10 THINGS TEACHERS SHOULD START DOING FOR THEIR BETTER SELVES. 

Are you a teacher or have a relative or friend who is a teacher? 

Then this needs to get to them. 

Many thanks to these people in the ditches doing the hard work!

Teachers need to take care of themselves, and not feel an iota of guilt doing so. It's like the advice on the airplanes: you have to secure your own oxygen mask before helping others! 

Need I say to teachers of today, that you're not alone on your teacher journey and it is now so much easier for you to learn from your fellow teachers who have walked down that road before you. 

First, you have to protect your heart and your mindset from negativity! You definitely will be confronted with lots of negative or discouraging comments. 

That done, open your mind to productive and proactive ideas that can get you moving on that success ladder. 

1) EMPTY YOUR BLADDER ON TIME

Are you surprised? Don't try to laugh hard or you might wet your pants because you are most likely having a full bladder already. 

Your school bathroom/toilet is definitely not built miles away. No, it's usually not a journey. No matter how far it may be, train your pupils to be engaged with something to keep them busy while you are away.  This may sound funny. But, you may need to enlighten, or say, preach, to your students on the need for you to go for a convenience break as they do too. You both deserve that same right. Not having to empty the bladder has the same negative effect on both of you. They sure will agree that they don't want to see their teacher on sick bed.  From there, you can push it to them that you want to be able to trust them to be well behaved when you leave the class. 

Although, leaving the classroom might not work for everyone, so get a plan in place that allows you to stop holding your urine. Call on the teacher next door to step in for you and monitor your classroom. Usually, they have theirs too right? But they can just peep in to sound a warning to the students before heading back to their class. Just like  "I mustn't hear a sound from here. I'm watching you from my quarters..." 

Another way to get around this {maybe obviously} is to make sure you go to the rest room during the break times, short break and lunchtime, when the students are off to theirs as well. 

2)  DRINK ENOUGH WATER. 

There's probably a 'genuine' reason you drink less water: you don't want to have to go wee all the time.  I used to do this too. But when I remember there's a convenience room where I'm going, I ignore the temptation of not wanting that sweet tasteless fluid called water. To be candid, you don't plan to teach for years (no matter how short or long) without drinking enough water. You will wrnkle like a raisin. No one wants to age more than their age. Drink water. Your priority is taking care of your health, so that you can be there for you students. Drink water, wee, rinse, repeat!

3) MAKE YOUR WEEKENDS FOR YOURSELF OTHER THAN PLANNING FOR THE WEEK ONLY. 

You probably have heard of Parkinson's law. It states that "Work expands so as to fill the time available for it's completion."

 

If you think that you are spending the weekend planning your lessons will  probably make you have time for other things (like hobbies, friends, eating, and taking care of yourself), then that  planning will use up all the time in your weekend. This will get you burnt out and make you resent yourself. Focus on the first steps, then the rest will take care of themselves. 

Take an instance of you wanting a fun filled engaging class. You need to plan the lesson, the note, instructional aid, et al. A hint is, from the topics, you'll know or at least guess what your teaching aid will be. 

A weekend when you have to do so much to prepare—grade papers, think about everything that you need to do and plan to teach in the upcoming week, read some books to get a better grasp on what you want to teach, review the subject book and outline your sequence of lessons, read all the books you'll be using for reference, and on and on - is in fact, not possible. 

This is why, the very first quality of a good Teacher is the mastery of the subject. With this, the workload will be much lesser. 

4) PLAN YOUR TIME. 

 Truth is, just like the Parkinson's law, that work fills the time allotted to it, you need to plan and fill specific times with your activities. You should decide and design specific days and times that you will take care of each aspect of your teaching responsibility. 

Have a to-do list and fix your times with activities that are of priority. Just like you doing a scale of preference, those of priorities come to the top of the list. 

You can make use of your Google calendar to do this. It allows you to organize your to-do list by which day of the week that an activity would really be important and which time of the day you would need to work on it—morning before school or afternoon after school. You can set how many minutes you want to be reminded before your appointed time. 

