Nothing in the classroom is worth added stress in your life. Nothing.

I know so many band directors (and other teachers as well, but mostly band directors) who get so incredibly worked up over their jobs that they lose their health, marriage, youthful physique, energy, or alienate their own children. Why? Because of their own selfish pride.

Just because nothing catastrophic happens this year doesn’t mean that nothing will. Stress can be cumulative in your life and may be building up and festering over a period of a handful of years.

The best solution is to stop. Now.

How do we avoid stress?
I have written at great length about this in the past, so instead of…

Lisa writes:

I googled “bitter about teaching” and came up with your blog.  I was recently let go from a school I busted my a$$ in for a whole year (my first year) – constant criticism, cattiness, and pointing out and embellishing the negative things I had done while minimizing the positive (all the while they were telling me to stay positive!).

She concludes her email:

I just wanted to let you know that your blog picked me up a little bit.  I still have a lot of healing to do, but I’m glad that I’m not the only person that this has happened to.

What an awesome thing! In case you missed the story, here are a few articles…

As we begin the summer vacation, I am looking back on what went really well this year, what didn’t work so well, and what needs to change for next year. Below are some of the negatives about this year:

• Lack of social life – While not entirely true, and things have changed for the positively since I began playing in a mariachi in April. But I still notice that I am far away from my family and many of my friends before I moved down here. Even after being in South Texas for four years, I find that my social life is limited to time spent with other band directors, and a small handful of church friends. Maybe that’s

…

When all else fails…

As we begin the summer vacation, I am looking back on what went really well this year, what didn’t work so well, and what needs to change for next year. Below are some of the positives about this year:

• Remaining calm – Despite circumstances this year, with the other band director having a stroke and all, I was able to stay calm most of the time. I lost my temper a few times, but it was nothing compared to my previous years of teaching. A lot of this comes from stress reduction measures I put into place, as well as growing up.
• Doing my job without complaining - I complained a bit on here and to friends, but never

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In this article, I’ll revisit 10 of my 25 Tips For Less Stress that I have found to be most helpful for me over the last two weeks or exponentially heightened stress.

Christmas is coming, and with is seems to be incredible stress for a lot of people. Perhaps it’s because I am not married and have no children, but Christmastime has never brought a lot of stress into my life by itself. Health concerns have, however, brought about some immense stress into my life a couple of times in December.

My college had a two semester student teaching process (one semester of extended observation, and one semester of down and dirty residency). I was fortunate enough to be able…

This past Tuesday, I took a day off of school. This is not normal for me, and I even had to fight my urge to go up to school and make sure things were running smoothly. I even drove up to the school and chose not to get out of the car.

Why? Because I had a chance where I knew I could relax for a day and things wouldn’t fall apart. I suppose it’s sort of a building process for me of letting go of my band.

I don’t like to miss school. I remember my parents encouraging me when I was in high school to miss a day when I didn’t fell well. I have been debating missing…

We come now to the final chapter of our 25 Tips For Less Stress. This is perhaps my favorite one of all. Without this decision, you cannot have a stress-free life. The key is to choose to have fun at work.

No matter what industry you work in, if you love your job, you will be more productive. In education, our products are educated people. The more we love teaching, the more of our children will be successful. That love will translate into their development of greater passion for learning. It’s an upward spiral.

Conversely, when we hate our job — or when we just show up to collect the paycheck — it also shows. The students laboriously come to…

I wrote a couple of days ago about a plan to reduce the amount of papers that you take home. Preferably, that number will approach zero as your systems get refined. That is NOT the focus of this entry. The goal here is to truly liberate you from your job.

The story goes:

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her.

The senior monk carried this woman on his shoulder, forded the river and let her…

How much time is wasted in classrooms around the world each day? How much time is wasted in businesses each day because employees are not diligently using their time? As I’ve written before, I view squandered time at work as being equivalent to stealing from the employer.

One of the best ways to avoid having to take work home is to get all of your work done while you are at work. The key to making this happen is to work hard at work. Here is a 10-step method to work hard at work.

1. Have a list of work to do before the day begins (include due dates and times)
2. Break down large tasks into smaller chunks
3. Prioritize the

…

I rarely take work home any more. I used to do it all the time. Then I noticed something. I rarely got any work done at home, and I felt guilty about not getting it done at home. I also realized that when I didn’t take work home, I didn’t fall too far behind when I got back to school. I am able to find ways to catch up, or find corners to cut.

