We understand that the day-to-day life of a teacher can be more difficult than many imagine. Hopefully, this humorous take on health and fitness for teachers will brighten your day!
It’s not easy to be a dedicated teacher and keep off those unwanted pounds. Here are 5 (satirical) tips on health and fitness for the busy educator!
1. Consume fewer calories than you burn:
Skip breakfast – this one should be pretty easy right? You have to get up at 5 a.m. and out the door at 5:30, so breakfast is usually just a longing glance at the fridge as you rush out. You can’t be late for the student’s arrival – plus, there are still papers to grade because you didn’t have them all finished at 11pm last night!
Since you have anywhere from 2-5 minutes for a leisurely lunch, you should try to stick with things that don’t need refrigeration and can be consumed through a straw.
Increased student/teacher ratios have undiscovered calorie-burning benefits! As you walk around to 30 or 40 desks to check progress and answer questions, think of the extra mileage you’re putting in!
2. Incorporate resistance training:
Resistance is part of the job! You regularly push back against those who aren’t focused on your students’ learning. You butt heads and lift up your students. You pretty much have resistance training down. Amplify the effect by trying to flex your abs during parent teacher conferences.
3. Try high intensity cardio:
You’re 50 yards from a bathroom, and you have 45 seconds before class starts. The full out sprint there and back should get your heart rate into the fat-burning zone! Try to repeat more than once a day.
4. Cut the carbs:
Refined carbohydrates and sugar cause your blood sugar to spike, leaving you groggy, unfocused, and grumpy. Why should you get to act like your students!?!? Instead, eat lots of veggies and be the only person in the room who isn’t napping.
5. Get plenty of rest.
Sleeping in isn’t an option, so the best you can do is get to bed early. As early as you can after staying late at school, caring for your family, grading papers, and fielding “emergency” parent emails……you know what? Forget it – just book a hotel room for the two weeks out of the summer you’re not working and try to sleep that entire time. Many hotel chains offer teacher discounts, and don’t forget to hang out the do-not-disturb sign!
**Bonus Tip!
Hydration is important. You get extra credit for this, as it really ramps up your high intensity sprints to the bathroom!
We hope these tips made you chuckle. At California Casualty, we appreciate how difficult it can be for teachers, which is why we created our Academic Award. You can win $2,500 for your classroom, just click here to enter.
The California Casualty Academic Award was created to help defray costs that educators pay for classrooms and other instructional materials. A recent survey found public school teachers spent $1.6 billion of their own money on classroom supplies and gear in the 2012-2013 school year, with each teacher averaging $500 of their personal money.
The latest California Casualty Academic Award winner is California teacher Michelle Ruxton, who received her Academic Award check Thursday, January 16, 2014. Her name was randomly selected from more than 15,000 entries from across the nation.
Ms. Ruxton is in her second year at John Gill Elementary School, in Redwood City, California, where she teaches 5th grade. She says she will use the money to invest in a Smart Board projection system to enhance the education experience of her students by integrating lessons with fun and engaging multi-sensory curriculum.
Ruxton says she has spent more money than she cares to admit on supplies for her students and classroom. “Thank you for the award! My class and I are ecstatic,” she said.
Previous Academic Award winner, Atwater, California, high school teacher Elaine Tam, is using her California Casualty Academic Award money to fund a bus trip to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and for school room supplies. Heidi Fortney, kindergarten teacher in Sycamore, Ohio, bought iPads for her students to use.
“California Casualty, which has 63 years of ties to public education, wants to help educators in their tireless work to educate our children. This is just one small way we can say ‘thank you’ for the dedication and sacrifice made daily on the job”, said Vice President Mike McCormick.
Entries are now being taken for the next Academic Award contest, with the winner announced April, 2014. Eligibility requires membership in the AEA, CTA, NEA (National Education Association), or referred by a current member of the state NEA affiliate or one of our other participating educator associations including: ACSA, CASE, COSA, KASA, NASA, UAESP or UASSP. Complete rules and information can be found at www.calcasacademicaward.com.
