Let's Break Up with Busy Work - For Good.

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Why do long weekends always seem so short? 🤣

This weekend was spent with the family, on the soccer fields, and participating in our fantasy football draft. It’s football season, and my favorite season of the year is approaching —fall! I love it.

Is it too early for the Halloween decorations? 👻 Okay, okay. I’ll wait.

Now, shall we?

Deep Dive 🤿

Let’s Break Up with Busy Work - For Good.

Let’s face it: busy work is the bane of both students and teachers. We all know the drill - assignments that fill the time but don’t fill minds. They’re easy to assign, but at what cost?

Busy work sucks the joy out of learning and leaves everyone feeling like they’re just spinning their wheels. It’s time to stop kidding ourselves and begin focusing on what really matters: purposeful, meaningful work that actually drives learning and your school forward.

Teacher Perspective

Teachers, we’ve all been in that situation. You need something to keep the class occupied, so you pull out a worksheet or a repetitive task that keeps everyone quiet. But here’s the thing: students can tell when an assignment has no real value, and that’s when you lose them.

When I took over my first job as a principal, my school was the undisputed champion of busy work. I’m talking about 1.5 million sheets of copy paper in one year. Yes, you read that right. We practically had our own paper mill just to keep up with the demand. The school had turned into the land of non-purposeful work, where worksheets ruled the day and learning took a backseat.

Looking back, it is no wonder our students were disengaged (which directly impacts attendance and behavior in addition to academics): all that paper, all that busy work - and very little engagement to show for it.

Research backs this up. Studies show that students are more motivated and perform better when they understand the purpose behind their work. According to a study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, students who see the relevance of their assignments are more likely to put in the effort and retain the material longer. So, let’s give them something: work that honors their time - and ours.

School Leader Perspective

Now, school leaders, we need to talk about the other side of busy work - the kind that gets dumped on teachers. You know what I’m talking about: meetings that could have been emails, data entry tasks that eat up hours, and endless paperwork that takes time away from planning and teaching.

One principal summed it up perfectly: “When we looked at how much time teachers were spending on non-instructional tasks, it was clear that something had to change. We started streamlining administrative work and cutting out unnecessary meetings to give teachers more time to focus on what really matters - planning purposeful, engaging lessons.”

Research supports the idea that reducing teachers’ administrative load can have a significant impact on their effectiveness in the classroom. A study from the American Educational Research Journal found that teachers who have more time for lesson planning and collaboration are better able to create high-quality instructional materials and are more likely to stay in the profession long-term.

By taking busy work off teachers’ plates, we empower them to focus on what they do best - teaching. And when teachers are less stressed and more focused, students benefit.

Final Thoughts

Busy work is a bad habit we can all kick - whether it’s in the classroom or in the staff room. It drains energy, wastes time, and doesn’t contribute to meaningful learning. Instead, let’s commit to creating purposeful assignments and providing teachers with the time and support they need to plan them.

Here’s the challenge: let’s ditch the busy work for good. Teachers, the next time you’re tempted to hand out an assignment just to fill time, ask yourself: What’s the purpose here? How is this helping my students learn? If you can’t answer that, it’s time for a change.

School leaders, it’s time to take a hard look at what’s on your teachers’ plates. What can you take off to give them more time for planning and collaboration? Let’s make sure that every task, whether its for students or staff, is purposeful and meaningful. Together, we can create a school culture that values quality over quantity and purpose over busy work.

Let’s give our students and teachers the meaningful work they deserve - because they’re worth it, and so are we.

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Surfing the Web 🌊

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• Thinking Differently About Time by NCEE

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See ya next Tuesday! 🍏

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