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Setting a Positive Tone for the Week as a Teacher
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I'm going to share strategies for helping you set a positive tone for the week. That's all coming up next right here on the teacher burnout podcast. Stay tuned.
Speaker: Welcome to the Teacher Burnout Podcast, where we explore the challenges of burnout for teachers and share practical strategies to support teacher well being. I'm your host Barb Flowers. If you're a teacher looking for ways to prevent burnout or an educational leader searching for strategies to support your team, this podcast is for you.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back to the podcast today. I want to talk about setting a positive tone in your classroom for the week. I know many educators dread Mondays.
We call it the Sunday scaries. And if you haven't listened to episode 81, actually talk about the Sunday scaries in that podcast episode . And how to manage your weekend anxiety. And today's episode builds upon those principles to create a strong foundation [00:01:00] for the week teaching.
But before I share my Monday reset strategies with you, I want to highlight three major pitfalls that commonly derail educators on Mondays. And the first thing is grading papers throughout the weekend and doing other work, preventing true mental disconnection. And I always think of my friend, I have this best friend that we've grown up together and I laugh because we both became teachers.
And then administrators and we love talking education together. Well, at one point in our life, we lived together for a short period of time. And she was a middle school English teacher and she would spend all weekend grading from Friday to Sunday, pretty much the whole weekend grading. She had zero time to disconnect.
I mean, the only reason she wasn't burnt out , at that point was because she was so excited about being an educator because she was new to education, but grading papers throughout the weekend and having that be your life is not sustainable. Overscheduling personal activities where you have no time for rest and renewal.
I used to be the worst at overscheduling. [00:02:00] I would book my schedule so much because I thought I could do it all and I wanted to be involved in everything. And then I realized it left me no time for my own rest and renewal. And when I went back to work on Monday, I was not happy because I really didn't have the disconnection I needed from the weekend.
And then third is the lack of classroom preparation. If you do not have your week planned out with your lesson plans finalized, clear weekly objectives, and your classrooms disorganized, you're going to go into the week into this negative tone. So you really want to not get caught up in those pitfalls.
But I wanted to talk about some ways to really energize yourself so you're ready to go on Monday and you are excited for the week. This is the Monday morning reset. , my first principle is that Friday preparation sets the tone for Monday. So I talked about in the previous podcast episode that actually the Sunday scaries, having your classroom set up helps you for Mondays, having Everything prepared and ready to go helps you so [00:03:00] you want to make sure on Friday when you leave that your classrooms clean and organized.
And if you have systems in place, you can do this quickly. It doesn't have to be a big thing. I taught both 1st grade and 3rd grade. And my students always helped me with this as a principal. I noticed a lot of teachers that didn't really utilize their students to help get their classroom cleaned up and organized, , every day, let alone on a Friday.
And I think that's such an important component is have your students take ownership of that classroom and help you clean and organize it so that when you leave on Friday, it feels clean and organized. Also, make sure you have a very planned out lesson for Monday that you're not coming in on Monday. Not knowing what you're going to teach or what you're going to do.
Now, for me, I like to have the whole week prepared. Like , I was a planner. I planned a week or two in advance. , but you need to make sure that you have everything ready for Monday. You need to have materials ready. You need to have copies made because one thing we know as a teacher, as an educator, is that the [00:04:00] copy machine is always broke.
So if you are not ready for Monday, you're not going to feel ready for the week. So you want to make sure you have materials needed set up for Monday. Also make sure your desk is organized, you have student work graded, passed back, like you don't just have this huge pile of work. , just a tip is I always used to take 15 minutes to wipe down my teaching space, disinfect.
I always had the kids take disinfectant wipes. clean off their desk, wipe chairs, wipe the classroom, wipe around the room. And I always organize my papers. You want to make sure everything feels clean and ready to go. My next principle is on Monday morning. You want to set your priorities for the week. So review your teaching schedule, review what duties you have.
Is it your week for lunch duty or car duty? Whatever it is, you want to review that schedule and see what's going on for you. You want to see if there's assemblies going on for the week. What is your week going to look like? [00:05:00] You also want to write down your top three non negotiable priorities each day.
You have your lesson plan, but it could be three things that need to get done with students. It could be three things that you need to get done during your planning period. Maybe it's, I need to get certain papers graded. I need to plan for a specific lesson.
, whatever that is, just make sure, you know, your top three non negotiable instructional priorities. Also be realistic about what you can accomplish that week. As a teacher, you know that it's good to over plan. We always want to have lots of plans ready because if you get through something quickly, you want to be ready to go and have something else as a backup.
But you also want to be realistic about what you can actually accomplish throughout the week. So having a solid plan with backup materials is great, but you never want to overschedule yourself to the point that you're then frustrated because you set unrealistic expectations for yourself.
Just another tip. As a teacher, I started each Monday by reviewing my weekly lesson plan. I would look at what were the [00:06:00] tricky lessons for that week. Were there certain math lessons or reading lessons that were going to be a little bit harder than normal? , and then make necessary adjustments as I needed to go.
, also, like I said, I really like to look at that week , when did I have collaborative time planned? Because there was usually one day a week that I like to collaborate with my teaching team. So when was that going to be? Did I have response to intervention coming up?
Did I need to progress monitor students, right? Having all of those things. calendar, looking at my lesson plans, ready to go. And then my third principle is time blocking for teachers. Now, , my lesson plans were kind of time blocking. My lesson plans were made based on my schedule and I know everybody lesson plans a little bit different, but I like to have my lesson plans be my entire week and it was my.
Day-to-day schedule. Then within that I had the lessons I was gonna do, where I was gonna assess students and how I was gonna differentiate. Okay? So I had all of that mapped out. Now where time blocking can really be helpful as a [00:07:00] teacher is during your planning period. To know the exact task that you're going to work on, which could be these three priorities.
You could be time blocking before school if you're going to get there a few minutes early or after school. The thing that you have to be really strategic about as a teacher is knowing what you want your day to look like. I know there are some teachers that want their planning period and their lunch period to be very social.
They want a lot of time socializing with others. They need that downtime. They need to decompress. I personally always took my lunch time to have lunch with my colleagues, but if I had enough time and I didn't have an extra duty , I would spend 20 minutes of that planning, grading, doing parent communication, and other things I needed to get done.
I always made sure to plan what those things were so I got them done. It was easy for a teacher to come in and start talking to me. But if I knew I had specific tasks I wanted to get done, I could scoot that conversation along and get that done. The other thing is planning periods. I see a lot of [00:08:00] teachers who like to talk during their planning periods.
Now, that's not bad if you want to stay till 5 o'clock. I had a teacher I worked with. She loved talking during her planning period. She did not want to be planning during that time because she felt like she just needed a minute to decompress. Now her kids were older, so she could stay till five o'clock and that's what she liked to do.
So she was a little bit different, but you have to be strategic with your time. When I was teaching, I was getting my, , master's degree and then eventually my doctorate. And I also had little kids. I had, , my son, I had him when I was a third grade teacher. And then, you know, he was a baby, , my last year of teaching.
So just knowing what your certain life circumstances are and where you are at in your life of whether, how much time you have before or after school. You have to time lock. You have to know exactly when you're going to do certain things to get it done. I've seen an Instagram meme that was like, teaching is the only job that
, you have to do work before work to get ready for work and then after work. [00:09:00] And I'm like, that's so true. But I think the biggest thing about teaching that I can just tell you from my own experiences, after you get systems in place, you can really make it where you work eight to four, if you do it right.
Schedule those time blocks, know what you want to get done during your planning time. Know what you want to get done. If you have any extra recess time, anything like that, and then. Include time that you have to prepare for, um, parent teacher conferences, observations of students, your own observation, um, if you're going through the RTI process, response to intervention, PBIS, things like that, that you need to gather data and have things ready to go, schedule out when you're going to get that done.
And the fourth principle is have classroom boundaries and work life balance. Set clear start and end times to your work day. So I always did this. , again, based on my busy schedule, I knew on, I think it was Tuesdays and Thursdays I had class. And so on those days I had to leave like right after the kids left, but [00:10:00] because I had to leave then other days I might come in a half hour Or stay late when I was a new teacher, I needed extra time to get my room set up because ,
I got my job right before the school year started. And so I just needed time to get my room situated. So I would stay after on Friday nights for a little bit and then go out with my friends. You have to make it work for you, but pick those boundaries and stick to them.
Identify which day might require longer hours. You know, and protect your schedule. You have to protect your schedule of when you're coming and when you're going. , I always would tell myself I need to be out of here by four o'clock. And so no matter what had to be done, I had to leave at four o'clock.
And then also having those boundaries, make sure you're not communicating with your colleagues, students, or parents after school. And I only say colleagues in the fact. You don't want to be texting all night about school. You can definitely, you know, communicate with colleagues, but communicate about things other than school.
