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Goal Setting for Teachers: Let’s Get Real

Hi everyone! Steph here. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately, a few just for fun but most related to education and starting a new business. And I’m wondering if you, like me, find podcast episodes (or articles or social media posts) about how to save time as a teacher and work only your contractual hours more frustrating than helpful. I get their popularity: it’s probably the number one thing most teachers (myself included) want, and we need to be talking about it. Any strategies people can give us to spend less time working are much appreciated.

But what I find frustrating is that so often, this well-meaning advice makes me feel worse rather than better because it doesn’t always acknowledge that you can’t, actually, as a teacher, do the job you want to do during your contractual hours. Of course, we can get better at managing our time. We can be effective teachers while still having boundaries. We can implement systems that make our lives as teachers run smoother. But we cannot, no matter how many systems we have in place, do all the things that are asked of us in the way that we want and are expected to in these hours, and it’s helpful to acknowledge this (and incredibly burdensome when we don’t). 

If you’ve spent any time in the education professional development world, you’ve been urged to work your contractual hours, but you’ve also been urged to communicate with parents, build meaningful relationships with students, provide personalized feedback on regular writing assignments, integrate the newest technology into your curriculum, and regularly update your lesson plans to reflect your students’ needs and cultural conversations. And often, the same people who urge you to work your contractual hours are the same people recommending you do all these other things as well! These are just not tasks that can all be accomplished to our satisfaction during the limited amount of time we have as teachers, and they are certainly not things that can be accomplished to our satisfaction during our 50-minute prep period and our contractual thirty minutes before and after the school day. When we don’t acknowledge this, we create false expectations for ourselves and for other teachers, adding to the burden many teachers already feel as they try to avoid the road to burnout. Do we need to protect our time and make space for ourselves? Yes. But we also need to stop telling each other that it’s possible to excel at all that is being asked of us in the amount of time given to us.

So how do we prioritize? How do we make decisions about the overwhelming number of responsibilities and expectations being placed on us so that we can, in fact, take care of ourselves and our families in a way that allows us to stay in the classroom for the long run?

Yesterday, I listened to an episode of Donald Miller’s Business Made Simple podcast called “How to Have Your Best Year Yet in 2023,” and I would urge anyone trying to set goals for the new semester and wrestling with the overwhelming expectations placed on teachers to give it a listen. Miller’s point in the episode is that if we want to have a good, memorable year, we have to be proactive about it. He provides a straightforward strategy for thinking through our goals for the year, and even better, his strategy allows us to focus on a few priorities instead of trying to do everything. Here are the three steps he recommends:

  • Do your job. What he means here is that we need to know our job description at work and do those things (and only those things), but also that we need job descriptions for the rest of our lives, whether that’s as a parent, partner, or friend, so that we can make the most of the time we have when we aren’t at our 9–5 jobs (or 7:30–3:30 job, as is the case for most of us in this profession).

  • Make a three-item bucket list. What are three things you want to make happen this year that will make it a memorable year? Miller largely talks about this personally (and what a relief that would be to focus on three things in one year instead of feeling the constant guilt of being a poor family member or friend), but it would work in our classrooms as well. Pick three things (units, lessons, strategies, special activities) that you’re going to look back on as highlights of the year and make those amazing while letting the rest be good enough. Sure, you won’t be performing at maximum level every day, but you’ll have three things you can look back on and be proud of about your year.

  • Make a list of three things you’re not going to do this year. What are three habits you can break? What are three lies you’re not going to tell yourself? What are three things on your unreasonable list of responsibilities that you’re not going to worry about? What are three “extra” things your school, students, or personal life asks of you that you’re just not going to do? What are three things you could outsource to someone else instead of stubbornly insisting you must and can do it all on your own (100% something I wish I had learned many years ago)?

Is there something that frustrates you about the conversations around teaching hours? What strategies have you found helpful in prioritizing what you can and can’t do? Reach out to us at [email protected] or to me directly at [email protected], or DM us on Instagram @threeheads.works to continue the conversation. Know a teacher who needs to see this? Share this blog with a coworker so they know they’re not alone.