Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years of teaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host, him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need
Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers you don't want to just survive teaching,
but actually thrive. As a teacher, I find the end of the school
year as both a time for excitement and dread. Excitement because hey, we're
almost done with this school year and we're really close to summer break. But
dread because things can get really hectic and it can be super stressful if you
don't plan for it correctly, because there are so many factors that are out
of your control that can throw a wrench in your normal routine. In today's
episode, I'm going to be talking about surviving the end of the school year
so that you don't actually hate life as you're dragging yourself across the finish line.
I know that as a teacher it's really hard sometimes to do this whole
end of the school year thing, especially if you're a new teacher, because
you don't know what to expect. A lot of times we forget that we're
supposed to do certain things, and a lot of things pylon unexpectedly. So
I really believe in being proactive about the end of the year rather than reactive.
So the first thing that you need to consider when planning for the end
of the school year is your school's calendar and activities. So what are the
end of the year activities that you have to participate in? So these could
be any kind of class or grade level parties, any kinds of promotions or
graduations celebrations. Maybe you guys have finals or testing, or maybe you guys
have like some kind of textbook or chromebook or I pad return that everyone has
to participate in. So these are things that have already been predetermined. So
basically, you want to use whatever calor that you have and input these dates
because you have to participate in these. And then you have to look back
at the bigger picture. How much time do you actually have for instruction,
how many instructional days are left between right now and the very last day of
school, because that's going to determine what you can actually teach. And then
you have to also think about what do you still need to teach? Are
there any things that maybe you're going to be testing or assessing somehow towards the
end of the month or end of the school year that you still have yet
to cover. So that's going to give you a better picture of what can
do. But this is not so that you panic and freak out because you
haven't covered everything, but so that you can be really strategic in terms of
what you're going to teach next. Now, you might have to be realistic
because maybe you don't have time to cover everything. You mean, it happens
to all of us, especially if you're a newer teacher. So hit the
big things that you know you're going to be assessing, or especially things that
they're going to definitely need in the next grade. You can hit those and
reteach them and cover them again so that you make sure they remember it when
they move on to the next grade. Also, you want to consider any
end of the year types of tasks that your administration wants you to do.
So this could be any repair requests, So maybe there are things that have
been broken that you know are going to get repair hopefully repaired over the summer.
And then are there any supply requests that you might need And it's going
to take some time for them to take care of that over the summer sometimes,
and some schools and districts they have some money at the end of the
school year and they want to make sure they spend it all. So if
that's your situation, then definitely give those requests in that you can get more
supplies for next school year. Also, sometimes teachers are required to pack up
their classroom so that the custodians can do a deep cleaning like mopping, or
maybe like vacuum me and shampooing the carpets and dusting things like that. So
if you do have to do that, the end of the school year is
a great time to have your students help you pack ups that you don't have
to do it all by yourself. Now, obviously you don't want to trust
them with anything really fragile or with any kinds of files with students names on
them, but you know, you can have them take boxes of markers or
pens and things like that, or paper and put it into cupboards or in
shelves for you, and that would actually save you a lot of time.
The next thing that you want to consider when planning for the end of the
school year is your expectations, and so I really encourage you during this time
to modify your expectations. Don't necessarily do everything that you had planned if it's
going to stress you out and create a ton of work. I used to
do this in the past, where I would have some kind of a project
or something major for them to do at the end of the school year,
and I thought it was great because it was like this culminating thing to really
show me what they've learned. But then I had to grade it. The
kids wanted to know what they got on it, or they want to to
present it or something like that. With all the other activities that I mentioned
before the school requires you to do, I just didn't actually plan time to
grade it, or assess it or even look at it. So maybe question
whether that you need to do all the things that you'd hope that you could
do at the end of the school years, especially some things that you tend
to have more fun with, and maybe next year you can plan it better
so that you start earlier it. Don't stress yourself out at the end of
school year, And if there are things that you are required to do,
you don't have to do it at one hundred percent you can do it at
fifty percent effort. And maybe you have to give these particular assignments, well
maybe you don't grade all of those assignments. Maybe you don't grade the entire
assignment. Maybe instead of it being individual work, it's just a plast work.
That way, you can ease the stress and all the stuff that you
need to do in the end of the school year when frankly you're burned out.
How I think of it is if you work out, you can probably
relate to this where if you work out too hard, too much, your
body doesn't have any time to recover and it starts to hurt. It's because
it's your body telling you that you're doing too much. And so if you
can't even think straight at the end of the school year, and if you
are seriously burnt out, then stop adding more stuff to your plate that's going
to create a lot of work. Simplify everything that you're doing, and don't
feel like a bad teacher about it, because you did your job for the
other months of the school year and now what we want to focus on is
just like making it through. So again, this includes any kind of projects
that requires a lot of managing or grading you can still do some really great
project based learning at the end of the school year, as long as you
make it so that they're not too convoluted, they're not too complicated. And
I'm actually going to be making an episode about project based learning in general,
but especially at the end of the school year, so be sure to click
that subscribe button so that you don't miss up on that episode. Finally,
if you can avoid teaching new concepts unless you absolutely have to for testing purposes
or because you're just required to students at this time of the year, you
probably know this. They're not really sponges anymore and they're not really ready to
learn anything new. Plus, are you really going to have enough time to
practice it this late in the year, So I would avoid teaching something brand
new unless you absolutely have to. The next thing that you need to consider
when planning for the end of the school year is just having a lot of
empathy. Empathy for yourself and empathy for your students. Now, first of
all, we need to acknowledge the fact that during this time of year,
the kids are going to be different for multiple reasons. For one, they're
pretty much at the end of whatever their current grade is, and they're starting
to become whatever the next age where the next grade is. So, for
example, I have seventh graders, they're not really seventh graders anymore. In
May, they're starting to behave and act like eighth graders. And so they're
going to be a little bit different, and that's something that you should anticipate
and something that you shouldn't fight. You're not going to seem normal during this
time of year. They're also going to be need forget out and completely checked
out, well most of them, And so you have to ask yourself,
is this the time to hit them with something really heavy, the really complicated
learning when you know that they don't have the mental capacity, and let's be
honest, neither do you. I know you're frint out. I know that
you also need this upcoming break, So why would you torture yourself and your
students by doing anything really hard? If you don't want to do a lot
of work, then why are you giving them a lot of work? So
again, have some empathy because at one point in time, you were in
their shoes and you were going through this as well. So if you can
relate to that, then don't do it to them. If you didn't want
it done to you. So this means matching activities to your students energy levels.
