I’ve learned as a teacher that the more I help others, the less time I have to complete my assigned daily work. Pretty much, school systems are set up to punish the helpful. I hope that’s not intentional.
Pretty much, the more I teach, the more I realize that I’ve got to close my door and block the window if I want to get my work done. And I hate that idea very, very much, but I find myself more and more in that mindset.
How do y’all deal with that? How do you keep your door open, yourself available to help, and still get everything done?
Bud, Since I’m not in a school everyday I can’t answer your question. But I want to point something out to you. You do help other people, myself included, when you blog. Blogging is definitely a part of collaboration and different people choose to collaborate in different ways. I for one very much enjoy your blog and am glad that this is one way that you’ve chosen to contribute.
Andrew Pass
http://www.Pass-Ed.com/blogger.html
WOW-this post really resonates with me as my teachers start to return to the building in preparation for the school year. I had the luxury all summer of actually completing projects that I start in a reasonable time as opposed to the school year when I look at my computer or desk at around 4:30 pm and see something I started at 8:35 am. Lots of days, people are lined up three deep and I figure I need one of those machines at the deli counter. I’ve got no answers for you and I’m pretty good at materials and time management. I guess it’s a good sign–if no one ever stopped in for anything, we’d have to figure we weren’t very approachable. But how often is it something they really could solve on their own if only they applied the energy instead of asking us to solve it? I just figure that my job during the school day is people and I use the couple of hours after most leave and before the evening’s sporting event to manage my work load.
It’s hard to find a balance, especially since I knew that by helping my colleagues I was also helping their students.
Eventually, the helping took over and became a full-time job. At first I thought I missed teaching until I realized that I was still a teacher only now with an older (albeit somewhat crankier 🙂 class.
However, you’re not wrong about schools punishing the helpful. I’m lucky to work for a district that recognizes the need to hire extra help for the teachers. Not enough, of course, but certainly more than many systems.
I became a principal because I thought I was actually half-decent at the helping thing. 🙂
I too have been out of the classroom a few years now. But one of the reasons that I left the classroom for my current position was due to the fact that I could no longer teach effectively and provide the support the school wanted/needed. I would have teachers coming to or sending students to my classroom several times a day. It came down to the point where I not only had to close my door, but lock it and not answer to knocks so that I could work with my students without interruption. I basically gave up my before and after school planning time to give support to the staff. It became a physical, mental, and emotional drain. The one thing I regret is that I let it affect my classroom as much as I did.
So it sounds like I need to leave the classroom to be helpful? Interesting.
My solution was simple, work longer hours. I try to be at school around 7 (we start with kids at 9). During this time I do all of my planning, gathering resources, etc. During the day when my kids are out of the room at phys ed, home ec, etc. I try to do any marking (as people flow in and out of my room looking for stuff, help, advice, etc. and then in the evenings I try to keep up with kids blogs, wiki work, etc. Not a perfect solution by any means, but one I live with…
Hi Bud,
Seems like we’re all in the same untenable situation. Six years ago I worked as a special ed teacher in a jr. high. I spent most of my prep periods helping teachers with technology, did staff development at lunch, had a web club and a student tech help club. While I did get a VERY small stipend for the web club, the rest was on my time. I got to the point where I was working a job and a half.
When the opportunity arose to go into technology full-time, I jumped at it because it’s my passion, and because the position still allowed my to work with kids. I’m now back in the classroom teaching 5th grade because there’s been a 3/4 reduction in full-time technology facilitators in my district. While I’m grateful to be employed, and lucky to be in a district with ample hardware, I’m again in your situation.
The day before school was to start, when I was scrambling to get the final touches on my room, I had three people asking me for technology support. I finally got to a point where I had to say no. For those of us tech evangelists who love technology and understand its power as a teaching and learning tool, it’s difficult to refuse any one’s request for assistance. However, there does come a point where we need to balance the needs of our class (what we’re paid to do well) and our families and home life, with the desire and joy that comes with seeing other’s technical skills grow. For me, new to a grade level, my answer has to be “no” more often than “let me help”. It is an incredibly difficult decision to make; collaborating with teachers is what I enjoyed most about my former position!
Have office hours. I know this is more of a college thing but we have it set up so that we can do be helpful at certain times and get the 5 billion other things we need to do done at other times.
This won’t work for emergencies but I might organize things some, and it might help you not feel so guilty saying no. You can only do so much and still remain effective.
We are fortunate enough to have a school-based tech coordinator. The problem is that she is not always talking “teacher” language. You have a variety of learning styles with our faculty. Some are relatively hesitant technology users while others are fairly geeky users. I am a geeky user therefore teachers come to me to get pointers because I don’t speak geek to them. I do have to shut the door. I have started making “lesson plans” for my planning time. I just tell them that I would be glad to help, but I have several goals to accomplish in the period. I have started suggesting to department heads that if they will give me thirty minutes at their department meeting, I can answer all of the questions at once. Nobody takes me up on that. Of course, eventually I end up resenting the tech coordinator a bit since she gets paid to do the training. As long as I can give a justifiable reason as to why I am too busy at the moment, I don’t feel so guilty.