Teaching from Home - Sanity Saving Tips
"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best.”
- Bob Talbert
I have been an online teacher for seven years.
Here are some tips to save your sanity:
What a ride, right? If you are a teacher who is used to teaching in a brick and mortar setting and was abruptly thrown in to the world of online education and working from home due to COVID-19, you may be experiencing a lot of unfamiliar emotions, thoughts, and behaviors due to the disruption in your routine.
You are not alone!!!
Many of you are working from home for the first time and I am here to acknowledge that massive shift that needs to happen to have your workspace only steps away from your family and living space. The technology, admin expectations, and student needs can be A LOT to say the least, but when they cross the carpet boundaries and mingle with fixing dinner, doing laundry, and educating your own kiddos, we are treading on thin ice without much time to make a plan.
Don’t worry…. I have been teaching online as work-from-home educator and educational consultant for over a decade, I totally understand how you are feeling right now.
I am here to help!!
Teaching from home during distance learning:
I have been in your shoes. I have gone ahead of you in trying to figure out how to navigate the experience of teaching online and from home. I am not going to attempt to solve your pedagogy or technology problems, but what I do have to offer are solutions to your issues with boundaries, expectations, habits, systems, and self management. While this will look drastically different for each of us, I am incredibly confident that if someone would have shared these suggestions with me, I could have saved myself many hours and a lot of stress.
As a staff developer/learning coach for my district and teaching team, I have shared these strategies and seen the benefits of systems and taking care of yourself. Teaching from home can be challenging in ways that you haven’t experiences before. It can be lonely, never ending and isolating. I could not pass up the opportunity to share what I have learned in an effort to help you stay more sane during this challenging time.
Here’s to you, Online Teachers!
Be Your Own Boss (B.Y.O.B):
If you have ever owned a business or managed a team, you know what it is like to get people to buy in to a cause or a mission. Some people are game changers and others are dead weight. Where do you fall on that continuum? Gears have shifted and you are flying solo for a while. No clean up bells, no intercom announcements. Empty halls and unused supplies don’t have to be deal breakers.
If you have never tasted entrepreneurship, now is your chance! You are now your own boss. You oversee your schedule, your efforts, and this new project called “distance learning.” If you hired a person as an employee, you would expect him or her to be the best employee they could be. You would want them to be consistent, punctual, effective, and take initiative when the need arises. You don’t want to micromanage employees, you want them to see a need and meet it. This is exactly the new order: Be your own boss. Be the employee you would want to hire. Manage yourself, your time, your thoughts, and emotions. Be the best you know how to be. As a CEO it is important that you “meet” with yourself on a consistent basis to check your progress and make adjustments. Keep the commitments you make to yourself, just as you keep commitments that you make to others! You will thank yourself later!
Set and Honor Boundaries:
What pops into your mind when you read the word boundaries? Do you think of physical boundaries? Emotional boundaries? We are experiencing some serious changes in our social boundaries, so maybe that came to mind first.
Regardless of the type of boundary you focus on, it is worth putting some time into identifying them and putting them into place! Taking responsibility for your own actions and emotions and NOT taking responsibility for the emotions and actions of others is a great place to focus. This new online teaching setting presents a massive array of situations and experiences that you would typically be in control of, that are now WAY out of reach. Just as you want to eliminate the urge to take responsibility from others, be sure to be cautious of the opposite urge of wanting to place responsibility for your own emotions and action on those around you.
What do healthy boundaries look like in a “teaching from home” setting?
As an online teacher, you will not have the ability to stand by Johnny’s desk until he complies with your instructions. You will have students who miss EVERY deadline for completing assignments. You will have parents who NEVER read one email you send. THIS FEELS SO INCREDIBLY DEFEATING, but if you expect it from the beginning, you won’t be disappointed. More on expectations later.
Setting clear boundaries as an online teacher means you control you. You do your part, then you let students do theirs. You do all the things you know to do to help your students be successful, then you step back and let them own their learning experience. This is a shift. This shift is necessary to preserve your own sanity. If you continually approach online learning with the, “If I just do one more thing…” mentality, you will be burnt out before you can say, “Corona.” You are the professional. All you need to do is your job. Taking on the job of the learner is a dead end.
Some examples of healthy boundaries:
Setting specific work hours.
Turning off email notifications at the end of your work hours.
Identifying a specific workspace.
Teaching with the company of housemates:
Teaching from home during the COVID19 outbreak means you possibly not the only one working from home. You could have the company (and noise) of a spouse or children who are also working from home. Creating a schedule of uninterrupted work time is a welcomed relief when the goal is being productive at home. Making sure everyone communicates their availability is key!
Using visual cues, such as a door sign, can help housemates respect privacy and quiet work time. It also prevents someone walking in during the last seconds of a five minute video you are creating.
I have A LOT to share, but rather than spend a lot of time putting together and sharing resources I would love to hear from you first. HOW CAN I HELP? What topics will you be tackling during your time online? What LMS are you using? What do you need... Lesson ideas? Canvas help? Projects? Assignments? Ideas? Or... are you all set and ready to go? PLEASE REPLY!!!