With this organization, you will know your to-do's and worry about the tasks that are of priority. This will save you from the "never-ending" to do list or even not knowing when to do what. 

5) PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR CHILDREN AS WELL. 

It definitely may be hard to manage other people's children and have a view or time to monitor yours especially during school hours. But truth is, (I think I'm saying this more often 😊) Teaching is the number 1 profession that gives you that luxury of time for your children. First thing to take care of is you - your attitude towards your work and other children. Good attitude towards other people's children pays off on yours. 

When you get home, you have all the time together. Don't ignore them. Have a gist together and always ask about their day. 

For nursing mothers, have your babies in a trusted creche if your school has none. Make time for your baby during lunch time if it is not up to a year yet and still dependent on breast milk. 

6) MAKE TIME FOR REGULAR EXERCISE. 

Even if it is just 2minutes every other day, it's important to exercise your body. It is hard to make the time but we need to make regular exercise a part of our lives so that we are healthy for ourselves, our family, and our students as well.

7) FORGIVE YOURSELF FOR HAVING  AN IDEA THAT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO IMPLEMENT. DON'T FEEL GUILTY

As teachers, I know we have lots of creative ideas. Jot them down for another time and just be okay with the fact that you are human and you can't always do every idea you come up with right away. Don't beat yourself. 

8) DECIDE ON THE DAYS WHEN YOU'LL STAY LATE. 

Don't stay late every single day. Decide on probably two days a week that you will stay late. Like a day for your weekly meeting and another day or two to do things. As for other days, make sure to finish up before time. 

How do you make this work? Mentally plan that ONE thing you will get done before you leave. Try your best to get it done or near completion, and leave at probably 4 pm no matter what. Hey, this even means that you have to be packing up your things before 4 pm to get out of the door on time. Do IT!

9) HAVE SNACK TIME! 

Next to fixing in a regular exercise is having a diet! Have at least two snack times - morning snack and afternoon snack. Your body needs food every 2½ - 3 hours. This is how you train your metabolism to stop hoarding food (as fat) in your body and to trust that YOU will feed it consistently, regularly, and routinely. Now your metabolism can burn fat for you and your blood sugar (and all the other good things) will stay stable.

If you are worried about your school head walking in when you are grabbing your snack, have a designated snack time (5 or so minutes with your students to give yourself a chance to eat.) say around 9:30am and 2pm.

So, everyone is having the break together. The logic behind this is that, the brain works more than   what you give it. The body also does a lot of work. If you are able to calculate your calorie intake, you'll realise that you're not getting enough and this causes a great part of your fatigue and burn out. 

Stop starving yourself ! 

10) HAVE A SCHEDULED MEDICAL CHECK-UP 

 You still need to put yourself as a priority despite your passion for your profession. You need to make time to see your doctor and make your appointments for when they are convenient for you. Leave a formal notice for the school, days before the date to leave a little early or come in a little late. Doing this twice a year is not too much. You don't have to wait till your summer break and you won't have to interrupt your vacations for these appointments. You should and can do it. Don't ever think you don't need this. Your health comes first before any other thing or person. 

Hey teachers!  hard-headed, unassailable , world builders! I hope you'll listen to me and start making these changes for your better self. 

You're just too amazing not to take care of yourself if other people don't know how much you mean to them. 

But do know, whether they admit it or not, you're still great of all time. 

So, I do hope you start taking care of your big kind heart, guard your personal time, prioritize your health, and create routines that help you plan faster and leave work on time. This might just be what helps you make it to the end and you will still be the hero that you are even if all-the-things in your classroom are not perfect.

 I'm sure I've left some important things off this list because really, It's better just keeping it short and not bulky. If something really important came  to mind as you read this, kindly drop it in the comments and help out other teachers with your advice!

  -ChiGod

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See the before and after picture below …

nengi before teeth surgerynengi after teeth surgery

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