Time Management

It can often be stressful with all the to-do's that come with being a teacher - making dreaded copies, creating stimulating lesson plans, meeting with wonderful parents, holding much-needed tutorials, to name a few. For students, between the academic demands of the classroom, extra-curricular activities, and a social life, it can also be difficult to fit in time to get that extra study-time in or finish that final homework assignment. 

Luckily, there are many strategies that can be used to effectively manage and spend your precious time. Here are ten useful tips, courtesy of Entrepreneur.com:

1. Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You'll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.

2. Any activity or conversation that's important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they're unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.

3. Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.

4. Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you're doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having "office hours." Isn't "office hours" another way of saying "planned interruptions?"

5. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.

6. Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what's missing in your next call or activity?

7. Put up a "Do not disturb" sign when you absolutely have to get work done.

8. Practice not answering the phone just because it's ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.

9. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.

10. Remember that it's impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.

Citation: (http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219553).

Why Do We Need English Class?

Sitting in an English class is not an excuse to take a 45 minute nap. At least, it shouldn't be. Taking an English class is not simply reading a short story or writing a persuasive essay. Of course, these activities do take place. Yet, an English classroom contains so much more. It is a space where students from all across the world come together for a brief time each day, learning to express themselves through multiple mediums and honing their own voices, both spoken and written. (I am not being hyperbolic, for my own classroom contains scholars from Nepal, Honduras, Cuba, Congo, Vietnam, Taiwan, I could go on...) This diversity brings classroom discussions alive.

When we teach English, we are not just bestowing lessons on syntax, diction, metaphor, or onomatopoeia. Nor do we simply thrust upon our students boring, dry books, "the classics," in the hopes of lulling students to sleep or creating future English graduate students (we know, we are a poor and dying breed). Rather, we hope that students leave our walls remembering the stories that come out of our world's histories, be they from America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, or Asia. That they have the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of those whose struggles have been penned and printed, even if they cannot quite yet relate. Or, at the very least, find a place where they can pen their own individual thoughts (with proper grammar, of course) and express themselves through writing when they thought they never could. 

I leave you with a brief video that hopefully inspires you to continue reading, writing, and learning, whether it be in the classroom or outside.

                                                            "How and Why We Read"