Two Curtains Method

In practice, it often happens that the teacher takes work home. Or, conversely, family problems interfere with the teacher’s duties at school. The two curtains method is used to separate these two spheres and to symbolically “draw the curtain” when the teacher leaves school. Similarly, when he leaves home, he is to leave his family and personal problems behind a symbolic curtain.

Tools needed: Individual pencil-and-paper method

Time: Fifteen to thirty minutes

Procedure:

In the following list (see worksheet on the next two pages), check off the items that represent problems you don’t want to bring home from school. These are things that weigh you down, bother you, or simply don’t make you happy, but you will deal with them when you enter the school building the next day. Now symbolically pull the curtain back on them. You can print out the following list, and if you wish, you can post it

After crossing it out, you can symbolically “tear it up” using your imagination, or imagine that the problem is being carried away by water, etc.

Variants, comments: Don’t persist in the stereotype. Over time, vary the procedure using the “Two Nails” method. Imagine that you have “hung on a nail” all your work and personal worries. That is, when you leave the workplace, you “hang up” your work problems. Then, when you leave home, you “hang family problems”.

Success factors: The more problems you can hang on a nail, pull back the curtain, the better. BUT your problems must be reflected upon. We recommend that you make a list of all the difficulties that you have not resolved and are unable to displace.

They can also be arranged from the most difficult to the most marginal. Then one pull of the curtain and they should all “hide behind the curtain”. They have no chance of escaping where they don’t belong. Time will only be devoted to these problems when you and we want it. Allocate them only a certain limited space and do not allow them to cross it.

Risks: Beware of excessive mental preoccupation with your own concerns. Sometimes it is good to detach from them towards helping another. The method should not lead to egotism and excessive preoccupation with one’s own person.

CURTAIN 1

Name the problems you want to leave behind and solve only at the right time in the right place. Check off the items in the list one by one. Pulling back the curtain on work problems.

It bothers me:

• Disruption of communication between colleagues
• my age, which stresses me out because I have the subjective feeling that I am not up to par with the younger generation of teachers
• my age, which is getting further and further away from the age of the pupils every year
• my lack of psychological training
• the public’s poor assessment of my work
• the feeling that I am not able to satisfy pupils, colleagues, superiors, parents
• the impossibility of maintaining discipline in the classroom
• unfair criticism from supervisors and/or parents
• not being given adequate conditions by my superiors to make my work with children successful
• less time for self-education
• constantly adapting to new developments at school
• pupils’ failures and unsatisfactory results
• spending more time with children than with adults, not being able to share my worries and joys
• small classroom space
• insufficient lighting in the classrooms
• less rest and free time, although I try not to bring work home
• the fact that I am back on the payroll with a salary that does not correspond to the energy spent
• being subjected to an agenda that I have to fill in every day and with which I disagree
• the lack of rest to recover
• teaching in a classroom with a large number of children
• teaching in a classroom with different levels of pupils
• the poor level of cooperation between parents and the school
• that pupils do not have appropriate attitudes towards schoolwork
• not having enough teaching aids and supplies in the classrooms
• the fact that today’s work was again associated with chaos and time-limited tasks
• discovering problems with my students’ motivation
• Lack of capacity (either time or space) for group work of pupils

Write other problems in the space provided:

CURTAIN 2

Pulling back the curtain on family problems. In the space provided, write down factors in your personal and family life that might interfere with your work at the workplace. Whether these are personal and family relationships, financial and material conditions, relationships with neighbours, caring for pets, contact with extended family, friends, spending leisure time, planning and achieving goals in personal and family life, looking after your own and family members’ health, personal and family successes/failures, etc.

 I mind: