The Good Part of Sad by Teachermum Stress Reduction by teachermum - July 14, 2011May 30, 20160 Teachermum is a mum, a wife and a special education teacher. She also believes in the "Crumple Effect" and loves sharing her ideas, experiences, philosophies and successful strategies on her blog. Read more of her posts at www.teachermum.com. Sad. That is what I am feeling right now. I can give you a good number of reasons why I am sad, but that is not the intention of my blog post. I can also add a whole bunch of other emotions such as frustration, disappointment, anger and exhaustion into sad, but for now, I will umbrella them all under sad.  I hope, as I start out writing this, that I can ultimately express my message clearly and use my sadness as a tool to
Teacher Burnout: 20 Insights From a 17-Year Veteran Teacher On The Brink of Burnout Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - June 26, 2009June 30, 20103 In rereading the last about teacher burnout, I was struck by a handful of things that my reader mentioned in the email. I thought it was powerful enough that it was worth digging into deeper, and yet I didn't want to dilute the conversation that might come as a result of the emotional impact of the reader's email. With that being said, here are 20 insights from a 17-year veteran teacher about things that teachers ought to be doing. Take care of your body Avoid whiners Get more sleep Accept imperfection from yourself Don't expect to make everyone happy Don't abuse your sick days, but do use them Relax more Have trusted friends who can smack you upside the
Information Overloaded? 10 Quick Tips To Tame The Tide Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - March 16, 2009June 30, 20102 Think back 5 years. March 2004. It feels like an eternity ago! For me, that was when I really hit the wall. That was when my head director told me that my contract would not be renewed. I resigned in lieu of nonrenewal. I spent the remainder of the semester learning like crazy. In fact, that is the experience that eventually formed the inspiration to begin this blog (read more here). But that's really not the point of this email, the thought just struck me and I realized how quickly time passes and how much I've grown since then. 5 years ago, there was no MySpace (until August 2003), no Twitter, no Facebook. Nada. Blogs were beginning to take off
Multitasking Virus In Our Classrooms Stress Reduction by Josh Waitzkin - October 6, 2008July 1, 20109 Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning, was the subject of the book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer. An eight-time National Chess Champion in his youth, he is now a martial arts champion, holding a combined 21 National titles in addition to several World Championships. Josh is president of the JW Foundation, an educational nonprofit-- www.jwfoundation.com He is currently training for the World Championships of his third discipline, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and lectures nationwide on the subjects of the learning process and performance psychology. Waitzkin lives in New York City. A few weeks ago, I returned to the classroom of Dennis Dalton, the most important college professor of my life. From the back of an amphitheater seating
If You Only Make One Change This School Year…RELAX!!!!!! Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - September 28, 2008August 5, 20167 Nothing in the classroom is worth added stress in your life. Nothing. If you only make one change this school year...Relax! 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
The Ultimate Stress Reduction Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - June 14, 2008July 1, 20105 When all else fails...
Organizing Your To-Do List for Maximum Productivity: Part 2 Stress Reduction by Pamela - December 24, 2007June 30, 20101 This is a guest post by Pamela, who doesn’t currently have her own blog. Pamela teaches elementary in Michigan. Ideas for organizing your subcategories In part 1 of this series, I talked about the shortcomings of traditional to-do lists and the increased productivity that results from using a to-do schedule. With a to-do schedule, your list is organized by day, and each day is broken down into subcategories. The schedule makes it easy to plan ahead, since you have a list for each of the next 7-10 days. Today we’ll talk about some of the subcategories you might use for your daily lists. One way to organize your day is by using time of day categories Before
Overcoming Stress In A Stress-Filled Season Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - December 19, 2007June 16, 20163 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 to conduct a
Organizing Your To-Do List for Maximum Productivity: Part 1 Stress Reduction by Pamela - December 10, 2007June 30, 20102 This is a guest post by Pamela, who doesn't currently have her own blog. Pamela teaches elementary in Michigan. Traditional to-do lists When I think of a traditional to-do list, I think of a sheet (or scrap) of paper with a list of all the things you need to do. This is a good start, but there are a few problems I’ve found with this type of list: There’s no organized pattern As soon as you think of something else, you just add it to the bottom of the list. As tasks are completed, you cross them off. Before long, the list is difficult to read and important tasks are overlooked because there are so many scribbles
The Instant De-Stress Handbook Now Available Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - November 19, 2007July 5, 20100 I have decided to compile all of the articles from my series 25 Tips For Less Stress into one handy ebook. The Instant De-Stress Handbook is completely free to download. To get your copy, simply download it here. Go ahead, tell your friends. Email the ebook to them. Recommend they come check out my blog. You know you want to!
65 Things You Should Do Right Now To Avoid Teacher Burnout Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - November 10, 2007September 3, 20123 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 a day
Less Stress: Play At Work Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - November 2, 2007July 5, 20100 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
Less Stress: Don’t Take Work Home Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - November 1, 2007July 5, 20104 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
Less Stress: Work Hard At Work Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 31, 2007July 5, 20101 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. Have a list of work to do before the day begins (include due dates and times) Break down large tasks into smaller chunks Prioritize the
Less Stress: Work Only At Work Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 30, 2007July 5, 20102 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 understand that