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Last year, I attempted to leave school no later than 3:30 every day. I failed miserably. In fact, unless I had some sort of doctor’s or dentist’s appointment scheduled, I don’t think I left the school at (or earlier than) 3:30 at all. If I was lucky I left at 4:30 and got home in time for dinner.
I haven’t given up on that goal, and I still have it in my sights for this upcoming school year. However I am going for a few practical goals as well:
- Spend less time grading. Preparing, giving, and correcting tests is incredibly time consuming, but I think I may be able to cut down on some of it this year by a) using the same tests as last year and b) not giving tests to four classes on the same day. Last year I taught four sections of the same level so I had to test them all at once. This year I have 3, 1 and 1 so I think I will be able to test different groups on different day and thus, finish grading quicker and get tests back to them quicker. Fingers crossed.
- Have fewer nasty grading-time surprises. Now that I am fairly familiar with the way my school grades, I am hoping there will be fewer technology fails, phantom grades and wasted time actually putting the grades into the computer.
- Spend more of my after-school time on things I like. This goes hand-in-hand with the above goals because I like planning classes and being creative, and I don’t like grading exams and wrestling with the grading software. I also say “spend more time on things I like” because, well, I have pretty much shot my chances of leaving school at a reasonable hour before school even started. I agreed to advice an activity this year. And it is a very time-consuming, labor intensive activity, for both the students and the adviser. Typical teacher that I am, I am taking on even more this year. But that’s okay. It’s an activity that I like, with kids that I like, and I get paid a stipend. And there’s no testing or grading involved!
The 2:30 Project 