Whoever said that teaching has to be hard work? Well speaking from experience, it is. You go in early than you're supposed to. Your planning is barely enough to scrape...
Stop Working and Start Teaching >>
Whoever said that teaching has to be hard work? Well speaking from experience, it is. You go in early than you’re supposed to. Your planning is barely enough to scrape together anything resembling a lesson. 
You leave later than you’re supposed to. Then you work once you’re at home. You wake up the next morning having dreamed about tomorrow’s lesson. That’s a whole lot of work, and the craziest part is that the actual teaching comes second to the work.
You know what I’m talking about. Instead of having time to really tutor a student on a concept, you’re too busy picking up paper, doing attendance, fussing at Billy for using his cell phone, trying to show the fourth student in a row how to work a pencil, and all the while repeating the same thing twenty times. During all of this other nonsense you’re supposed to be educating tomorrow’s brightest and finest. Excuse me while I roll in the floor laughing.
The Epiphany
However, the situation seemed unavoidable to me. Fortunately I came across a very simple idea that has made a world of difference for me. I came about this revelation via reading an amazingly boring book by Fred Jones called Tools for Teaching (You’ll have to excuse me for calling it boring, but it is a very repetitive read. I think it could be shortened to a few bulleted points and be just as affective as the 300 page manual). Jones truly shines in his simple yet insightful one liners. It was after reading one such quip that I had the epiphany.
“It is not your job to work yourself to death while the students watch. It is your job to work the students to death while you watch.”
It was at this point that I felt really stupid. Why didn’t I think of that? I didn’t even need an explanation; it just made sense. The reason it felt like I was doing so much work was because I was! Not only was I taking care of the planning and the assessment and the attendance, but in many cases I was even doing the actual project via the student’s hands. I had to stand behind them and walking them through it after I had done the same thing with ten other students.
My Experience
I began trying delegation out this week. Instead of doing my normal routine of running around like a circus act, I sat back and delegated. Now don’t get me wrong, I still did the things I was responsible for. I didn’t just sit with my feet propped up behind my desk. I am by no means advocating the lazy “teaching” I experienced in high school. I think we’ve all had a class like that – where the teacher uses a worksheet as a lesson and then lets the students grade it. Rather I took the repetitive, meaningless work and let a student do it.
To my amazement they did it! Not only did they do it, but they did it better than I could do it. Normally I was trying to do too much, but giving one of those tasks to a student allowed them to focus. Suddenly I had time to teach the good stuff, instead of teaching someone how to sharpen a pencil every five minutes!
Delegation at Work
As an example, I had a project planned for my fourth block class in which the students had to execute a multi-step process. Normally I would have been running back in forth between students to try to manage the chaos. In the end, none of the students would get it right, and I would be exhausted.
This time I took the approach of delegating. In first block, I had a student draw a visual instruction plan (thank you again Mr. Jones) detailing the steps needed to complete the process. This student was already finished with their work and bored. It was a task that would have eaten nearly all of my planning. The student jumped at the chance to be doing something, and he completed it was great enthusiasm. The plan was excellent, and what really surprised me was that he was willing to do more!
I have been using students more and more as the week has passed, and my feet have hurt less and less. Even better I really feel like I have a chance to teach! I am so happy at the beginning of every class now. Maybe I’m just crazy, so help me understand. Do you have an experience similar to mine? Describe how your day normally goes in the classroom.
Published April 6, 2010 by Nathan
teachingequals >>
April 6, 2010 at 1:12 am
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Phil >>
April 6, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Wise words, friend. I especially liked the mention of the visual instruction plans. If we don’t capture this concept as teachers, and let the kids dictate our work, rather than us dictating theirs, burnout is not far from us.
Nathan >>
April 11, 2010 at 1:58 am
I’m sure we’ve had similar experiences in the related arts. What do you find more difficult: inspiring creativity or teaching techniques?