April 2023 – Thrive Beyond Teaching

You don’t have to be passionate about your job to be good at it. We expect things from teachers that we don’t expect from anyone else. Teaching is a profession. It does not have to be a passion. Do we expect accountants to be passionate about their jobs? How about exterminators? The expectation that teachers are always passionate about our jobs is just another way to guilt teachers into putting up with poor working conditions, low wages, and unpaid labor- not uncommon issues in predominantly female labor forces. We’re supposed to do it for the love and passion and expect little or nothing in return. But teaching is not a volunteer position. While many of us do get into it because of our passion for teaching, it’s nobody else’s place to expect that passion to sustain us. Passion Is Not Sustainable Passion is a feeling. Feelings come and go. There are probably lots of people and things in your life you love and care for consistently. Do you feel passionate about them all the time? No. I didn’t feel passionate about my dog when he jumped on a table, opened a zipped-up backpack, ate a box of chocolates, and I had to spend hundreds of dollars on him at the emergency vet. You probably don’t feel passionate about your kids at 2 a.m. when they refuse to go to sleep. I don’t feel passionate about my job when I’m stuck in a pointless meeting that should have been an email. Let’s stop expecting so much from teachers and start keeping it real. Here are 3 things I think matter a lot more than passion. Actionable steps to help you keep your sanity and your love of teaching day-to-day. And if you feel your passion for teaching returning once in a while, then great. If not, that's okay too. You have permission to experience a range of human emotions in one of the toughest professions that exist today. I’m Passionate About Setting Boundaries Without setting boundaries, you are dead in the water in this profession. It’s something I am still working on and always will be, but I’m definitely getting better at it all the time. Here are some of the boundaries I’m practicing in different areas of my life. Parents I respond to emails/messages within 48 business hours. You may even want to set an out-of-office notification during your teaching hours. Don't set an expectation that you will always be able to reply immediately. I only engage in productive, solution-oriented communication. If that is not happening, I will only speak to you with an administrator present. I will not entertain unreasonable demands for unnecessary meetings, providing extra practice work, or excessive communication. Students The book Teaching With Love and Logic changed my life. It made me realize that I had been trying to control students behavior when I can’t. I can’t change their behavior. I can’t make them care. All I can do is let them know how I operate and what the consequences of their actions will be. This book really helped me understand what boundaries were and helped me ascertain them in all areas of my life. It took so much of the struggle out of classroom management for me. Admin This is probably the hardest area for me, but I am trying to do better. My general MO is just to ignore unrealistic requests and do what I’m able to do. I would like to get better at speaking up about things that are unfair or unreasonable. I’ve done so a couple times this school year, and fortunately my voice was well-received. This is encouraging to keep doing so. Coworkers I try not to answer (or send) work-related text messages outside of school hours, especially on evenings and weekends. I try to limit time around excessive complainers and gossipmongers. I try not to take on the toxic teacher expectations of others- that we should be working ourselves to the bone and bending over backwards to meet unrealistic expectations. Personal Relationships The beautiful thing is that setting boundaries in any area of your life helps you get better at it in all areas of your life. It’s about practice, not perfection. I’m Passionate About Making Time for Real Self-Care Forget all the drivel we constantly hear about self-care, especially as it pertains to teachers. What self-care practices will make the biggest difference in your well-being? Start practicing those today. Is it making a little time to do the things you love? Adding in healthier foods? Going to bed earlier? For me, the game changer was setting limits around work hours instead of working around the clock. Everything changed for me after that. It gave me the time and energy to focus on myself and other habits that gave me new life. Which change can you make that will give you the most bang for your buck? Start there! The sooner, the better. ❣️ I’m Passionate About Taking care of Myself Financially and Diversifying My Income Streams All of the passion in the world won’t pay your bills, keep a roof over your head, or take care of you in retirement. Teachers are grossly underpaid. But we’re just supposed to grin and bear it because we love our students and we love our profession. NOPE! Make sure you have a plan for retirement. Make sure you have a plan for emergencies. If you don’t, start putting those safety nets into place slowly and surely. For me, this means not relying on teaching or any one income source entirely. It means building up multiple nest eggs simultaneously and not being too dependent on any one of them. What does financial freedom and security look like for you? And how can you get there? Be passionate about taking care of your finances so you are taken care of in any situation. I wish I had started working on this sooner, but it’s better to get started now than never. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t feel passionate about your job all the time. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t feel passionate about teaching at all. Do whatever you need to do to make your role sustainable for you. Does that mean limiting your time around the workplace Negative Nancy? Does that mean changing grade levels? Schools? Districts? Only you know the answers, and those changes probably won’t happen overnight. But those are the things that will help you to be a good teacher. And more importantly, a sane, happy one. Making teachers feel like we have to be passionate about a thankless, exploitative job all the time is another way of guilting and silencing us into keeping the status quo in a profession built on our unpaid labor. Feel however you want to feel about your job, passion or no passion. What I care about is how you’re taking care of you. If you leave tomorrow, you will be replaced as soon as possible. Probably with another good teacher. And everyone will be just fine. The kids will be alright. So be passionate about taking care of yourself. For the people that matter to you. For yourself. Nobody else is going to. Did you enjoy this read? You may also like: Quiet Quitting Teaching- 8 Ways I’m Slowly Reclaiming My Life Is There Life After Teaching? From Classroom to… What Next?