
       This conversation is very unscripted and covers a lots of mini topics within this whole conversation. Enjoy! We'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic and where you're at in your journey. Let's travel this together. :)
       Conversation of the Day: What task do you feel like you must do during the summer so you can survive the next school year?
       Hop on over to watch the video and share your thoughts in the conversation.

Put Big Rocks in First (Episode 24)

        The 14th installment in our series: How to Leave on Time and NEVER Take Papers Home Again ... Today, we're gonna share the secret for "How to always get the most important things done every day!" Watch the YouTube video here >>> https://youtu.be/4ESLJfevk-8

        I�ve heard this concept a number of ways from a number of different people over the years. Steven Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People talks about putting the big rocks in first. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, and Patrick Lencioni, author of many fantastic leadership books, both talk about choosing 3 big rocks to focus on. We�re gonna combine these ideas all into one for you today.
        We�ve all likely experienced the feeling of reaching the end of the day and being bummed that we didn�t get everything done we wanted to. And often there are even a couple of big things we just never get around to, but they really need to get done.
        So we either flip the candle over and burn it from the other end and exhaust ourselves � or we wait until to tomorrow and hope life�s demands won�t keep us from getting them done.
        Let�s look at a simple but powerful strategy to make sure we get the important things done.
        So let�s look at the illustration I heard from Covey�s book. This jar here represents our day, before we�ve done anything with our time. A fresh opportunity � or burden � depending on how we�re feeling about it. If we�re not careful, strategic, even defensive, our promising empty day gets filled up quickly and before we know it, it�s over, right?
        Back in Episode 12, we showed you how to make a daily schedule. This is gonna go deeper on that. We need to put our big priorities in first, our big rocks. Make sure you can fit those in. Give them time slots. Be realistic with the amount of time you need for them so you can fit in what you want to. Remember, keep them few or they aren�t really big rocks.
        After you�ve given these their own time slot, fill in the smaller rocks (priorities). These could be small errands or conversations others are asking you to do throughout your day. Many of these will be unpredictable and unplanned. They are going to fill in the rest of the spots, whether you like it or not. They key is that they shouldn�t bother you as much because you fit in your important stuff.
        YOU SAY NO. You kindly say that you can�t do that right now because you need to get your second big rock of the day done for your day to be successful. I�ll talk with you again at � and give them a time, because you know the time.
        The rest of your minutes will fill in. It always does.
        We could even fill this in with water because all the nooks and crannies of time fill in. Every day.
        This is what a well-structured day looks like. It feels good. And if all of our days, or let�s just give us grace and say many � if many of our days looked like this, we�d end up feeling good about our time. And we�d feel the freedom to not work after hours, at home, when we really want to be resting, or playing with family and friends, or doing whatever we want, not what the work wants.
So, let�s remember to do it this way. Because it�ll feel so good. Then we�ll get to go home and relax, not worrying that the important things didn�t get done.
And if people are asking for your time when you�re supposed to be doing your big rock �
        Conversation of the Day: What are your big 2-3 rocks for today?
          Hop on over to watch the video and share your thoughts in the conversation.

