Juggling teaching and study

And here I thought that juggling work and study was hard enough! Teaching can be incredibly draining and by the end of the day, you don’t want to be staring at a computer screen do to University work (well, I certainly didn’t!)

Time management is always a tough thing for me. I want to put my 100% into everything and I’m not willing to do less. Having to juggle teaching, where my students deserve 100%, and my study, where I need to give 100% otherwise, I may not pass the subject/s made it a rough year. Imagine this, an early career teacher having to teach 4 subjects and still maintaining a full-time study load. Essentially having to keep my grips on six subjects. Six. That was rough.

I am now at the end of term 3, I have submitted two assignments late because I chose to put my students first, do I regret it? Nope. Not one bit. My students needed to come first, they needed the stability of knowing that they were number 1 for me (in a professional sense). If I had a free lesson, I would prioritise doing some university study so I didn’t fall too behind. This sort of worked as it gave me a break from consistently doing work but also gave me a greater opportunity to become distracted by everything else.

I also needed to realise that burning myself out, gets me nowhere. It does not help anyone or anything. So developing some coping mechanisms for when it got too much really helped too. I would spend weekends with family and friends. I would prioritise the people in my life over the work I had to do. I would go out for date nights with my partner. These things kept me sane.

So, having rambled on for a while, do I have any pearls of wisdom for someone who wishes to do what I have done (or similar)? Nope, everyone is different. Everyone has different study patterns, motivation levels and the ability to multitask much better than I. When juggling many balls, remember that some are plastic and can be picked up later. Prioritise the glass ones and make sure that you are one of the glass ones. Remember your self-care and your own sanity.

First Year Tips and Tricks

Your first year out of your teaching degree is one of the hardest that you will do. You are new, and you still have a lot to learn. You are hesitant and not wanting to stuff it up. I’ve been there this year and these are my top tips.

          Coffee in the AM and your beverage of choice in the PM.

There are some days where you will only be able to function on caffeine in the morning and will then need to have a beverage at night (AKA a glass of wine or an aperitif). You will need the fortification to get through the day and to get through the marking at night.

          Prepare, prepare, prepare

Make sure you are prepared, with Plan A, B, and C. And for good measure, add Plan D in there too. Be prepared for a black out or a kid telling you to “f**k off”, or for some students to start bawling or a fight. Be prepared for students who are Autistic, for those who have ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, depression. You will face all of this and more during your first few years and at times you will have no idea what to do. Hence, prepare, prepare, prepare.

(Unless you have a worldwide pandemic. Nothing prepares you for that!)

         Learn from your co-workers

Your co-workers are your greatest allies – unless you severely piss them off (which I don’t recommend). Share resources and take what you can from them. You will be able to learn a lot from them and be able to adapt their resources. You can also look at their professional practice and learn a lot from it. You can decide what you will borrow and what you won’t.

  Fake it until you make it

Confidence, people, confidence. Some of us have it, others have to work for it. If you don’t feel confident, don’t let it show. The more you ‘fake it’ the more confident you will begin to feel until it becomes natural. And the best part? The students you have won’t know.

These are my top 4 tips, but at the end of the day; you do you. You follow what you think is right and what you think is going to help you create your career. Ultimately, you are in charge of your own destiny.

2020: The year of COVID-19

COVID-19 is still rocking Australia. Victoria is still in lockdown; some states are opening up to South Australia and we still can’t go international. We are still sanitising our hands and, in some places, wearing masks.

But we are getting better in adapting to it – slowly.

COVID-19 shut down didn’t affect me too much. Yeah, it was a pain to not be able to go down to the pub for a meal and a drink. It was annoying as hell to not be able to buy toilet paper or have restrictions on basic things (#panicbuying) but overall, I wasn’t too affected by it.

I worked my butt off to get the lesson and unit plans structured for a move to online learning. I planned like I never had planned before and at the end of the day, I was thankful for it. I like to think that my students were thankful for it too as it gave them a sense of structure.

That was one thing I tried to give to all of my students: structure. Structure in the lesson flow, in my expectations, in how I approached them. I also let them see me as human. Many of my students were being negatively affected by COVID-19 in many, many ways and I wanted them to see that I was human and affected by it as much as them – even if it was a simple “Was planning on going out for dinner but we can’t any more”. They knew I was their teacher but they could also see me as human.