The contest was won by Debbie Seibert, who discovered it while reading her NEA Today publication. She was announced as the latest winner in November and the finished product was unveiled Friday, December 20. Teachers and staff were greeted by new vibrant colors; a stylish reading area with new furniture, area rug and accent chairs; a large metal table to accommodate a microwave, toaster oven and crock pots; a work space for a “floating instructor” who has no permanent classroom; and, what is thought to be a first for the School Lounge Makeover® contest, a lactation area. “It’s now a striking, soothing area,” remarked Seibert. “Thanks to California Casualty we now have an efficient, inviting work space and lounge, including cabinetry with storage that is built at work height. This replaces the collection of scavenged desks and tables that held our equipment before. …and our instructional leader has a new chair for her office so she no longer has to tighten the screws weekly to avoid it collapsing under her,” she said.
Recognizing the lifelong impact of teachers and the current financial strain on public schools, California Casualty created the School Lounge Makeover® contest in 2011. Twice a year, one randomly drawn winner receives a major transformation of the primary space at his or her school that teachers and staff can go to rejuvenate and recharge.
Entries for the next California Casualty $7,500 School Lounge Makeover® are now being taken here . A contestant must be an active employee of a K-12 public school or school administrator and a member of NEA or ACSA, COSA, NASA, KASE or OAESA. Should a school administrator win who does not work on a school campus, he/she will have the option of choosing the public school to receive the makeover. All members at the school may also enter, thus increasing their school’s chances of winning.
A Guest Post By Melinda Crean https://topnotchteaching.com/
Key Words: classroom games, games to play in the classroom, back to school, back to school games
Do you want to learn some spectacular new classroom games that will ease those back to school classroom jitters?
It’s that time of year again when many of us fearless teachers are heading back for a new school year. It’s an exciting time for both the kids and the teachers, but it can also be a little scary and as a teacher you may feel somewhat apprehensive.
I’ve found that one way you can help ease those worries and nerves is to play regular classroom games with your students.
Playing games is a really great way for your students to get to know each other and learn about social behaviors. Games also assist in teaching a number of other important skills, such as:
Playing fairly;
Controlling body language;
Getting along;
Handling winning and losing;
Taking risks;
Co-operating with others; and
Demonstrating self-control.
Games can also be quite strategic, which helps to develop mathematical thinking, planning ahead, predicting and hypothesizing.
I’ve found that by using games regularly in the classroom it helps to develop positive relationships between students and with the teacher. So without further ado…..here are my top 3 sensational back to school classroom games.
1. Wink Murder
Skill focus: controlling body language, co-operating with others, taking risks and good to use as a whole class reward.
You will need: A large open space (indoors) for the whole class to sit in a circle.
The game:
This game can be played in small groups of 4 or more students, but I find it works best with the whole class.
Get your students to sit in a large circle.
Select one person to be the ‘guesser’. Send that person outside the room so that a ‘murderer’ can be selected.
Select one student to be the ‘murderer’.
The ‘guesser’ comes back to the room and sits/stands in the middle of the circle.
The murderer tries to kill all the other players in the circle by winking at them without being observed by the ‘guesser’.
If a player is winked at, then they must wait 10 seconds and then fall down dead.
The ‘guesser’ can say the name of a student if they think they’re the ‘murderer’.
The game ends when all the players have been murdered and only the ‘murderer’ remains, or if the ‘guesser’ correctly identifies the ‘murderer.’
Continue the game by selecting a new ‘murderer’ and ‘guesser’.
2. Order In The Court
Skill focus: co-operating with others and demonstrating self-control.
You will need: A large open space (indoors) for the whole class to sit in a circle.
The game:
Get your students to sit in a large circle.
Students say the below rhyme altogether while tapping their fists on their thighs to keep the beat.
Order in the court
The judge is eating beans
His wife is in the bathtub
Counting submarines
The teacher or a selected student then needs to offer a challenge to another student. For example, after the rhyme is said, the students still keep tapping their thighs and the teacher will say “5 boy’s names”, the students’ then copy the teacher “5 boys’ names”. When the students have copied, the teacher will say a student’s name “Jane”, the students then copy the teacher, “Jane”.
Then Jane needs to say 5 boys’ names. After each name she says, the whole class copies.
If Jane misses a name or can’t think of any answers, then the challenge is passed to another student.
