WEBVTT
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Picture this.
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It is the middle of your lesson.
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The technology stops working.
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I know, technology.
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Not in a way that gives you time to think, but in a way that needs an answer right now, while 25 faces are looking at you, waiting to see what happens next.
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You didn't stop.
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Girl, you didn't panic.
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You said something like, Alright, let us try this instead.
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And you kept the lesson moving like it was nothing.
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And it was not nothing.
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Guys, this was a real problem solved in real time with no one to ask and no time to think it through.
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But five minutes later, you were not thinking about it anymore.
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You were on to the next thing.
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It did not feel like strength, it just felt like Tuesday.
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That is what we're talking about this week, guys.
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Strength does not always feel strong while it's happening.
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Welcome back to Teaching Without Losing Yourself the podcast, guys.
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I'm Kim.
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I spent 28 years in education and I realized at some point that I could not fix what was wrong from the inside.
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So I made the hardest decision of my career and left.
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Because if I could not protect teachers from within the system, I could support them in protecting themselves from outside of it.
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That is why this podcast exists.
00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:28.480
This is After the Bells Beyond the Box, a moment made just for teachers, even on the moon.
00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:32.640
And everything we talk about here is built around one idea.
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Teachers, you can stay in teaching without losing yourself in the process.
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Guys, nothing here is about fixing you.
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We are just here to see things more clearly so you can make better choices inside your days.
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Teachers, we are still inside stronger than you realize our September theme.
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Last week, we started with the proof.
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I hope you remember that, the evidence.
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What used to feel hard that you are now doing without even noticing it.
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We talked about how growth does not announce itself, guys.
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It just becomes normal.
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And then you stop counting it because it's normal.
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This week we're gonna go a little further because even when you do not notice what you are handling, there is still a problem.
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Most of what you handle does not feel like strength while you're doing it.
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You picture strength, guys, as something that feels a certain way, confident, you know, steady, um, in control, like you know exactly what you are doing and exactly how it's gonna go.
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But no, babe, no, that is not how most of your day actually works.
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And I know there's strength in your day.
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Most of your day is solving something you did not even see coming, recovering from something you did not uh go that did not go the way that you wanted it to go or you planned it to go, uh, managing your own feelings while making room for someone else's and figuring out those things on the spot while still being the person everyone in the room is counting on.
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None of that feels strong, teachers, while it's happening.
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So here's the question underneath this entire week.
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Teachers, what if the moments that felt too small to count were actually you showing strength?
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Think about that.
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Think about how many small problems move through your day.
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I mean, it's mind-blowing, right?
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The technology stops working, a student needs a pencil and does not have it, a lesson needs to shift because something is not landing the way you needed it to, a transition starts falling apart before it even fully starts.
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Materials are missing.
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You do not call a meeting about any of this, you do not stop to think it through with someone else.
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Teachers, girl, you respond, you solve it, you move to the next thing.
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That's how it goes.
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By the end of the day, you have solved a dozen problems like this without stopping once to notice that you did.
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There is no pause after each one, no moment where anyone says that was handled well, right?
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It just kind of gets absorbed into the day like it just never even happened.
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So it starts to feel like it doesn't count, like it was just too small, too quick, too automatic to mean anything.
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But something becoming automatic does not make it insignificant.
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You, you, you built the ability to solve problems in real time, without a plan, without help, without a pause to think it through.
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Guys, this is not a small skill.
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Everybody doesn't have that.
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That is a skill your entire day depends on each and every day as a teacher.
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So, what I want you to consider is this the problems you solve, teachers, without stopping to count them are still proof of what you can do.
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There's the evidence.
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Now think about something bigger, not the stuck printer, even though we hate those printers.
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Um, I'm I'm I've kicked a few.
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Don't tell anyone.
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So think about something bigger, okay?
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The day that actually did not work, a class that completely fell apart.
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Have we been there, right?
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A parent conversation that did not go the way you hoped.
