Where are your "edges" or your "boundaries?" Where do you draw the line? Do you? A boundary is "something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent" (Merriam-Webster). As a teacher, you need to define what your limits are with respect to email, parents, administrators, your family, colleagues, grading, and so on. Tips to assist you in defining and setting your boundaries include:

Set boundaries with email. Decide to whom you will give your school address and only check your school email at school or during pre-determined times at home.
Set boundaries with parents. You need to be responsive to the parents of the students you teach. Delineate these boundaries with parents: (a) times you are available to meet; (b) advance notice required to schedule an appointment; (c) best ways to contact you (via email, phone, or note) and (d) what your off-limits times are (e.g., immediately before and after school and/or between classes). Most parents want to operate in a civil fashion and you just need to communicate what your boundaries are. Gain clarity in your own mind and then offer the information to them in a variety of ways.
Set boundaries with students. You are a teacher for your students. That's clear. And you cannot be available to them 24/7. Ask students to respect your boundaries...once you establish them.
Set boundaries with colleagues. Teaching colleagues (just like colleagues in every profession) sometimes think they can just burst into your classroom or office when they have a question or want to tell you something. Make it clear that when you are teaching or during your prep period, you can't be interrupted.
Set boundaries with your family. This might involve making sure they know not to call you at school or it might involve setting boundaries around the time you spend grading at home. It goes faster when you are not interrupted. Encourage them with that news.
Set boundaries with grading. If you let it, grading can consume your life. Set boundaries for when you will do your grading. One good friend (an English teacher) designates every third weekend as her grading weekend for large projects and papers. Daily papers are dealt with...daily...but the big grading takes over one weekend-but not the other two. That's a boundary.
Set boundaries with administrators. You know which boundaries you need to set with your principal, dean, or other administrator(s). Possibilities include interruptions; hastily-called meetings (that aren't emergencies); volunteering you for something; expecting to be able to contact you anytime day or night with an "issue;" putting all of the most difficult students in your class; and so on. What are your limits?

If you don't have any boundaries, then nothing is off limits. Be clear about where you need to draw the line. This is the first step in creating all the other margins you need to be an effective, energized educator. And if you would like to receive a free weekly suggestion on creating time, energy, and life margins.

(i.e., the difference between being calm and crazed) especially for your life as an educator, just go to http://www.PumpernickelPublishing.com and you'll see a place to sign up.

If you'd like to access additional resources for your classroom, you're invited to go to http://www.OwningWordsforLiteracy.com where you will find free vocabulary PowerPoints and other tools for your use.

(c) 2009 Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D. | The Ph.D. of Productivity(tm)

Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc. Meggin serves those who want to know, feel, dream, and do...more...and who want to do so with consciousness, clarity, and conviction. It's great fun and very rewarding!