Ever notice how much teaching advice is actually making our jobs harder? Let’s examine five persistent teaching myths that might be doing more harm than good…

Teaching Myth #1: Grade Faster to Get Your Life Back

You know the advice – just use these speed-grading techniques and you’ll finally have free evenings! But what if grading faster isn’t the solution? What if we’re trying to grade too much in the first place?

Just use these speed-grading techniques and you’ll finally get your evenings back!

The Reality: When we focus on grading faster, we’re solving the wrong problem. The issue isn’t grading speed – it’s how much we’re trying to grade in the first place.

What Actually Works: Engineering assessment systems that make sense, not trying to swim faster in a flood of papers.

[Read 5 Time-Saving Grading Hacks (And Why They’ll Never Be Enough)]

Teaching Myth #2: Sunday Prep = Monday Success

Ah yes, the myth that sacrificing your Sunday will somehow make your week smoother. But have you noticed your best teaching ideas rarely come during stressed-out weekend planning sessions?

The Promise: Sacrifice Sunday afternoon and you’ll feel prepared for Monday!

The Reality: Our best teaching ideas rarely come during stressed-out Sunday planning sessions. Plus, we’re training ourselves to associate weekends with work anxiety.

What Actually Works: Building sustainable systems during the week and letting weekends be for genuine inspiration.

[Read Sunday Scaries Hacks (And Why We Need to Stop Normalizing Teacher Anxiety)]

Teaching Myth #3: Just Make It Relevant!

The eternal cry to connect everything to students’ lives. But what if chasing relevance is actually preventing real engagement?

The Promise: Connect everything to students’ lives and engagement will follow!

The Reality: Forced relevance often creates shallow connections. Real engagement comes from authentic analytical thinking.

What Actually Works: Bringing genuine expertise and real analysis to our teaching, not desperately chasing teen trends.

[Read The Most Popular Student Engagement Hack Is Missing Something]

Teaching Myth #4: Never Repeat Lessons

The pressure to be Pinterest-perfect and never reuse activities. But what if constant novelty is preventing us from actually getting better at what works?

The Promise: Be a Pinterest-perfect teacher who never repeats activities! Create fresh, exciting lessons every time! Never reuse materials!

The Reality: This pressure for constant originality drains teacher energy, values novelty over effectiveness, and ignores the power of iteration.

What Actually Works:

• Building adaptable frameworks
• Refining successful approaches
• Creating reusable systems
• Getting better at what works

[Read The Creative Teaching Trap: Why “Never Repeat Lessons” Is Bad Advice]

Teaching Myth #5: English Teachers Know Everything

The Promise: Be a walking encyclopedia of literature! Never misspell anything! Spend your summers reading classics by the pool!

The Reality: This pressure for academic perfection creates unnecessary performance anxiety abd misses what actually matters in teaching English.

What Actually Works: Bringing genuine analytical expertise to texts and showing students how real readers approach literature…creating conditions where thinking matters.

[Read The “Perfect English Teacher” Myth: Why Not Reading Every Classic Makes Me Better at My Job]

Moving Beyond Productivity Theater

The problem with most teaching “productivity hacks” is that they try to help us work faster in broken systems instead of building better ones.

Real solutions don’t come from:

• Grading faster
• Planning longer
• Working weekends
• Forcing relevance
• Sacrificing boundaries

They come from:

• Engineering better systems
• Building sustainable practices
• Creating authentic engagement
• Protecting teacher energy
• Valuing real expertise

Breaking Free from Teaching Myths

These myths about English teachers are just one example of how teaching “shoulds” hold us back. Whether it’s the pressure to grade everything, plan every Sunday, make endless “relevant” connections, or perform academic perfection – these expectations don’t just exhaust us. They actively prevent us from doing our best teaching.

Real teaching excellence comes from bringing our authentic expertise to the classroom, not performing some idealized version of what we think teachers should be.

Want to build teaching practices that actually work? Start with the free Energy-Aligned Teaching Guide and learn how to:

• Create sustainable systems that build on your strengths
• Design practices that energize rather than drain
• Develop authentic expertise that matters
• Transform how planning and assessment work in your classroom

Because ultimately, great teaching isn’t about meeting mythical expectations – it’s about building real practices that work.