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A lesson you had to abandon halfway through because it clearly, clearly was not working, right?
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A morning that started rough and just never got right.
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Strength is not having a day, teachers, where none of that happens.
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That's not strength.
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It is not being the teacher who never has a class fall apart or lesson that flops.
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That's not that's not strength.
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Strength, teachers, is what happens afterwards.
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That's where the strength comes in.
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It is changing the lesson midway through, right?
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Instead of forcing it to work.
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It is regrouping after a difficult class instead of carrying that class into the next one.
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It is starting fresh with the next group of students, even though the last group, oh my gosh, left you wondering whether or not teaching was your thing.
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It is being able to say, okay, all right, that didn't go right.
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That did not work at all, without turning it into evidence that you do not know what you are doing.
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That recovery does not feel impressive while you're doing it because you're just so used to it.
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It just feels just like going through the rest of the day.
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But recovery, teachers, that's not a small thing.
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Recovery is you making decisions uh to keep going after something didn't go the way you needed it to go.
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And that takes real capacity.
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It requires you to separate this hard moment that you had from your ability as a whole, even when it's tempting to let that hard moment just define everything else that happens for the whole rest of the day.
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So, what I want you to think about is recovery.
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Teaches, recovery is evidence of capacity.
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And we love that word.
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Recovery, your ability to recover all day long without even thinking about it.
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That is your proof of your capacity, even when it's small and it doesn't feel, you know, impressive at all.
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It doesn't feel like something you know you write home to people about.
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Recovery is your evidence, teachers, of your capacity.
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Okay, so this one might be the strength you overlook the most.
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And I know it's there, so I'm I'm I can't wait to see whose hands are up.
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I can see through the mic.
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You are not walking into your classroom, teachers, as a blank slate every day.
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You don't do it.
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You are carrying your own frustration because you're a human being, your own exhaustion because you're a human being, your own disappointment or worry about something that has nothing to do with students in front of you.
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I know this.
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I've lived this, I do this.
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And in the middle of carrying all of that, you still respond to what a student needs.
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You pause before responding to something that really just annoyed you.
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You lower your voice, okay?
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So you lower your voice when the room gets louder instead of matching it.
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I mean, that guy's that's skill.
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When that voice gets lower and those kids are talking over you and realize you're talking, you recognize that a student's behavior might be communicating something underneath the survey, the surface, right?
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And you choose to respond to that, to what you think is underneath the surface, instead of reacting to the behavior that you see.
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This is not about praising teachers for suppressing their emotions.
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You are a human being, you have emotions.
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That is how this rolls, right?
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So this is not about, oh my gosh, you just are so great at suppressing all the emotions you had.
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That is not what this is.
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Teachers, you're allowed to feel frustrated, you're allowed to be tired, you are allowed to be human.
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That's right, human inside the classroom.
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I'm not even talking about after the bells.
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Inside the class, you are allowed to be and feel and behave as humans do.
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What this is about, guys, is the judgment it takes to stay aware of what you are feeling, right?
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And still choose your response on purpose.
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Let me say that again.
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What this is about is the judgment, judgment, the intentionality, the purposefulness that it takes for a teacher to stay aware, to know her body, her feelings, her mind, her thoughts, her emotions.
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Okay, you're aware of what you're feeling, and you still choose your response, appropriate response, on purpose.
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We're not talking about suppressing what you feel.
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That's a skill.
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That takes skill to do that, right?
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Staying aware of your own emotional state while managing a room full of other people's needs and still choosing how you respond instead of just reacting is one of the most demanding things you do all day long.
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And you do it so many times, it happens so often that you stop noticing you're doing it at all.
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You just don't notice it anymore.
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So, what I want you to consider is this, guys, staying aware of your emotions, being aware of how you're feeling as a human being in the classroom with these things happening all around you, staying aware of your emotions while choosing intentionally your response, that is a form of strength.
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Guys, every year bring something new.
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I mean, different students, different personalities, students, kids, team, all of it, uh, different expectations, a new curriculum piece, a group of kids who need something you have not figured out before, you don't even know if you got.
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Um, so you're always learning, right?
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Every single year, no matter how experienced you are, 28 years.
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I've never gone in a building not learning.
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Never, not one time, not one day.
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But needing to learn something new does not erase all the stuff you already know.
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You can figure out a particular class this year, on a particular day sometimes, while still being an experienced teacher.
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You can need a different approach for a student who does not respond to what has always worked before because you've done this so many times.
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It's okay.
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Without that meaning, you're bad at your job.
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You can ask a colleague a question or look something up.
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I know I do.
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Or try an approach for the first time without that sending you back to the beginning.
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Teachers tend to treat every new challenge like proof that they don't know enough.
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Just not giving yourself credit.
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Like needing to learn something new erases all the years of experience that you know you're sitting right on.
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Guys, it doesn't erase that.
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You brought real knowledge into this school here.
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All right, you brought real instinct, real experiences that shape how you notice things, that shape how you respond, that shape how you read a room.
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Figuring out something new, guys, does not cancel any of that.
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When you're figuring out something new, all of that knowledge, all of that experience, all of those instincts, right?
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They are right there with you, guys.
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They sit right next to you while you figure out something new.
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They are part of you.
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So what I want you to think about here is learning something new.
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Learning something new does not cancel the experience you brought with you.
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That experience is sitting right there, helping you maneuver through all the new stuff.
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So, this is what I want you to take from this week.
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You've been measuring your own strength by how it feels in that moment, right then.
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And most of the times it does not feel like, I don't know, much of anything.
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It just feels like a teacher doing what a teacher does.
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It feels like you just getting through the day.
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It feels like Tuesday or Wednesday or Friday, because oh my goodness, no one's better at it than teachers.
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But strength was never supposed to feel like a spotlight moment, guys.
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It was never supposed to announce itself and come in with confidence attached or feel like you had it all together all alone.
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That's not it, guys.
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Strength, it looks like someone solving something small and not even stopping to notice it.
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Recovering after something did not go the way you planned, staying aware of your own feelings, your own emotions, you're a human being while still showing up for a student.
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Strength is learning something new without letting it erase all that you already got, all that you already know.
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None of that feels strong while it's happening, it just feels normal.
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But guys, all of it is your strength.
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Guys, this month we are working through stronger than you realize.
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Last week we started with the proof, just a reminder, the evidence of things that you know now that you didn't know before, what used to feel hard that you are now doing without even noticing it.
00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:19.120
Now, this week, I want to take it just a drop further and make sure you knew that strength does not always feel strong while it's happening.
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And we often ignore it.
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We often often don't see it or feel it because it's just not big.
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It looks like you solving problems like you always do in real time.
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Your strength looks looks like you, you know, recovering from a hard day or managing your emotions, your human emotions while showing up for someone else who needs you.
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Guys, your strength is learning without treating yourself like a newbie, like someone who didn't get it.
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All those experience and instincts and the things that you just know, they're right there with you while you're learning things that are new.
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Guys, next week we're gonna talk about what happens when one hard day, and there will be one, two, three, four, five, six hard days.
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But when one hard day threatens to erase all of this, and the week after that, well, we'll bring it on home.
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Learning to trust what you have already proven.
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But for today, teachers, notice one moment that did not feel like strength.
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Think back on today, whatever day it is, or last week if you're listening to this at some other point.
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I want you just to notice a moment that didn't feel like strength when it was happening.
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But now you kind of know it is.
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And let yourself call it what it is or what it was.
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Until then, guys, give yourself the same care you give everyone else.
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Picture this.
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It is the middle of your lesson.
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The technology stops working.
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I know, technology.
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Not in a way that gives you time to think, but in a way that needs an answer right now, while 25 faces are looking at you, waiting to see what happens next.
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You didn't stop.
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Girl, you didn't panic.
