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How to Get Excited About Going Back to School
[00:00:00] In today's episode. I want to talk about how to get excited for going back to school. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the Teacher Burnout Podcast, where we explore the challenges of burnout for teachers and share practical strategies to support teacher well being. I'm your host Barb Flowers. If you're a teacher looking for ways to prevent burnout or an educational leader searching for strategies to support your team, this podcast is for you.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back to the podcast . Today, I'm going to talk about how you can get excited to go back to school, especially when you're struggling with the thought of going back. As educators, it can be really hard to go back to school.
Whether you're a teacher, a principal, a speech pathologist, a school psych. It doesn't matter what your job is in education. If you've been doing it for more than a year or two. It is easy to have a hard time going back. I remember as a brand new teacher being so excited to go back to school. My teaching partner [00:01:00] and I would actually meet in the summer, like up until my third year, I think.
And we would start getting our rooms ready as soon as we were allowed in the school and we would spend so much time getting them ready . and , that's a good thing. We were so excited. I probably spent too much time before school, back in my classroom, but as time goes on and you've been teaching for a little bit, a lot of times we don't have that same feeling as educators, because it's really hard.
It's not new and exciting. Like it was when you were a brand new teacher and you have the whole summer to yourself, right. Whether you have kids and you're spending time with your kids or you're single, and you're spending time with friends and by yourself, You have more time for the things that you want to do. And it is a really hard transition to go back to school because when you go back to school, you know that you're losing that free time.
. , You're losing that ability to just do the things that you want to do. And, you know, thinking back to the previous year, how busy things can get when you go back to school. So today I just want to share three things [00:02:00] that you can do to get excited, to go back to school as the school year starts. So the first thing is focus on what you're looking forward to.
We all have things as educators that we're looking forward to going back to school, whether it's meeting the students, , I don't know, depending on your school, when you get your class list, but I remember getting my class list was so exciting because I wanted to see if I had siblings of previous students. See the names of the students that I would be teaching that year was such an exciting thought. In some schools, I know they give the class list at the end of the year.
And in other schools, they give it at the beginning of the year when you're back. But regardless, getting to see who's on your class list and then meeting your students. It's such an exciting experience. So think about that. Those first interactions that you get to have with your new class, meeting them at open house or meeting them on the first day of school. Whatever that is for your school district, just remember the energy that comes with that and how exciting it is for you, how exciting it is for the kids and even their parents.
And. That's why you're teaching [00:03:00] is for the kids. And so just remember. The impact that you get to make on your students' lives and seeing those kids and just finding out who they're going to be, meeting them, learning their personalities. That is a really fun thing. That's something you can look forward to
also seeing colleagues.
So reuniting with colleagues can be really fun if you work with people that you enjoy, just knowing that you have people who understand what you go through day to day as a teacher and they can offer you support and there's comradery in that. So go out for drinks or meet in your classrooms, have team building things. Whatever that is for you, but really take advantage of getting to see those colleagues because in the summer we don't have that opportunity.
And so it's always exciting to meet up with colleagues again, if you don't see them all summer and. Talk about what's been going on and what's new. And so that's something that you can look forward to. Also having a routine again. Many teachers. And even I, as a principal, , we love our summers off, but it is really [00:04:00] hard when we don't have that structure and routine, unless you keep some sort of structure on your own.
And so a lot of people do find comfort in that regular schedule. Which helps you manage your time. It helps you stay organized. You have your day planned out for you, you have your weekly schedule. And so it just really offers more consistency for you and allows you to have your routines again for self care, for time, for yourself, whatever that looks like.
I know a lot of teachers who, when they go back, they're so excited and they're like, I need this routine. That's. A common thing that we hear in education. So really focus on those things. So meaning students seeing colleagues having a routine again or anything else that you might be excited about? The second thing I want you to do is embrace the challenges of teaching. I really want you to think about this concept about embrace the challenges of teaching, except that there's going to be hard times. I think a lot of times we get caught up in the excitement of teaching of I'm decorating.
And I come from an elementary background, but I'm decorating my classroom. You know, like I said, [00:05:00] seeing the students, seeing colleagues, all these fun things, planning, engaging lessons, the things that we love about education, when everything goes smooth. But we have to understand that there's going to be hard times.
We went into teaching for the great things, for planning lessons, for building relationships with students. However, that comes with hard times that comes with students, with behaviors that comes with difficult parents that comes with colleagues that can be difficult to work with.
Right. We're in a people business and education and working with people can be hard. If you just embrace the challenges, remember that it makes the positive moments more meaningful. Because if we didn't have those negative or difficult situations, we wouldn't have the same feelings towards positive and exciting situations because you have to have the negative experience to really experience the positive.
So think about that. If you have some kids that are really difficult or have a lot of behaviors, having those kids [00:06:00] one, it's exciting to see the change that you can make with those kids and the connections you can build throughout the year. It also helps you appreciate when they are listening when they are making good choices.
Right? So having those challenging moments can really help you experience the positive and the good moments. Also remember that life is a balance of emotions. I think as humans, we want everything to be positive all the time, but life is a mix of positive and negative emotions.
One coach I listened to talks about life is 50 50, ? 50% positive emotions, 50% negative emotions. And if we accept that it's going to be so much better than if we think that life is just supposed to be. 95% happy in 5% negative emotions. So just remember that in personal relationships, there are ups and downs. When we're dealing with family, friends, spouses, there are ups and downs in those relationships.
