Ninja Notes

Let us help you teach like a ninja!

Teacher Mental Health

Are You Feeling Like a Failing Teacher?

by

Do you feel like you are failing your students? Are you struggling to keep up? Come let us help you get through the rough days.

This is the time of year when we question whether or not we can continue teaching. Reflection is important. It’s how we grow, but maybe you’re feeling like a failing teacher.

It doesn’t matter that we have years of experience behind us and the school year is finished, but there’s just something about this time of year that puts us in a funk. Add a pandemic into the mix and there’s even more confusion.

Even more, new teachers really start to question whether or not they can cut it as a teacher. This is the time of year when we tend to field questions from our new-to-school teachers and over and over we hear the same issues.

Maybe some of these sound like you, so before you throw in the towel and quit everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve, please keep reading.

[Read more…] about Are You Feeling Like a Failing Teacher?

Five Types of Teachers and How To Deal With Them

by

One of the most difficult things about teaching is how it can be isolating from one moment to exasperating the next. Dealing with coworkers can be a real challenge. Come read about the different types of teachers and how to deal with them.

Disclaimer: This article is meant for fun. We are not actually criticising anyone or their work ethic, but let’s be honest, we all know these types of teachers. Keep reading for our advice on how to handle it.  

Think about the last staff meeting you attended. It’s time to pass around the volunteer sign-up because it’s going to be a busy month. That’s always the intention, but by the end of the month there are usually a lot of hard feelings and regret over glitter, balloons, and most of all missed class time (because everyone needs to sit around and listen to first graders read their research reports on goats for 45 minutes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?)

[Read more…] about Five Types of Teachers and How To Deal With Them

Teacher Tired Habits to Break

by

If you're tagging #teachertired all the time it's time for you to start changing some habits. We've got some ideas for your wake up call to get your productivity in check and save your personal time.

If you are often tagging #teachertired on your social media posts, then maybe it’s time you stopped joking about it and did something to change. Being tired is part of life, but if you are so tired that you cry in your car on a daily basis, then it’s time to break some bad teacher-tired habits.

This is not about judgment. This comes from love-because we have been there. We have cried in the car. We’ve stress-eaten crappy food. Sometimes we’ve taken out our tiredness in our family relationships. We’ve felt guilty for not being a good enough teacher, not being a good enough spouse, not being a good enough parent and not being a good enough cook (no one said it was rational). We often used humour to joke about how tired we were, but the real problem was that we kept letting it continue.

[Read more…] about Teacher Tired Habits to Break

How to Calm the Chaos in December

by

Don't allow the festive season to cause chaos in your classroom. Check out these tips for how we keep our classroom calm and relaxed during this stressful season.

December can be a great month. It can also be exhausting. Your schedule gets tossed aside for concert rehearsals, bad weather and overstimulation of the little darlings in your care. How do you teach when your whole schedule needs to be tossed? This is our guide to calm the chaos.

There are three whole weeks of learning that are supposed to happen in December, but it can be VERY challenging to fit it all in. Here is what we do to mitigate the chaos.

While December is the month with the most disruptions for us, these ideas can work any time of year.

[Read more…] about How to Calm the Chaos in December

Here is Your Back to School Pep Talk

by

It's back to school season and sometimes you need a good laugh to set the year off right. Come read through some of our favourite teacher stories and get your back to school pep talk.

It’s time to head back to school. There are two types of teachers in the world. There are the ones who cannot wait to get back into the classroom and spend their whole summer break planning and prepping. And they’re the ones who squeeze every last drop of summer out before heading back.

It doesn’t matter which one you are. You can even be a little of both. Loving your students and your free time doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. You are allowed to have mixed emotions.

[Read more…] about Here is Your Back to School Pep Talk

What You Should Do On Break Before Back to School

by

Are you looking for some ways to enjoy your break from teaching? Try out some of these so you are refreshed and ready for back to school.

Teachers are notorious for never really taking a break. We’re super teachers! We never need sleep or downtime or family. Somehow we feel guilty if we don’t spend our whole summers getting ready for the new school year. If that sounds like you and you’re a teacher on break, then this post is for you.

It’s true-we could spend every waking moment working on our classrooms or planning amazing lessons for our students. Should we feel guilty for not spending every weekend slaving over marking or making resources?

Absolutely not. After all these years of teaching, we’ve managed to figure out that it will still work out whether we spend a thousand hours or three. Summer is a well-deserved break. It’s time to rethink the teacher on break mentality.

[Read more…] about What You Should Do On Break Before Back to School