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You said something like, Alright, let us try this instead.
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And you kept the lesson moving like it was nothing.
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And it was not nothing.
00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:40.719
Guys, this was a real problem solved in real time with no one to ask and no time to think it through.
00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:44.159
But five minutes later, you were not thinking about it anymore.
00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:45.840
You were on to the next thing.
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It did not feel like strength, it just felt like Tuesday.
00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:53.359
That is what we're talking about this week, guys.
00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:57.679
Strength does not always feel strong while it's happening.
00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:01.039
Welcome back to Teaching Without Losing Yourself the podcast, guys.
00:01:01.119 --> 00:01:01.840
I'm Kim.
00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:08.799
I spent 28 years in education and I realized at some point that I could not fix what was wrong from the inside.
00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:12.079
So I made the hardest decision of my career and left.
00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:19.439
Because if I could not protect teachers from within the system, I could support them in protecting themselves from outside of it.
00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:22.319
That is why this podcast exists.
00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:28.480
This is After the Bells Beyond the Box, a moment made just for teachers, even on the moon.
00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:32.640
And everything we talk about here is built around one idea.
00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:38.159
Teachers, you can stay in teaching without losing yourself in the process.
00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:40.640
Guys, nothing here is about fixing you.
00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:47.120
We are just here to see things more clearly so you can make better choices inside your days.
00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:53.920
Teachers, we are still inside stronger than you realize our September theme.
00:01:54.319 --> 00:01:56.799
Last week, we started with the proof.
00:01:56.959 --> 00:01:59.040
I hope you remember that, the evidence.
00:01:59.359 --> 00:02:03.840
What used to feel hard that you are now doing without even noticing it.
00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:07.599
We talked about how growth does not announce itself, guys.
00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:09.199
It just becomes normal.
00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:12.319
And then you stop counting it because it's normal.
00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:20.560
This week we're gonna go a little further because even when you do not notice what you are handling, there is still a problem.
00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:25.759
Most of what you handle does not feel like strength while you're doing it.
00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:38.879
You picture strength, guys, as something that feels a certain way, confident, you know, steady, um, in control, like you know exactly what you are doing and exactly how it's gonna go.
00:02:39.199 --> 00:02:44.960
But no, babe, no, that is not how most of your day actually works.
00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:46.960
And I know there's strength in your day.
00:02:47.199 --> 00:03:10.319
Most of your day is solving something you did not even see coming, recovering from something you did not uh go that did not go the way that you wanted it to go or you planned it to go, uh, managing your own feelings while making room for someone else's and figuring out those things on the spot while still being the person everyone in the room is counting on.
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None of that feels strong, teachers, while it's happening.
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So here's the question underneath this entire week.
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Teachers, what if the moments that felt too small to count were actually you showing strength?
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Think about that.
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Think about how many small problems move through your day.
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I mean, it's mind-blowing, right?
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The technology stops working, a student needs a pencil and does not have it, a lesson needs to shift because something is not landing the way you needed it to, a transition starts falling apart before it even fully starts.
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Materials are missing.
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You do not call a meeting about any of this, you do not stop to think it through with someone else.
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Teachers, girl, you respond, you solve it, you move to the next thing.
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That's how it goes.
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By the end of the day, you have solved a dozen problems like this without stopping once to notice that you did.
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There is no pause after each one, no moment where anyone says that was handled well, right?
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It just kind of gets absorbed into the day like it just never even happened.
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So it starts to feel like it doesn't count, like it was just too small, too quick, too automatic to mean anything.
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But something becoming automatic does not make it insignificant.
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You, you, you built the ability to solve problems in real time, without a plan, without help, without a pause to think it through.
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Guys, this is not a small skill.
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Everybody doesn't have that.
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That is a skill your entire day depends on each and every day as a teacher.
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So, what I want you to consider is this the problems you solve, teachers, without stopping to count them are still proof of what you can do.
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There's the evidence.