There's positive feelings towards those people. And there are negative feelings. Well, it's the same way in education, right? It's the same way with your [00:07:00] colleagues. It's the same way with kids. It's the same way with parents. And the more that we can normalize that this is how relationships go. It's really going to help manage our own expectations and just reduce the impact of feeling so negative towards these experiences.
So really practice mindfulness, practice journaling, and being aware of those negative situations and just sitting with it. It's okay. Like today I was frustrated with myself. It's okay. That doesn't have to mean anything. Right. If we get frustrated with a student, it doesn't have to mean anything.
That's just a negative emotion that we're having. And we need to be aware of it and then we can move on, but we don't need to beat ourselves up about it. We don't need to think that we can never be frustrated. That's just part of life. That's part of that 50 50 of negative and positive experiences and emotions.
I really want you to think about that as you get ready for the start of the year, that there are going to be those times where you are feeling negative and that's okay. Also an important part of that is knowing that you're going to [00:08:00] have those challenges, knowing that there are going to be negative emotions and when you know that there are going to be those challenges and there are going to be those negative emotions, you have to do things to build resilience for yourself. And so each Tufts situation that you handle well as a step towards being more skilled and adaptable as an educator.
So the more that you handle those difficult situations, it's teaching you something and you're building yourself up. So you really need to do things that build up your resilience so that you are mentally and emotionally stronger when these hard and difficult situations come up. And one way you can do that is join us in the resilient educator academy.
That is my monthly membership where. You get access to all of my courses that help with things like time management, setting boundaries, overwhelm resetting from burnout. You get two coaching calls a month of Monday motivation, but having things that help build resilience are going to help you be stronger. And things that help build your resilience are things that help you physically and mentally.
So [00:09:00] focusing on your mental health, but also focusing on your emotional health and your physical health, those are all going to help build resilience so that when you do have these challenges and teaching. And you have these negative emotions. , negative experiences. You will be able to handle them because you have expectations that they're going to happen and you have built your resilience along the way.
So this is something really important that I think we need to focus on. As we go into the year and not just set ourselves up for failure, by having expectations that this year is going to be different. It's going to be the perfect year. It's going to be the greatest class. You know, not that I want you to go and feeling negative in any way, but I just think we need to have realistic expectations that there's going to be positive experiences and emotions and negative experiences and emotions. And then my third suggestion for you is to try something new in your classroom. So maybe try some new classroom activities.
And really this advice here is if you've been doing the same things year after year, if you're always doing something different, maybe you don't need to try [00:10:00] something new. So it really depends on knowing yourself and what you need. But if you haven't tried anything new or maybe you didn't like what you did in the previous year, try a new way of teaching, whether you're getting a new curriculum.
I know in a lot of the United States, we've been focusing on the science of reading I'm in Ohio. So a lot of schools are getting new curriculums. , there's been a lot of training around reading. So, you know, implementing some of those skills, we're learning there. Also, maybe you need a new classroom management system. If you haven't been focusing on PPIs, now's a great time to do that.
You know, Find different ways, maybe try some project based learning . I think sometimes we want to change everything, but maybe you do one project based learning project, , or you integrate technology in a creative way that you haven't done before. Maybe you don't use technology as much as you'd like to.
So you try something new. You know, just try something different that gets you excited about teaching. Also engage in professional development opportunities. If you have new skills that you want to learn, if you've been doing the [00:11:00] same things and you feel like you need a fresh perspective, get some professional development. I'm a huge advocate of personal development, professional development and personal development have to go hand in hand in that personal development. Are the skills I'm talking about.
When I say we need to set boundaries. we need to overcome overwhelm.
We need to learn, to manage our time. These are all skills that are part of personal development that we have to keep learning as well. And I did a lot of that through, reading books and things on my own, listening to podcasts.
If you're listening to this podcast, this is a type of personal development because we are talking about developing yourself personally. That's what the resilient educator academy is. So finding those. Professional and personal development activities for yourself. Also try some new creative projects.
You know, if you're an elementary, maybe they're more fun, artistic projects that incorporate academics. If you're in high school, middle school, maybe you're trying some new lessons with technology that bring in more creative projects where students can pick different ways to present where it's. Video audio create a [00:12:00] podcast. Whatever that is, but using technology and what we have at our fingertips to just teach in a different way.
That's more exciting. And maybe it's even doing cross curricular integration with different subject areas and you're in the middle of school and you decide to work with it. you're a math teacher and you work with ELA and social studies and science and create a cross-curricular project.
That could be another approach that you take. So by focusing on these three strategies, you can shift your mindset and find renewed excitement for the beginning of the year. So again, focus on what you're looking forward to. As you start school, embrace the challenges of teaching. Remember that it's going to be 50, 50 of positive experiences and emotions and negative experiences and emotions. And try something new that you haven't tried before.
These are all things that can get you excited to start the school year, ready to tackle both the highs and the lows of the journey that you have ahead of you, because it's going to be a great school year. You have to go in knowing that it's going to be a great school year, but there's always going to be challenges.
And [00:13:00] so the more that you tell yourself that and set yourself up for those expectations, you really are going to have a great year where you have the capacity and the. Ability. To tackle those tough situations when they do come up. So I hope you found this podcast episode helpful. Like I said, check out the resilient educator academy.
I'm going to put a link in the show notes, but that's a great place to get that personal development. Build that resilience so that when those tough situations come up, you're ready for them. Make sure to follow me on Instagram at bar flowers, coaching.com. And if you liked the show, share this episode with a friend. Keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life.
According to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:14:00] Yeah.