One of the hardest things we faced was the feeling of the unknown. Of not knowing if some students could come to school, if people we knew were going to have jobs or not, of if (or when) we would make the move to online, distance learning. Students were restless, their attention was rock bottom and work submission was for the most part even more sporadic than usual.

But we survived. Writing this at the end of Term 3, we still have one term to go, but the hard part is over. We have learnt how flexible we can be, how quickly we can pivot from our original plan to aa completely new one. We learnt the in’s and out’s of Zoom and Microsoft Teams and how to (hopefully) avoid the pitfalls.

Families, friends, strangers and more discovered how valued teachers are and how much work we actually do. They learnt that teaching isn’t just a ‘soft’ career, that a shit load of planning, hard work and heart goes into what we do.

And that is the one thing I am probably most grateful for.

New future

Gotta love changes! Wisdom’s out (all four!) and a contract teaching Year 8 Humanities and English and Year 10 English (2 classes). I’m loving it and really enjoying the challenge!

Post-session blues

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m all for a break. But I feel like i’m at a loose end. I don’t quite know what to do with myself now that the session is over!

I guess tidying up the black hole that is my bedroom is probably a good start, right?

A change is a good thing!

Well, I’m in for a big September!

Firstly, the assignments due and all the work associated.  But most importantly, I have been offered (and I accepted!) an opportunity to work a four-week contract in a local high school! To protect the privacy of staff and students at the high school, I am not going to name it but I will be teaching Year 11 English and overseeing a Student Teacher with a Year 9, 10 and 12 English class. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time!

I can’t wait and I’ll keep you updated!

Brief interlude and life update

My apologies for interrupting your reading of my module posts but considering my lack of posts last semester, that I am at all half kept up with them is a miracle. So, outside of Uni, what have I been up to?

Professionally, I have been working at OSHC still and working at my retail job. As of this post, I have worked an 8am-6pm day where my patience was pushed almost to my limits. I have also written job applications for three full-time jobs next year and if I don’t get them (chances are small if you want my opinion) I’ll be starting to look for TRT work for next year.

Uni-wise, I have written two blog posts (and actually got them posted!) and am considering bed. But the likelihood of me going to sleep anytime soon is slim. I have kept up with INF533 but am about a module and a case study behind in ETL504. Not too bad if you compare this time last session where I was even more screwed.

Personally, I have battled two colds, a virus, a parasite (don’t ask how I got them, just don’t) and laryngitis. I’ve raced in a Pedal Prix race where I did 15 laps for my team – considering it’s my first year, I’m happy with that. I’m planning for a close friend’s wedding in September, and also for the 24-hour Pedal Prix race the weekend after. However, my first event is Tuesday where I am seeing Hugh Jackman in concert – which I’m am so looking forward to!

Anyway, off to drink my tea and do some work on ETL504. G’night everyone!

Early Childhood and Primary teachers are saints – here’s why.

I’m a secondary trained teacher and yet I work in a primary school OSHC. And it has convinced me that Early Childhood and Primary teachers are saints. I honestly have no idea how they do it.

In terms of the students, I find that I can be blunt with the older students where I need to be more gentle with the younger ones. And the older students tend to appreciate it, which I like.  Also, when they do something silly or out of the ordinary; keeping a poker face is so damn hard. I struggle with it constantly.

They say the most amusing things:

“Miss, why do you wear two necklaces?” – One from my partner and one from my grandparents.

“Do you have kids? Are you married?” – No and no.

“Why do you have two rings on one hand?” – One from my grandparents and one I bought for myself.

There is no way I could cope with constant questions like that. And generally they are asked one after the other, never ending!

Also, how on Earth do Early Childhood and Primary teachers deal with students when they say: “Miss, they’re not going out,” and (my personal favourite) “But Miss, I want to play with them. I don’t want to play with anyone else!” The latter is usually accompanied with tears.

Also, what about the ones who haven’t yet been toilet trained properly? Ouch.

When it comes to the planning of work, I don’t know how they do it. The planning would be insane; especially for multiple areas and if they are in areas that aren’t a strong point. There is no way I could do planning for Math and teach it. Not my strong area at all. And putting Reception to Year 2 students on a spectrum of how comptency – forget it. How you do it when they are constantly learning and changing? I have no clue.

I also feel that the offices and staff room would be a haven. And also that you would be craving intelligent conversation rather than trying to decode what students want/need.

Early Childhood and Primary Teachers, you all are saints. I take my hat off to you.

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