Does this sound familiar? Could this be you right now?
It’s Sunday night, and my teacher breaking point has ruined my whole weekend because last week was awful, and I’ve spent the weekend so upset while also dreading Monday.
Self-sabotage, self-care, self-esteem, self-doubt, all piled up on stress over personal things and the fact that all of my teacher best practices for classroom management are failing.
I’m an 8th grade English teacher. It’s my second year of teaching. I’m the ONLY 8th grade teacher at my school.
It came to a full head last night and I bawled my eyes out on my husband’s shoulder. Tears, runny nose, all the ugly crying.
I don’t know what to do anymore. My students are so low. The gaps are wide, and the behavior is horrific. My admin seems supportive, like they say all the right things and they’re sympathetic. It kind of looks like their hands are tied, though. They can’t really DO anything and I’m at a loss.
Has this^ ever been you?
It’s been me before. I know you can relate!
And I hear you! It’s so frustrating when your weekend was impacted by all that! Yuck and yuck.
But listen. I know this stuff is the “norm” but it’s NOT—I repeat NOT—normal. You have best practices. I have best practices, and “normal” is that we all have that one kid, or that one class…
What’s NOT normal is the constant, never-ending chaos. It’s the norm, but it’s not normal.
I say all that because when it feels like we’re not good enough, or we don’t have the strategies we need, or if we were just more of this or less of that, then we could teach with joy…
But this world is waaaaay out of control. These kids in many cases are waaaay out of control. So much is completely above and beyond what we can actually handle.
It’s not normal out there, even though it’s the “norm.”
We got into this whole thing to teach. We want to help students grow and become part of society, and to love learning, and to become curious and to move forward in their own lives.
Yet… Sheesh. We can’t do it ALL.
For me, what really helps is to “compartmentalize” areas of my life. For instance, I am not only a teacher. If my whole identity as a human being is that I’m a teacher, then woah, I’m going to feel like a failure of a person many days and that’s not fair to myself, right?
We’re so hard on ourselves! We say things about ourselves that we would never say or think about our best friends or our co-workers. So I compartmentalize my life in times like these because I’m so many other things, too, besides a teacher.
And so are you.
Example: Last week I ran the Dallas Marathon. Ok, so I’m also a distance runner. On days where I have a terrible training run, or a bad race, my whole identity as a human isn’t that I’m a failure of a runner. It’s more like ok, that was awful, that was a really bad run, but I’m also a wife, a mom, a dog mama, a best friend, a wanna-be chef, and on and on.
When one part of my life feels horrible, I acknowledge it of course and I feel all the feels, but then I quickly shift my focus to something ELSE in my life that is going really well. Seriously, I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes or I’ll listen to a song and allow myself to grieve. When that timer goes off, or when the song ends, that’s it! I have to move on from the moment.
. . . Like the marathon I ran last week. It went suuuuuper well. I earned my best time ever in a marathon, and I’ve been running for over 20 years. That means I’m getting older AND I’m getting faster… Like, what??!!
I allowed myself to feel really happy about that, and in the back of my mind, yeah, I couldn’t wait for the next extended break because school was so ridiculous and just rough. So here’s the thing: I’m a teacher, but it’s really just one part of who I am. If I have a horrible teacher day (yup, those definitely happen), then I can’t let it ruin all the other good, awesome things that I also have in my life because then I’m letting one thing completely take over. I don’t do that for my running, or when family life is upsetting, or anything else. It takes practice, though. There are times that I have to do the song / timer thing multiple times throughout one day! I’m not saying I can set a timer for 10 minutes and then I’m good for all time. It’s a repeated process on some days, but it allows me to keep. moving. forward.
It’s almost like I can hold two emotions at the same time. One stays in the background (whatever the bad thing was) while I purposely and intentionally move one of the really good parts of my life to the front. That’s what I mean by “compartmentalizing” my life on the bad days.
When you’ve had a terrible day at school, acknowledge that it’s awful (feel the feels) and then shift your ideas, thoughts, and actions to something else in your life—another part of who you are as a person—and love on that part. Allow yourself the gift of enjoying those other blessings, too.
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