Grade Essays 10x Faster & Improve Student Writing - Episode 20

        The 12th installment in our series: How to Leave on Time and NEVER Take Papers Home Again ... In which we show you how to grade student essays 10x faster and watch their writing quality skyrocket in the process. Watch the YouTube video here >>> https://youtu.be/6syYDbjNbGY
        So far in our series, we�ve been looking at our daily schedules and how to save time and focus in lots of different areas, so we have more time to plan and grade in the classroom. You�ve probably been aching for us to get to the never-ending pile of papers to grade. Ack! It really seems hopeless and eternal sometimes, doesn�t it?
        Many episodes ago, we talked about making the decision to not take papers home. How many of you made that decision? How many of you stuck to it? Seriously, you�ve taken no papers home? If you�ve stuck to your guns, awesome for you. Even though it brings a little (read �A LOT�) of anxiety at first, you�ve probably already started to figure out ways to grade them at work instead of at home. Which is the ultimate goal: NO MORE PAPERS AT HOME � EVER! It�s amazing the little nooks and crannies of time we find when we have to.
        Remember, Jonathan didn�t take a single paper home for 7 years of teaching middle school English, so it�s possible. Maybe you just need to be reminded that it�s possible. The only voices I ever heard were always telling me it was impossible, you�d always have papers at home. Not true. He did it for 7 years. 7!!!
        One of the big switches I made was an aha moment for me in how I was grading essays. I would assign an essay, teach them through the process, give them days in class to write paragraphs and ask me questions, then collect a rough draft. That started the dreaded paper grading cycle. I would use my grading rubric to fix all their errors in a timely fashion so I could get the essays back to them to edit for their final drafts.
        Here�s the problem I kept seeing: Students only really fixed the errors I found because I was the expert and if I didn�t find them why should they fix them?
        And that got you thinking, right? � No wonder they don�t know how to edit their essays, you were really the one doing all the editing! No wonder some of them would throw their essays in the trash right after they get them back�they only cared about the grade they got when they fixed your edits.
        So you had to find a way to flip things so they were doing the editing and you were doing the grading. Which are different! And the journey he headed down saved him so much time, and his students got sooooo much better at writing and revising.
        With the next batch of essays, I only wrote a letter grade at the top. No comments, no marks, nothing but a grade. Well, of course, my grading time got done way faster. I was spending under a minute grading each essay. I internalized my essay rubric that I was using before and only wrote a letter grade. Then I handed the rough drafts back and they looked for all the work they were used to me doing for them, which, of course, wasn�t there.
        �Why did I get this grade?� many asked.
        �Let�s figure it out,� I replied.
        So I walked them through how to grade their essays. I handed out my �Fix These in Your Essays Now� cheat sheet, and we got started. Here's the link for you to get it in our Teachers Pay Teachers store >>> https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Essay-Writing-Revision-Checklist-Rubric-402032. We highlighted hook/intro sections, thesis statements, topic sentences, quote proof and page numbers, transition sentences, thesis echo in the conclusion, and solid closing lines that resonate. They did it. Not me. Then they wrote notes in the margin if any of it was missing. They finished going through the Revision checklist. They made all the marks. They � They �. They. Not me. I already know how to grade essays. They�re the ones who need to learn. I hadn�t been teaching them how to grade their essays.
        Then I asked them if their letter grade matched their essay. If that grade was fair? They all saw why now. And the right person did all the editing.
        Then a surprising thing happened � looking back, it shouldn�t have been surprising: On their final drafts, they were a little more able to see things to fix. But where I really saw progress was on Essay #2, 3, 4. That year, I actually assigned 9 essays and didn�t grade a single one at home. And my students� writing skills skyrocketed!!!
        It�s gonna be difficult at first to not make any marks on the essays. It�s gonna be difficult to teach them what you see in your essays. It�s gonna be difficult to focus on the macro ideas and not the micro commas errors. It�s difficult, but we get difficult, we�re teachers. This is what we do. But for a long time I wasn�t doing the difficult thing when teaching writing, which really in the long run, ended up the easy thing. Not taking papers home.


        Conversation of the Day: If you tried to teach your students how to grade their own essays, what do you worry might happen?
          Hop on over to watch the video and share your thoughts in the conversation.

Episode 6: Work at Work - How to Leave on Time and NEVER Take Papers Home Again

          In this YouTube vlog, we're back with our series: How to Leave on Time and NEVER Take Papers Home Again. Each episode will tackle a topic that will help us move steps closer to this elusive goal.
          Today, we're talking about what it would look like if we worked at work and only worked at work. How come we work at home? How come we don't work at work? How come when we work at work we still have to work at home?
          Hop on over and share your thoughts in the conversation.