So sometimes at the end of the year, students are crazy, they're
hyper, they're running all around place, and they just want to get that
energy out. So you might have to do something that's more tactile, where
they're actually making something or solving a problem together, again like project based learning
as opposed to sitting and listening to lecture. On the other hand, if
your students are really lazy and burned out and they don't have a lot of
energy, then maybe it's the time for them to do something that's a little
bit quieter, some more individual practice or some group practice that doesn't require them
to have to get up and move around when you can tell that they don't
want to do that. I also suggest reframing student behaviors at this time.
So you might have a student who has rubbed you the wrong way this entire
year, and that last month of school they're going to really start to annoy
you. I can tell you this from experience, and so how I get
over this every year because I stopped thinking of them as being annoying. I
just think of them as just being a kid. Even if they're a senior,
they're still not quite an adult. I mean, they probably couldn't adult
very well on their own, and they're just reacting to their emotions and hormones
in the environment. So I would just start to try to reframent this last
month of school so that they don't drive you crazy. I had a student
last year who was an eighth grader, and they would not stop talking the
entire year. They were one of those students that would talk to everyone no
matter what group I put them in. They would talk across the room.
They were really loud when they came in, and they usually came in late,
and so I just had to reframe how I saw their behavior because otherwise
we would just need budding heads the whole time, and I would hate coming
to school every day and so what this looks like? Instead of thinking,
oh, God, so and so it's coming right now? Am I going
to make it through the day, or oh I can't wait till they go
home. Instead of thinking of them that way and making the assumption that they
are going to annoy you, assume that they're going to be awesome. And
I know that's really hard, but assume that they are going to be like
your favorite student, and eventually, I hate to say this, they're going
to start behaving that way. They're not going to necessarily be your favorite student,
but you're going to see a change in them because you were approaching them
differently and they're going to approach you differently. And even if it's short lived,
just for this last month of school, it's still going to make that
last month so much easier. The next thing you want to consider, what
preparing for the end of the school is how you're going to set everyone up
for success. So as I mentioned before, what this looks like is not
giving difficult work when you have also checked out and are burnt out and tired.
So don't give students a packet of thirty pages while you sit at your
desk staring at your screen. Not fair. They're burnt out and so are
you. I also wanted assign work that's going to be difficult to create,
So again I have talked before about how to grade quickly and how to grade
less, so take those to heart, especially during this time of the year.
Don't give them these multi part assignments that you have to actually like look
at every single part in order to see if it's correct, give them easy
assignments, or even better, give them group assignments, or just something that's
going to be really simple so that you don't have to do war work when
you got a lot on your plate. It's also a really good time to
find fun and meaningful assignments for students to do. I like to do a
lot of reflection type assignments where they look back at how they've done and write
about how they've grown in certain areas. I give them a list of areas
of growth and say, hey, which when you think you're better at right
now. So things like that where it's really low barrier to entry, where
the students aren't stressed out about it, and it's more personal and they can
put a little more of their personality into it, and they're a lot more
engaged that way, which honestly makes your GOP easier. If you know that
the final is going to be really difficult, if you have a final at
the end of the year, they focus on activities that will really prepare them
for it, so they'll be a little bit stressed out. In the past,
I've given them question stems from the final, and I've let them break
the questions sum down so that they can see if they even understand what's being
asked, it'll give them the real question. But when you do that,
when you give them the question part of it, then it allows them to
see if they understand it. If they don't, then you can give a
feedback. That way, when they take the real final, they're less stressed
out and they're more likely to be successful. Because something that's also kind of
scary is if a bunch of people fail your finals and then it lowers their
grade significantly, then you're going to get a lot of parents emailing or calling
or just visiting you out of the blue because they're upset about their kids grades.
And of course, just remember that every class and every grade is different
in terms of what they need at the end of the school year. So
maybe even talk to your colleagues and ask them how their students typically behave this
time of year, so that you can be proactive and you can set you
and your students up for success so that you're not dragging yourself across the finish
line. So I hope you have some ideas now on and how to set
yourself up for success and your students so that you can have a great end
of the year. If you have any other suggestions, let me know so
I can pass it on to everyone else and send me an email. I
put the link in the show notes. Have a great recivere week, and
I will see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Teachers Need Teachers
podcast. Love this episode, head over to Apple podcast Ask or Google Play
to subscribe, rate and leave a review.