Something that somehow did not occur to me until years after I started teaching was that I wasn’t the first person to ever have taught. I mean I know that is a lot to take in but I did not actually invent teaching nor even special education. But, from the amount of time I spent recreating the wheel my first few years, you would think that I really did. 

Here are some of the ways that I tried to reinvent the wheel:

• I created my own behavior program from scratch
• I created my own behavior contracts from scratch
• I wrote all of own insanely detailed lesson plans… from scratch
• I made my own IEP templates. They all sucked and got thrown out years later, but I made them.

You know– I can’t even remember all of the different things I made each year but I was ALWAYS making something. And that’s great- I mean I now sell a lot of the things that I made. The problem was that a lot of times I was reinventing the wheel. I have written a lot about how I asked for materials and begged, borrowed and stole from colleagues– but I didn’t do that at the beginning. I was way more of a forge ahead on my own in the dark type of person than an ask for help person. As time went on, I got better at google, at getting materials from colleagues, and learning how to modify rather than recreate curriculum and materials. 

So this post is basically an expansion of the last one on saving time– and reflects my eternal hobby horse which is that you matter and your time matters so treat it like the precious resource it is. Please note I am not judging your important hours on Insta or TikTok or doom scrolling– I am there too. That is your time so do with it as you will– but get more of it back by not recreating the wheel. There is a lot of crud out there on the internet and, sadly, in teachers’ closets and bookcases but there is also a lot of amazing stuff out there that you can modify and use and save time with. 

• Put fabric on bulletin boards not paper. Okay, this doesn’t really fit here but I can’t figure out how to make a whole blog piece on this utterly life changing advice a colleague gave me once. Fabric doesn’t show holes or fade so you can pick a gorgeous color and just keep it up as you swap out borders and what’s on it. Genius. I can’t even remember who told me that to say thank you but I actually took my fabric with me site to site at the end and could just whip up gorgeous bulletin boards in minutes.  Okay. Onto relevant tips.
• Check out Reading A-Z. This was something that I paid for as a cheap, cheap teacher. Reading A-Z had leveled decodable books, fluency passages, and printable leveled books that  I could just print and use time after time in groups. It was so much more efficient than anything else I found and, once I printed everything, I canceled my membership.
• Visit StopLearningLoss.org for educational technology program reviews before you buy. Okay. Full disclosure that is my site– I made it during the pandemic because I was annoyed at the crud that was being pushed as educational– but also it is good. Stop testing out weird programs on your students and see what is free and out there!
• Hit teachers’ closets and cabinets. People who have been teaching for years have so many rich resources! Look for what they have and what they have made before you ever spend money or make your own stuff. Yes, you are not a clone and will probably want to tweak the content but that is different than needing to remake it totally.
• Be judicious on TPT. As someone who sells on TPT, I both love and hate it. There is great stuff there but also crud. What you want are programs that last you a semester. What you often get are cute things for a day. So look there before writing your own materials but also buyer beware.
• Check out research based sites. I wish Intervention Central was a less awful website, but its content is good. Same with What Works Clearinghouse. Content is amazing, site is meh– but you can find good ideas of programs to use there. Also note that if a program comes from a university, speaking from experience, the researchers would LOVE to give you the materials for free. 
• Find free resource sites for the subjects you are working on. Here are some examples– let me know if there are more that you like!
  • CommonLit is a nonprofit with discussion guides for books
  • ReadWriteThink from the National Council of Teachers of English has all sorts of cool resources and lesson plans
  • ReadWorks.org has free reading comprehension resources
  • PathstoLiteracy has disability specific literacy resources
  • National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has some classroom lessons for free, although many are behind a paywall
  • National Science Teachers Association has some fun Daily Dos
  • OpenSciEd has free science lessons
  • ZinnEdProject has social studies resources
  • ShareMyLesson has a wide range of resources

 This is one of those areas where the research just doesn’t ask the questions I think are most interesting. Here is what folks have found though:

• Special education teachers often feel they don’t have the resources they need to manage their responsibilities (Kaff, 2004)
• Access to curricula is one of the factors special education teachers list as behind their intent to stay or leave the profession (Albrecht et al., 2009)
• While the biggest stressors on special education teachers in one study were demands on after school time and too much work to do, inadequate equipment and instructional materials popped up as a mid-level stressor for special educators (Kebbi, 2018)
• A different study found that administrative interactions were the biggest source of stress for special educators, but resources popped up again as a low level stressor (Haydon et al., 2018)
• “When teachers view their workloads to be manageable, they are more likely to plan to continue teaching,” (Cancio et al., 2018)
• Work hindrances, including not having the resources they need to do their jobs, make special education teachers emotionally exhausted (Brunsting et al., 2014)
• “When participants felt supported and perceived that they were making a difference, they felt the most resilient.” (Belknap & Hastings, 2015)

• Kaff, M. S. (2004). Multitasking is multitaxing: Why special educators are leaving the field. Preventing school failure, 48(2), 10.
• Albrecht, S. F., Johns, B. H., Mounsteven, J., & Olorunda, O. (2009). Working conditions as risk or resiliency factors for teachers of students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Psychology in the Schools, 46(10), 1006-1022.
• Kebbi, M. (2018). Stress and coping strategies used by special education and general classroom teachers. International Journal of Special Education, 33(1), 34-61.
• Greenberg, M. T., Brown, J. L., & Abenavoli, R. M. (2016). Teacher stress and health effects on teachers, students, and schools. Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, 1-12.
• Haydon, T., Leko, M. M., & Stevens, D. (2018). Teacher Stress: Sources, Effects, and Protective Factors. Journal of Special Education Leadership, 31(2).
• Park, E. Y., & Shin, M. (2020). A meta-analysis of special education teachers’ burnout. Sage Open, 10(2), 2158244020918297.
• Cancio, E. J., Larsen, R., Mathur, S. R., Estes, M. B., Johns, B., & Chang, M. (2018). Special education teacher stress: Coping strategies. Education and Treatment of Children, 41(4), 457-481.
• Brunsting, N. C., Sreckovic, M. A., & Lane, K. L. (2014). Special education teacher burnout: A synthesis of research from 1979 to 2013. Education and treatment of children, 37(4), 681-711.
• Belknap, B., & Taymans, J. (2015). Risk and resilience in beginning special education teachers. The Journal of Special education apprenticeship, 4(1), 1.