If Jane is successful at the challenge then she can select the next student for the new challenge.
The whole time students are still tapping their thighs with their fists to keep the beat.
After the challenge is successful the students as a whole say the rhyme again. The teacher then selects a new challenge and a new student.
Some example challenges could include: boys/girls names, towns near where you live, countries, colors, months in the year, types of cars etc.
You can change how many you ask to be named to suit the age of your students.
3. Spoons
Skill focus: handling winning and losing, playing fairly and controlling body language.
You will need: 2 packs of cards for each group of students, spoons for each group of students (1 less spoon than the number of players in a group), space for students to sit in a small circle.
The game:
This game is best played in small groups of students, between 4 – 8 players.
Students sit in a circle.
Place the spoons in a circle in the middle of the group. There should be one less spoon than players.
One person is selected as the dealer. They shuffle the cards and have them face down in a pile next to them.
The dealer gives each student one card from the pile. The student must remember what card they have and then keep the card face down in front of them so no other student can see what card they have.
The dealer then takes one card at a time and looks at it. They are trying to find a card that matches the card they have face down in front of them. The card does not need to match suit, but must be of the same value. E.g. two queen’s, or two eight’s etc.
When the dealer has looked at the card, and if it does not match their card, they then put it face down in front of the person next to them (clockwise) in the circle. That person then looks at the card and the card continues around the circle if it does not match.
The dealer continues taking cards from the pile, looks at them and if they don’t match passes to the next player.
If a player is given a card that matches the card face down in front of them, they add this card to the other card. They then take a spoon from the pile in the middle of the circle and add it with their cards. They try to do this quietly so they don’t notify the other students.
If another student sees that a spoon has been taken, then they are able to take a spoon and add to their pile.
The game keeps going with students trying to match cards until all the spoons have been taken from the middle.
The person that does not have a spoon is the loser of the round.
The game can start again for another round, with a new dealer.
This game is lots of fun and can get very rowdy. It moves very quickly with lots of cards moving around the circle and spoons being taken and moved.
I hope you enjoyed learning some groovy new classroom games and have fun using them with your students. If you’re after some more game ideas then have a read of 6 Classroom Games You Can Use To Re-Energize Your Students. (https://topnotchteaching.com/time-saving-tips/classroom-games-to-re-energize/)
Remembering those who have given their all for their profession is the tribute that lasts forever.
Last Friday, I had the honor of attending the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Teachers Hall of Fame’s Memorial to Fallen Educators.
As I walked amongst the crowd at the groundbreaking, I kept hearing the word ‘bittersweet.’ And that’s exactly what it was. Bitter that such an occasion, that such a memorial, is even necessary. Bitter that teachers who dedicated their lives to improving the lives of their students died doing what they love- a job they probably never guessed would put their lives on the line. But there was sweetness there, too. Sweetness that they weren’t forgotten. Sweetness that all these people, people who had never met any of the victims, came out to pay their respects- some of them driving hours to see the symbolic groundbreaking.
Tragedies like Sandy Hook and Columbine bring worthy attention to the brave sacrifices of teachers on behalf of their students, but those teachers are not alone. American educators have been losing their lives in school tragedies since 1853. Every single one deserves to be remembered, to be honored, and to be recognized for their dedication and their bravery.
The actions of the six educators at Sandy Hook show us something about teachers as people. Talk to any educator and they will tell you that they too would do whatever it took-make any sacrifice- to shield their students from harm. For educators, their students aren’t just ‘students’ and teaching isn’t just a job. It’s bigger than that. For every educator I know, their students are their family and their job is a calling.
The Memorial to Fallen Educators is a way for all of us to honor every single teacher who lost their life at work. It also serves as a reminder of what every single teacher is willing to do for their students. It was truly an honor to stand amongst the crowd and witness this bittersweet moment in history.
