The time to relax
is when
you don't have time for it
- Sidney J. Harris

This page is still under construction.

A lot of resources will tell you the most important thing that you have to do in order to teach, they might say that you have to make a good lesson plan or that you have to make a presence in the room or many other things. Of course that's all correct and these are important factors.

But the most important factor of all is to be rested.

Now I'm not recommending that you don't do the other things. You have to do all of these factors. But the truth of the matter is that if you come in with a very bad lesson plan or no lesson plan at all, you can, if you're a reasonably good teacher, you can manage with the class if you're rested.

On the other hand if the situation is reversed you're going to flop.

On other words if you have a very good lesson plan but you're tired it's not going to work.

On the other hand if you are rested but you have a poor lesson plan you'll probably be able to manage and you'll survive the class. The class will turn out to be reasonably well.

That's the single most important factor.

If you're not rested the days that you're not rested you're going to find the discipline in your class is going to be very poor. Sure, you'll blame the kids, you'll blame a whole lot of other issues but the bottom line is the fact of the matter is that the problem is not the kids, the problem is the fact that you weren't rested and that's what's causing the kids to act up.

When you're rested you're more interesting, the lesson flows more smoothly, you cover things in more rapid fire order, and you can control the class. You can also explain things an issue, concept, and present the concept in a much more successful way when you are rested than when you are tired.

When you're tired your brain is also tired. You don't think as well and you can't get your ideas across as successfully.

So the bottom line is follow all the other guidelines and rules that everybody else has always suggested. They are valid and they are important and you're going to have to do all of those things anyhow.

But when all is said and done none of those are going to work unless you're rested.

And if you don't follow those things those guidelines but you are rested then you have at least done the minimum in order to be able to succeed reasonably well in your classes that day.

In more practical terms if you in practical terms let's take the following situation:

It's late at night. You haven't prepared your class yet. And you're tired. What should you do?

The answer is go to sleep. If you go to sleep then you'll have a chance of succeeding the next day. If you prepare the lesson, no matter how good it is and you're even more tired you will not be able to succeed the next day.

Of course you can't do this too often. You should prepare the lessons for every single class and you should be rested.

However that works in an ideal world and the world is not as ideal as we would like it to be and sometimes it's impossible to get all of the sleep that we would like to get so this gives you the options of how to deal with things in such a less than ideal world.