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Now think about something bigger, not the stuck printer, even though we hate those printers.
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Um, I'm I'm I've kicked a few.
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Don't tell anyone.
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So think about something bigger, okay?
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The day that actually did not work, a class that completely fell apart.
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Have we been there, right?
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A parent conversation that did not go the way you hoped.
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A lesson you had to abandon halfway through because it clearly, clearly was not working, right?
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A morning that started rough and just never got right.
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Strength is not having a day, teachers, where none of that happens.
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That's not strength.
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It is not being the teacher who never has a class fall apart or lesson that flops.
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That's not that's not strength.
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Strength, teachers, is what happens afterwards.
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That's where the strength comes in.
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It is changing the lesson midway through, right?
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Instead of forcing it to work.
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It is regrouping after a difficult class instead of carrying that class into the next one.
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It is starting fresh with the next group of students, even though the last group, oh my gosh, left you wondering whether or not teaching was your thing.
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It is being able to say, okay, all right, that didn't go right.
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That did not work at all, without turning it into evidence that you do not know what you are doing.
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That recovery does not feel impressive while you're doing it because you're just so used to it.
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It just feels just like going through the rest of the day.
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But recovery, teachers, that's not a small thing.
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Recovery is you making decisions uh to keep going after something didn't go the way you needed it to go.
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And that takes real capacity.
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It requires you to separate this hard moment that you had from your ability as a whole, even when it's tempting to let that hard moment just define everything else that happens for the whole rest of the day.
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So, what I want you to think about is recovery.
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Teaches, recovery is evidence of capacity.
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And we love that word.
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Recovery, your ability to recover all day long without even thinking about it.
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That is your proof of your capacity, even when it's small and it doesn't feel, you know, impressive at all.
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It doesn't feel like something you know you write home to people about.
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Recovery is your evidence, teachers, of your capacity.
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Okay, so this one might be the strength you overlook the most.
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And I know it's there, so I'm I'm I can't wait to see whose hands are up.
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I can see through the mic.
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You are not walking into your classroom, teachers, as a blank slate every day.
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You don't do it.
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You are carrying your own frustration because you're a human being, your own exhaustion because you're a human being, your own disappointment or worry about something that has nothing to do with students in front of you.
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I know this.
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I've lived this, I do this.
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And in the middle of carrying all of that, you still respond to what a student needs.
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You pause before responding to something that really just annoyed you.
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You lower your voice, okay?
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So you lower your voice when the room gets louder instead of matching it.
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I mean, that guy's that's skill.
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When that voice gets lower and those kids are talking over you and realize you're talking, you recognize that a student's behavior might be communicating something underneath the survey, the surface, right?
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And you choose to respond to that, to what you think is underneath the surface, instead of reacting to the behavior that you see.
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This is not about praising teachers for suppressing their emotions.
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You are a human being, you have emotions.
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That is how this rolls, right?
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So this is not about, oh my gosh, you just are so great at suppressing all the emotions you had.
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That is not what this is.
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Teachers, you're allowed to feel frustrated, you're allowed to be tired, you are allowed to be human.
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That's right, human inside the classroom.
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I'm not even talking about after the bells.
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Inside the class, you are allowed to be and feel and behave as humans do.
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What this is about, guys, is the judgment it takes to stay aware of what you are feeling, right?
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And still choose your response on purpose.
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Let me say that again.
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What this is about is the judgment, judgment, the intentionality, the purposefulness that it takes for a teacher to stay aware, to know her body, her feelings, her mind, her thoughts, her emotions.
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Okay, you're aware of what you're feeling, and you still choose your response, appropriate response, on purpose.
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We're not talking about suppressing what you feel.
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That's a skill.
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That takes skill to do that, right?
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Staying aware of your own emotional state while managing a room full of other people's needs and still choosing how you respond instead of just reacting is one of the most demanding things you do all day long.
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And you do it so many times, it happens so often that you stop noticing you're doing it at all.
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You just don't notice it anymore.
