Time asked time how much time time has.
Time responded to time that time has as much time as time has time.
1) To start the conversation
Time is this fleeting and ephemeral dimension that seems to escape our control and slip away like sand between our fingers.
Cronus, the god of time, is the son of Heaven and Earth. He is such a supreme figure that he is the father of Zeus, the chief of the Olympian Gods. The Romans called Cronus Saturn.
Time is considered immutable and we were all astonished when Einstein came to say that time is... relative. If I travel at the speed of light, time passes more slowly for me than for someone standing still.
Einstein, in his patent office, must not have had a very busy life to come to this conclusion. In fact, it seems that time passes more quickly for those who are running from one place to another. But the truth is that in my daily tasks I have never traveled, not even close to the speed of light...
The secret to mastering time is to make it tangible, or at least visible.
For a teacher to manage time, it is necessary to take into account the various cycles.
It is worth remembering that our calendars depend on two important stars: the Sun and the Moon .
The solar cycles give rise to the year and the day , but the Moon gives rise to the month in an approximation of 28 days. Dividing this number by the 4 phases of the Moon (28:7) gives the week, a basic cycle for work in schools.
In fact, school schedules are based on the week .
The school has two main actors to intervene: students and teachers .
2) Teacher's time management
Time 01P - The school year
Therefore, a teacher's time management must begin with a global view of the school year divided into months.
It is necessary to have a global vision of the school year. On an A4 sheet it is necessary to put the entire school year from September of the current year until August of the following year.
There we will mark the interruptions, the moments of mid-term and end-of-semester assessments.
On a single sheet, an overview.
Time 02P - The month
Then there are the monthly calendars, month by month, for each teacher individually, but also to share in the staff room.
It is an intermediate unit that reflects the time of year we are in. In fact, talking about December or May has a completely different psychological impact.
In Portugal, schools were deeply tied to the religious calendar. With the school year divided into three periods, the last period would sometimes be very long, sometimes extremely short.
The separation into semesters gave a different dynamic to school rhythms.
Time 03P - 30 weeks in one go
Here we have an annual calendar divided into weeks, but on a single A4 sheet, with school breaks and holidays marked.
There are around 32 complete weeks in a school year in Portugal.
School activities, whether teaching units, various projects or the most diverse activities, need to be planned weekly.
It is a painful moment, predicting how to divide the school year into teaching units or to mark the various projects taking into account the time in which they will occur and their duration. It is here that we become aware that time is going to be short. Have we already traveled at the speed of light without realizing it?
With a pencil and ruler it is a distressing task, I assure you.
If the teacher has few classes, each class will have one of these sheets.
Time 04P - The dictatorship of the week
Then comes the more detailed planning, but still on an annual basis on 5 A4 sheets, properly glued together, covering the entire school year from September to June, with each line corresponding to a week.
Here we can schedule sub-department meetings, colleagues' and students' birthdays, and written tests or other activities.
This plan must accompany the teacher at all times.
It's the perfect calendar: folded you can see every detail; extended you can see the whole year.
There is no digital device that can replace this plan. Want to bet?
Time 05P - Planning your personal life
It is a weekly plan for each teacher.
Classes and non-class times are marked.
It is a strictly personal plan.
Here personal life intersects with professional life.
The most modern ones can now turn to digital: any 2-span monitor allows this global view of the intimate life of any teacher.
It's not easy with a cell phone, but you can try.
Time 06P - Contents per week
One of the biggest challenges for teachers and students is knowing what to focus on each week , as the school cycle takes place week after week.
How to distribute the various subjects week after week, throughout the entire school year?
It is therefore important to have a grid that covers the entire school year, divided into weeks and in which each week we decide the subject that we are going to cover.
This is where you can define what students will do: what type of exercises, which pages, which activities. It is also the starting point for the Weekly Plans that can be given to students.
Time 07P - Weekly planning
Each A4 sheet contains the classes to be taught over the course of a week, corresponding to each class.
It's better on paper.
With a giant tablet, or a good-sized monitor, it won't go wrong.
In summary, here you will indicate what will be done and what was actually done, indicating the students who were absent and the number of each class.
Time 08P - Objectives and skills
We now enter this basic unit of the school, at risk of falling into disuse, which is the classroom.
If we want, it's the work session.
A class or session has a limitation that is related to the limits of human biological fatigue: 1 hour? 90 minutes? Come on: 2 hours maximum without a break?
But at this stage we define which skills we want to develop: reasoning?
Cooperation? Language ability?
In Portugal, 10 key skills were defined and each discipline defines 5 or 6 objectives.
This is where we associate what we are going to do in class with each skill or each objective.
Here we define how we will empower the mind of each student. Darkly, it is about "por a mão na massa cinzenta do cérebro" or "get your hands dirty" (1) with the students' grey matter of the brain.
(1) "Por a mão na massa" is an idiomatic expression in Portuguese that means "to start working" or "to do something with one's own hands." It is used to indicate that someone is directly involved in a task, rather than just planning or talking about it. It is like rolling up one's sleeves and starting to execute, whether it is a practical or intellectual activity.
Time 09P - Lesson Plan
The teacher's work is based on a block of time in which interaction with students or "learners" takes place.
This time must be managed to the minute.
Here, the teacher, the director or the film director have everything in common.
Manage expectations, emotions, rhythm, joy, combat boredom and boredom.
Neuroscience and psychology say that there are periods of maximum attention and concentration and periods in which this attention is reduced.
Here management can be done down to the minute, always looking at the clock.
A host of any formal and solemn party needs the same care. See how to manage a wedding or christening party.
3) Student time management
(see next)
Good job
© Eduardo Rui Alves
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