Traits of Teachers Who Are Reducing Their Workload with the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Style
Are you over being overwhelmed? Sick of feeling guilty for abandoning your family to work on school and then feeling guilty for abandoning school to be with your family? Are you ready to finally find balance?
- Commit to making permanent lifestyle changes.
If you want to successfully reduce your workload, you can’t be a “crash dieter” who wants to make a dramatic change for 2 weeks and then falls right back into your old habits. You must be determined to learn more efficient ways of working and implementing those strategies for the rest of your career. - Create routines so the club is a regular part of your life that you prioritize and schedule time for.
For example, some teachers may choose to create a routine on Sunday mornings in which they drink their coffee while reading the strategies and planning for the week ahead. Or every Saturday afternoon, they go for a jog and listen to the content via MP3, then re-read the content to reference it and start implementing ideas when they get home. Others go into work early on Monday morning and listen to the content in the car, then start planning in their classrooms.
The common thread? Dedicate time each week to studying the content of the program and deciding what you want to implement.
- Participate at least once per week in a teaching Facebook group.
This participation is completely optional, but those who join the Facebook group are far more likely to stick with the club and adapt the ideas for their teaching context because they learn from other teachers and get support. - Don’t try to do it all.
Skim through the materials and focus only on the strategies that address your greatest needs, and pick ONE idea to implement each week. Most successful teachers believe that small changes add up to big results!
- Focus on the aspects of your work you CAN control and don’t make excuses.
Most successful teachers do not vent constantly about how much work they have piled on their plates, or view the club content through the lens of why the ideas couldn’t work in their teaching context. We have many teachers who start shaving hours off their workweek the very first week they joined, and without exception, those are the teachers who choose to take risks, think outside the box, and implement new ideas no matter what obstacles they are facing.
The more determined you are to create change in your life, the better your results will be.
The bottom line? If you realize things can’t continue as they are & are ready to commit to change, you’re going to see results with the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Style.
Adeyinka Meduoye