Our job is to teach the student we have. Not the ones we would like to have. Not the ones we used to have. Those we have right now. All of them. –Dr. Kevin Maxwell
Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them. – Richard L. Evans
Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. –Margaret Mead
The self taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers. -Mark Twain
Be curious, not judgmental. -Walt Whitman
A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge. -George R.R. Martin
Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. -Maya Angelou
Your education is worth what Your are worth. -Anon
You must master a new way to think before you can master a new way to be. -Marianne Williamson
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. -Charles William Eliot
From kindergarten to college, certain teachers engaged my curiosity and motivated me to learn. While I was not the best student, their efforts left a lasting impact. -George Lucas
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well. –Aristotle
Don’t try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we as teacher, t0o, have failed. -Marva Collins
Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. —attributed to Socrates
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation. -Marcus Tullius Cicero
We teachers are rather good at magic, you know.-J.K. Rowling
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. –Socrates
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. -Einstein
If you employed study, thinking, and planning time daily, you could develop and use the power that can change the course of your destiny. -W. Clement Stone
You cant scare me. I teach.
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. -Albert Einstein
Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will. -Vernon Howard
Wisdom is the lesson learned, applied. –Rick Beneteau
Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important. -Bill Gates
If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around. -Jim Rohn
Learning is not compulsory but neither is survival. -W. Edwards Deming
We are giving some lucky educators a $2,500 academic award!
If you could use some extra cash for your classroom, click here to enter!
Even More Popular Teacher Quotes Below
Imagination decides everything. -Blaise Pascal
The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you. –BB King
Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardour, for their curiosity and tolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. -Aldous Huxley
To nourish and raise children against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons. –Marilyn French
If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others. –Tyron Edwards
He is to be educated not because he’s to make shoes, nails, and pins, but because he is a man. -William Ellery Channing
The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions. –Claude Levi-Strauss
Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. -John Cleese
Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master. -Leonardo da Vinci
A good teacher is like a candle- it comsumes itself to light the way for others. -Unknown
What is done to children, they will do to society. -Karl Menninger
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. -Edward Everett
The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. -Mark Van Doren
The only reason I always try to meet and know the parents better is because it helps me to forgive their children. -Louise Johannot
Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. -Gilbert K. Chesterton
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. -William Butlet Yeats
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. -Maya Angelou
The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize. -Franklin D. Roosevelt
He who opens a school door, closes a prison. -Victor Hugo
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. -Jacques Barzun
The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called “truth.” -Dan Rather
If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher’s job. -Donald D. Quinn
Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. -John F. Kennedy
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. –Gail Godwin
Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid. -Tracy Kidder
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. -Henry Brooks Adams
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it. –Margaret Fuller
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. -William Arthur Ward
What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. -Karl Menninger
Teachers who inspire know that teaching is like cultivating a garden, and those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.
The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. -Kahlil Gibran
To teach is to learn twice. -Joseph Joubert, Pensées, 1842
Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource. -John F. Kennedy
Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation. -John F. Kennedy
I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well. -Alexander the Great
We are giving some lucky educators a $2,500 academic award!
If you could use some extra cash for your classroom, click here to enter!
The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. –Plutarch
“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” -Khalil Gibran
Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task. —Haim Ginott
Teachers are the only professionals who have to respond to bells every forty-five minutes and come out fighting. —Frank McCourt
Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. —Jacques Martin Barzun
There is no recipe to be a great teacher, that’s what is unique about them. -Robert Sternberg
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. — John Steinbeck
I got into acting because my teachers kept nudging me into it. The power a teacher has to influence someone is so great. I can’t think of a profession I have more respect for. — Jon Hamm
In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less. -Lee Iacocc
The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all. –Edward de Bour
Imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future. -Charles F. Kettering
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence. – Robert Frost
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. –Einstein
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -Aristotle
Children will not remember you for the material things you provided. But for the feeling that you cherished them. -Richard L Evans
Creativity is intelligence having fun. -Einstein
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
There is no greater gift you can give or receive than to honor your calling. It’s why you were born. And how you become most truly alive. –Oprah
If you cant explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. –Einstein
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. -Rumi
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. –Aristotle
Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or in the same way. -George Evans
Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new. -Og Mandino
Tell if you know, ask if you don’t. -Duane Alan Hahn
Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. -John Cotton Dana
Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation. –Everett Coop
It is only the ignorant who despise education. –Publilius Syrus
You can’t learn less. –Buckminster Fuller
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. -John Dewey
Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. -John Dewey
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him. -Galileo Galilei
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. -Albert Einstein
There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it. –Dale Carnegie
