Blog # 6 - Jennifer Jowers - Chapter 12 You Only Have So Much Time

This chapter was written just for me this school year. I have had the hardest time balancing my roles in life and prioritizing. Before this year, I was a teacher and a wife mostly. Teaching was and always will be my passion, I love it and put my whole self into it as much as possible. My husband married me knowing I was teacher and that his summers would be spent cutting, laminating, decorating, and hot gluing and he has been wonderful about it. He understands my love for the job and supports me wholeheartedly. This July though I added a new role to my life, mom. This awesome little guy now depends on me and my husband for all of his needs. He is my new passion in life and unlike my husband isn’t as willing to share me with my other passion teaching. I have really struggled to balance being a great mom and teacher. I want to get my new center activities laminated and cut out but I also don’t want to miss my son growing up or spending time eating together as a family. This is a new situation that I have never had to deal with and it has been extremely stressful. Many times I have had to just let my outside teaching duties wait so that I can be with my son and I have come to learn that it is ok. My only job is not teacher anymore, it is also mom. Being a mom has made me a better teacher though. I now look at things from a parent point of view. I understand the nighttime struggle to get things done and to spend time with your kids while working and giving your best at everything. I understand that I am going to fail and not get things done like I used to and I am beginning to learn to be ok with it. I am getting better at finding a balance and forgiving myself for slacking on things. I want to have an “interesting life.”

                  This chapter helped me to think about my time in the classroom and determine what was worth extra time and what was just becoming busy work. Making the best of my time helps me to keep my students engaged and gives them more learning time. I try hard to keep from doing any busy work. I want all that they do to be meaningful. Lots of programs that we incorporate often have activities to go with them that are just busy work.

                  This chapter brought up word wall. I had recently seen an article on Pinterest about how a teacher took down her word wall. I was interested in this idea so I read up on her reasoning. She felt like having the word wall on the wall was not as easily accessible as having one students could get their hand on. This is something I really would like to use next year. I feel like my students forget the word wall is there and I have to constantly direct them to it. I am going to create word walls on paper that each table can have access too. This will eliminate unnecessary movement in the classroom as well as make the word wall more accessible.

                  Scheduling this year has been a huge struggle for me. I have to had to go back and reevaluate it several times in order to find enough time to fit in all the things we need to without feeling rushed. The down side to this is that my students have been confused a lot about what we are doing. Luckily my students have been go with the flow about it but they have been frustrated at times, as have I. I like the predictability for my students so they know what expectations I have of them, but I also needed to find a good chunk of time to be able to effectively teach my students.

                  This chapter was great at giving ideas of creating better time and reassuring me that it is ok to skip things if they are unnecessary or to ensure my students get valuable learning time.