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WHAT I LEARNT ABOUT REST THESE HOLIDAYS AND HOW YOU CAN MAXIMISE YOUR TIME OFF

January 10, 2012  5 Comments

There is no doubt that teacher stress and sickness is a massive issue.  I was looking at some statistics the other day that probably wouldn’t surprise anyone who has been teaching for five or more years:

  • The average teacher has 10 days off a year due to illness (don’t you love it when one of your students comes into class coughing and sneezing!)
  • America spends four billion a year on casual relief teachers
  • In Suffolk teachers accumulated a total of 10 500 sick days in one year (that is equivalent to fifty years teaching time)
  • In some African countries on any typical day as many as 40% of the teaching staff will be absent (imagine trying to staff that)

We all know what is like to return to work after having a vacation and within a day or two feel like you did just before you left!

rest WHAT I LEARNT ABOUT REST THESE HOLIDAYS AND HOW YOU CAN MAXIMISE YOUR TIME OFF

A couple of years ago I was sitting in a leadership conference listening to a world renowned counsellor (Allen Meyer) speak about how to maximise your vacations so that you can return to work refreshed, energised and with the headspace to think clearly.  I had taken bits and pieces of his advice with no real benefit until this Christmas break where I followed his advice step by step.

Here is what I did.

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WHAT’S CHANGING IN 2012?

January 9, 2012  1 Comment

I hope you had a great Christmas break.  I am sparing a thought for the teachers in the northern hemisphere that are already back at work while I enjoy my summer of blue sky and 28 degrees (Celsius that is…)

I am really looking forward to a great 2012!  There are a lot of changes happening this year for me personally and for Teachers Training.

2012 calandar WHATS CHANGING IN 2012?

2011 was a great year of teaching a 0.8 load as well as being on the road speaking in schools and running my own seminars.  By the end of the year I had the privilege of working face to face with 79 schools and approximately 2000 teachers.

So what’s in store for 2012?

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Are Teachers Valued Enough for the Role They Play?

March 2, 2011  5 Comments

Teachers talk allot about their value to the community but is the value of the teacher under fire in their own schools?

As many of you know I teach in Australia, so we start our school year fresh each year.  This year has been one of the hardest starts to a year I have ever experienced!  So far in the first five weeks of this year I have had to deal with:

  • A fight where a knife was produced
  • A girl discovering she pregnant…just not sure which one of the boys in the class is the father…
  • Large numbers of absenteeism which has affected our teaching numbers resulting in constant timetable changes
  • If that is not enough today 3 teachers finding out that their position no longer exists.

And this is all before we begin to deal with the usual challenges that all teachers face.

During this experience I have watched the politics that has surfaced when people are under pressure and their jobs are on the line and have wondered whether the executive actually value their staff, and appreciate the pressure they are under or at the end of the day it is just a numbers game.  I know that the executive were once teachers, but do they remember what it was like to deal with the pressure that ‘ordinary’ teachers face every day?

Now please hear me well.  I am not saying that the executive are heartless and are immune from feeling the pressure felt by the teaching staff, or that they are making these decisions lightly.  But I am saying that a little empathy expressed at appropriate times would probably go a long way towards helping teachers feel like they are a person that matters, not just a number on a spreadsheet.

My experiences this year have caused me to consider the plight of beginning teachers.  The average beginning teacher lasts for 5 years before moving onto another career.  I wonder if one of the contributing factors to them moving on is the lack of respect; not from the students or community but by the ones who rub shoulders with them every day.  It seems to me that teachers are suffering from such low morale that they longer value the role they play or the profession that they are a part of.  As such we allow students to treat us with disrespect, and worse still we don’t value the contribution that the teacher is making down the hall.

It just seems to me that as teachers we have a hard time trying to demonstrate our value to the community, but maybe we need to look in our own backyard first.

What has been your experience?

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