You cannot do it all.

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Home : 2003 : January : 3

You cannot do it all.
By Judy

Hello V, Stop doubting your teaching ability! To take a class that two other teachers left and stick with it takes a great deal of effort. I am just a second year teacher but I can tell you things that helped me. I know
the planning can be overwhelming. It really helped me to take a weekend and get all of the standards for the year and plot out a rough timeline of what I needed to teach. I started out planning week to week but then changed to unit to unit and it helped me out a great deal. Also, remember that you are one person doing a job that could keep twenty people busy. Do not try to do it all

this year. Those 15 bulletin boards you want to make, pick out 3 of them to do this year and let the others wait until summer. If there is another teacher in your grade level that seems very organized, ask her if you can spend 15 minutes one day a week asking her questions and getting advice. Do not be scared to ask for help. Also, send home in one of your newsletters that you would love to have a parent to cut out things, etc for you and see if you get any volunteers. With setting limits, I had a hard time doing that also. I had to stop staying late after school becuase I just visited with other teachers and did not get any work done. I started going in early instead and it made a big difference. I had almost free reign of the copy machine early in the morning and could get the room together before the kids showed up. I had a friend that is a principal tell me one time that the only person learning in a new teacher's classroom is the teacher. He was just joking but sometimes I felt that he was right. Some words of wisdom that a local newspaper writer put down as his resolution, "I have a job to support my family, not a family to support my job." Remember to take care of you so you are ready to take care of the kids. Good luck! and please forgive the misspellings.