The life of a new trainee math teacher!😁

In my 1st year of teaching, I lost so much weight. One reasons was working stupendous hours planning lessons and then still worrying about them.

I didn't like school lunches and so, lived on almost oxygen and sleep only!

Until I had had enough. My head got ahead of my body and things weren't looking good!🤭

One day, I was so tired I couldn't think. But I had lessons to prep for the next day and started to panic.

For some reason, a certain brand of chutzpah came over me.

I reasoned, "no one has ever died from doing math on worksheets."

So, as much as anxiety was rising in my belly, I refused to lose sleep planning the night before. I decided to plan my lessons in the morning.

Of course, my sleep was cut and paste, hit and miss.

But would you know, no student was harmed in the making of that day's shows of lesson! What a waow!🤯

Breaking that cycle of late nights, I resolved to have one go-to topic every class could use.

Enter Algebra - Solving Linear & Quadratic Equations!

I learned to pitch it at different levels of difficulty off the cuff that I could teach the same topic both to Year 7 and Year 11 without fancy PowerPoints and print outs.

And since I let go of that burden of over planning, I started to eat and sleep better, getting back to my normal size. And still teaching good lessons.

As a new teacher, settle it in your mind quickly that you'll not get grey hairs from overworking yourself.