Not many students know what the ins and outs of teachers’ lives look like, as we only see them for a few hours a day, five days a week. The days of these teachers are filled with much more than lesson plans, as many of them have families, outside hobbies, and other obligations that absorb their free time — one of these teachers being religious studies teacher Mr. Edward Kendrick.

A day in the life of Mr. Kendrick starts around 6 to 6:20 a.m. when his alarm sounds, but he said he would prefer to wake up at about 5:40 a.m.

“I get up that early because I like to have an hour in the morning,” Mr. Kendrick said. 

After he gets up he strives to read, pray, and journal for 10 minutes each. “I almost always succeed at doing two of those, and then every once in a while I’ll do all three,” Mr. Kendrick said. 

This practice of his is a daily challenge to fight the urge to sleep in longer, and it has successfully become a regular habit. 

Next on Mr. Kendrick’s schedule would normally be breakfast, but “for the last five weeks I’ve been doing intermittent fasting,” he said. This means that he can begin eating at 11 a.m., so the first meal of his day is lunch. 

Once he is ready, Mr. Kendrick routinely arrives at school between 7 and 7:30 a.m., allowing him to work on lesson plans. “I try to do the most creative work first, so that way I can be kind of inspired first thing,” he said. 

This semester Mr. Kendrick is only teaching two different classes across five periods, Catholic Moral Thinking and Christian Lifestyles, but next semester he is adding Honors Faith and Media to his schedule, which is a blended online course. In his schedule he has two prep periods, where “I’ll plan lessons, I’ll grade things, I’ll set up things in Schoology, and then I talk to teachers,” he said.  

For lunch, Mr. Kendrick usually brings lunch from home, but in case he forgets he has a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter in his classroom. If he chooses to get lunch in the cafeteria, he will get a sandwich as well as apple slices with peanut butter, or hummus and vegetables. 

His food options in the cafeteria are limited because he follows a vegetarian diet during the week, but not on Sundays. While this used to be a challenge for Mr. Kendrick, “I’ve made it into who I am,” he said. 

After school is over, Mr. Kendrick likes to walk around the hallways. Once the bell rings, “I’ll usually see if people need help immediately then I’ll take a lap,” he said. Afterwards, “I’ll come back in and I’ll either set up Schoology for the next day, or talk to students who need help with something.”

Typically, Mr. Kendrick leaves school between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. to get home to his wife. “If I’m going to work more, I get here earlier and I try to leave around the same time every day,” he said.

“I try not to do any work at home,” Mr. Kendrick said. This is because he feels that he is unable to produce good work while he is at his house, so he prefers to work elsewhere. “I’ll do creative things, so I’ll think about what I’m going to teach about and things like that but I won’t grade anything at home,” he said.

The only exception to this is near the end of the grading period, “when things have stacked up,” Mr. Kendrick said. When that occurs, he takes a few Saturdays to work on things. 

Once Mr. Kendrick is home and has completed his work, he gives himself 30 minutes to either play video games, go for a walk, or watch YouTube to decompress from a busy day at school. He enjoys playing “Age of Empires II,” a video game from 1999. 

After that, Mr. Kendrick and his wife figure out what they are going to do for dinner and figure out what their plans are for the night. 

During his free time, Mr. Kendrick likes to “either meet up with friends, try to do a workout, or go for a walk.” If he’s not doing any of those things, he is probably watching TV. He said that “The Office” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender” are shows that he particularly enjoys, although “I maybe watch too much,” he said.

His other passion during his free time is designing board games. The current one he’s working on is something he has been designing since last November. “It’s very involved because I’m building all of these magical things and building all of these religions and the way they work in the society and trying to keep it all in my head,” he said.

When it comes to publishing and selling his games, he said it is “really difficult” to do. It went from being “fun to being a second job,” he said. 

Even though he didn’t formally publish it, he made 60 copies of a game he made several years ago and sold them to mostly friends and family. Even though he enjoys making games, he decided to stop trying to publish them for now.

As Mr. Kendrick gets ready for bed, he tries not to look at technology, but “I’m not always successful,” he said. 

Mr. Kendrick and his wife take the final hour before bed to relax, read, and pray together at least several times each week.

Then, Mr. Kendrick’s routine starts all over again the next morning.