What if the only work we had to grade were quizzes and exams? How would that transform our classrooms and our lives? What if we set up our grading scale something like this:

Daily Work – 10%
Quizzes – 40%
Tests – 50%

I…

Each morning when I come into the band hall, there are always a handful of students who come to drop off their instruments before school. Often they will come in and stand around talking. Because our custodian runs the vacuum each day and doesn’t fix the chairs after he finishes, the entire classroom has to be set up each day. I would prefer that they either practice their instruments or leave, but my coworker wants his students to come in and socialize or whatever. Since he gets to school later than I do, I have come up with a plan that works. I tell them to find something productive to do. That could be setting up chairs and stands, practicing,…

I touched on this topic before in Deepen Your Relationships With Friends, but I want to get even more involved here. I want to look at specific ways that you can collaborate with coworkers.

More experienced teachers
These people are the lifeblood of education. We’ve all had at least a small handful of teachers who we had in school whom everyone KNEW were older than the school building, but was afraid to say it. We all know the type. But they truly love teaching. They can imagine nothing else they would do with their lives!

These are the people you need to hook up with. Not only can they be unvaluable sources of free information, but they also generally…

Wow. I love my students. I am amazed that I haven’t written more on my blog about this fact. As I search through my blog, I have come to the realization that I probably come across as some heartless disciplinarian who expects nothing more from his students than that they be quiet all the time.

This is about as far from the truth as you can get. In fact, I love my students very much. I came to the determination three years ago that classroom management was a key element of demonstrating my love to them. You see, when we allow them to waste their education, we are showing unconcern for them rather than courtesy. One of my key scriptures…

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17

Some of the greatest stress relief I have had since moving away from my family has been with friends. Either other teachers as well as church friends or even other friends you have met through other social activities. Maybe hooking up with college or old high school buddies. Whatever it is, hanging with friends is a great stress reliever.

Just sitting and talking about things unrelated to school can be great. Sitting and talking about things related to school can also be great. I learn a lot from my teacher friends. Some of my greatest learning experiences are when I am trying to help them…

We now begin our fourth week of 25 Tips For Less Stress. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these articles as they have helped me to really focus on some of the routines that I take for granted in my life. When I have been tempted to relax on some of them, I have reread my own writings and been once again inspired to stick it out. This week, we begin focusing on relationships.

Today we’ll begin with the most important relationships of all: family members.

Family disagreements will carry over into every aspect of what we do in life. If you fight with your spouse in the morning before work, one way or another you will take it out on…

I’m taking a break today from my Stress Reduction series and getting back to some real teaching issues. That’s why we’re here anyway, right?

So August and September have come and gone with great behavior. Now the students are beginning to do a lot more testing of the limits. It’s been a while since I have taught 7th & 8th graders and now I remember how much they like to get away with. Even the good students do things from time to time that just boggle my mind. WHY DID YOU DO THAT? It’s crazy.

How do I handle these misbehaving miscreants?

1. Stick to your rules
   Consistency is the only way for success in this area. Just

…

As I mentioned yesterday, westerners generally have too much stuff. That is the result of an extravagant lifestyle that television and popular media promote. The idea is that we shouldn’t be satisfied with what we have. That’s the whole underlying motivation behind much of the advertising industry.

Credit cards are a big source of woe for many people. They are a major cause for bankruptcies in America and they are really a symptom of a much greater issue. The issue is dissatisfaction.

In the last 17 months, I have paid off over $8,500 in debts. Through listening to Dave Ramsey and reading his book The Total Money Makeover and reading Trent’s blog The Simple Dollar, I have come to realize…

My name is Joel. I have too much stuff.

Most people in the western world have way more stuff than we know what to do with. The thriving success of self storage units is a testimony to this fact.

Possessions add clutter
We spent all last week looking at steps to reduce stress by decluttering your life. Some people recommend simply ignoring the clutter. That is definitely one valid option. It doesn’t work well for me, though. So I strive to reduce the amount of stuff I own that can potentially add clutter, which will in turn increase my stress level.

I am not necessarily advocating living as a hermit or social discontent, but I have personally found that…

I got an email from one of our secretaries yesterday asking me to call one of the other administrative assistants. The message left no indication of why I should call her. I have not yet called her and I don’t intend to do so. I have a problem with phone calls.

In a world where email has become a standard of communication at work, phone calls are a mere inconvenience

Phone calls pose as important interruptions
Often they are unimportant or at the very least delayable. At the worst, they are totally unimportant. Phone calls allow someone else to control our environment.

I don’t answer the phone during class
I made the decision my third year of teaching to never…