Don't be texting all night about how terrible the day was or how stressed you are. [00:11:00] You want to move on and have time to truly disconnect. , and just another teacher tip, clearly communicate your availability to families at the beginning of the year. You want to tell them, I checked my, , dojo remind email from eight to four, or I will get back with you within 24 hours.
As soon as you set up that you get back to them right away, they start to expect it. So you want to be really clear of when you're going to get back to them. So set those classroom boundaries and have work life balance. And I have a whole course on this, the Teacher Overwhelm and Boundary Solution.
If you're bad about this. You should get that course. It's a very affordable and it's going to help you set clear boundaries and have better work life balance. All right, my fifth principle, teach your morning routine optimization. So have a morning routine. I always say , have a morning routine at home and have a morning routine at school.
So when you get up in the morning, have a good morning routine. That's really going to get you ready for your day. So what does that look like? Maybe it's exercise in the morning. [00:12:00] Maybe it's reading in the morning. Maybe it's going for a walk, , getting yourself ready. Whatever that is, have that morning routine.
Then when you get to school, what's your morning routine? You don't want to get to school and kids are arriving, right? You want time to settle. So, maybe you decide you arrive 20 minutes before you have to be there to just center yourself, get ready, get prepared. feel like you can have a cup of coffee and sit there and get your day started.
I know when I was teaching, we had to be there at eight o'clock and students didn't come till 840. So that was really nice. We had some buffer in there, but I know when, , as a principal, when I was working with , teachers only had to be there like 15 minutes before the students. So I could see how that would feel really rushed.
So just know what your schedule is and make a consistent morning routine that works for you. But on Mondays, especially, I like to make sure I was there early and I could start my day in a really calming way because Monday is already, you know, we kind of have this negative connotation towards Mondays.
And then my sixth principle is [00:13:00] manage your energy. So, , , teaching is very tiring, , how can you manage your week in a way where it goes with your energy levels.
So, for example, for me. Working in a school in general, whether I was a teacher or a principal, I had to work out in the morning. That's the only time I could work out because by the time I got home at night, I was so tired. I didn't have the energy to work out at night. Another thing might be that if you go in early, you want to go in early on a Monday morning because you don't have the energy later on in the week, or, , maybe another thing is that you want to stay after early in the week because by the end of the week You, if you want to stay after and get some things done, it needs to be earlier on in the week because you don't have the energy later on throughout the week.
I know for me by Thursday or Friday, I was very tired and, , really ready to go home. So you just have to know yourself, know your energy management, know when you're freshest during the day. , and think about that for your students, right? Like how do they, manage their energy. If you're [00:14:00] teaching, how can you break up your teaching in a way that keeps them engaged and focused?
Where maybe you're teaching for a short amount of time and then engaging them in something else. , and I've seen this done in many ways. It's not necessarily, I used to think it had to be mini lesson, then go into centers, then mini lesson in centers. But I've seen teachers do whole group lessons for 45 minutes and keep kids engaged by being at a perky pace, switching what they're doing and just changing the energy in the room.
So something else to think about as you're thinking about energy management on a Monday morning. And the other thing I want you to think about principle seven is your attitude towards Mondays. So what mindset are you going in on a Monday with? What mindset do you have on a Monday? Do you have the mindset and you're telling everybody around you, Ugh, I don't want to be here, it's Monday, I want it to be the weekend, or it's Monday, is it Friday yet?
The more you say those negative comments, the more you're going to feel negative about a Monday. I really, really want you to think about how do you [00:15:00] wanna feel on Monday? If you wanna feel excited for the week, you need to go in with those thoughts. Your thoughts create your emotions, which create your actions.
So if you go in on a Monday. With the thought, I'm excited to be here. It's a fresh start for the week. It's going to be much different emotion than if you're like, , it's Monday. Wish it was Friday, right? Even if you don't mean that, I think sometimes people say that just to have something to say to each other.
I don't know. People would say that all the time. And I love Mondays because I think it's a fresh start to the week. But again, it's been my perspective change. It's been a mindset shift for me. So those are just some things I want you to think about. So just refreshing Friday preparation sets the tone, Monday morning, set your priorities, time block,
look at your classroom boundaries and work life balance for the week. Have a morning routine at home and at school. Manage your energy as a teacher https: otter. ai If you love [00:16:00] the show and you're listening on Apple, scroll down in your app and leave a review. Also share this episode with a friend.
Who's a friend who needs a Monday morning reset and keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.