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So, what I want you to consider is this, guys, staying aware of your emotions, being aware of how you're feeling as a human being in the classroom with these things happening all around you, staying aware of your emotions while choosing intentionally your response, that is a form of strength.
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Guys, every year bring something new.
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I mean, different students, different personalities, students, kids, team, all of it, uh, different expectations, a new curriculum piece, a group of kids who need something you have not figured out before, you don't even know if you got.
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Um, so you're always learning, right?
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Every single year, no matter how experienced you are, 28 years.
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I've never gone in a building not learning.
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Never, not one time, not one day.
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But needing to learn something new does not erase all the stuff you already know.
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You can figure out a particular class this year, on a particular day sometimes, while still being an experienced teacher.
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You can need a different approach for a student who does not respond to what has always worked before because you've done this so many times.
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It's okay.
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Without that meaning, you're bad at your job.
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You can ask a colleague a question or look something up.
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I know I do.
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Or try an approach for the first time without that sending you back to the beginning.
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Teachers tend to treat every new challenge like proof that they don't know enough.
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Just not giving yourself credit.
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Like needing to learn something new erases all the years of experience that you know you're sitting right on.
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Guys, it doesn't erase that.
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You brought real knowledge into this school here.
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All right, you brought real instinct, real experiences that shape how you notice things, that shape how you respond, that shape how you read a room.
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Figuring out something new, guys, does not cancel any of that.
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When you're figuring out something new, all of that knowledge, all of that experience, all of those instincts, right?
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They are right there with you, guys.
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They sit right next to you while you figure out something new.
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They are part of you.
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So what I want you to think about here is learning something new.
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Learning something new does not cancel the experience you brought with you.
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That experience is sitting right there, helping you maneuver through all the new stuff.
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So, this is what I want you to take from this week.
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You've been measuring your own strength by how it feels in that moment, right then.
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And most of the times it does not feel like, I don't know, much of anything.
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It just feels like a teacher doing what a teacher does.
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It feels like you just getting through the day.
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It feels like Tuesday or Wednesday or Friday, because oh my goodness, no one's better at it than teachers.
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But strength was never supposed to feel like a spotlight moment, guys.
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It was never supposed to announce itself and come in with confidence attached or feel like you had it all together all alone.
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That's not it, guys.
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Strength, it looks like someone solving something small and not even stopping to notice it.
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Recovering after something did not go the way you planned, staying aware of your own feelings, your own emotions, you're a human being while still showing up for a student.
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Strength is learning something new without letting it erase all that you already got, all that you already know.
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None of that feels strong while it's happening, it just feels normal.
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But guys, all of it is your strength.
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Guys, this month we are working through stronger than you realize.
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Last week we started with the proof, just a reminder, the evidence of things that you know now that you didn't know before, what used to feel hard that you are now doing without even noticing it.
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Now, this week, I want to take it just a drop further and make sure you knew that strength does not always feel strong while it's happening.
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And we often ignore it.
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We often often don't see it or feel it because it's just not big.
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It looks like you solving problems like you always do in real time.
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Your strength looks looks like you, you know, recovering from a hard day or managing your emotions, your human emotions while showing up for someone else who needs you.
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Guys, your strength is learning without treating yourself like a newbie, like someone who didn't get it.
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All those experience and instincts and the things that you just know, they're right there with you while you're learning things that are new.
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Guys, next week we're gonna talk about what happens when one hard day, and there will be one, two, three, four, five, six hard days.
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But when one hard day threatens to erase all of this, and the week after that, well, we'll bring it on home.
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Learning to trust what you have already proven.
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But for today, teachers, notice one moment that did not feel like strength.
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Think back on today, whatever day it is, or last week if you're listening to this at some other point.
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I want you just to notice a moment that didn't feel like strength when it was happening.
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But now you kind of know it is.
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And let yourself call it what it is or what it was.
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Until then, guys, give yourself the same care you give everyone else.
