Bring Work Home

It’s one of those weekends again. It’s a weekend where I will need to bring work home. I don’t know if most people realize this, but teachers put a lot of work in outside of the classroom. I normally spend three hours every weekend drawing up my lesson plans for the upcoming week. I can sometimes manage to do some of this planning during the school day but most of the times, I need to do it on my own time.

I also spend a lot of my own time conducting extra-curricular activities. I run the choir and a sports program every week. I really love doing both of those things and donate my time freely. I will always run an extra-curricular activity of some sort for as long as I teach. That is a commitment I am unwilling to compromise on. Students have always responded well to my extra programs and that makes it all worthwhile

During my free time at school, I often have to do some paper work, marking, or photocopying. I have to gather materials for art lessons. I sometimes need to make examples of work and assignments so students will know what I expect of them.

I am not complaining here at all. I love my job, but it is hard work. There are aspects of it that I don’t like. I wish I didn’t have to be a police officer and patrol the halls or playgrounds during recess and lunch hours. And it would be nice to not have to bring work home.

There are many other professionals who always leave their work at work. Teachers don’t have the luxury of doing this. I am always a teacher. I am always thinking of ideas for the classroom, materials I can bring in, marking work, putting together report cards, and planning lessons. It is constant. My bag is quite heavy today too, with work that I didn’t have a chance to mark this week. My planning still needs to be done for next week as well. It looks like this will be another typical weekend where I will need to bring work home.