As a society, we pay a lot of lip-service to loving our teachers.
Teachers are the best!
We love teachers!
We support teachers!
But to me, love has always been an action verb. Look at the way teachers are treated. It becomes clear where teachers fall in our caste system.
In a recent blog post, We Know Why Teachers Are Quitting, But What Happens Now, I outlined some systemic changes that would greatly benefit teachers, and therefore students and society. But I’m not holding my breath.
As with most things in life, I think teachers need to start looking inward. Yes, there are problems in the wider education system. But there are also character traits that many teachers have in common that enable widespread problems to continue largely unchallenged.
I am no stranger to teachers’ biggest weaknesses. I struggle with most of these myself. I point them out with the intention of seeing how we can turn them into strengths for positive change.
Perfectionism
It will probably come as no surprise that a large percentage of teachers are perfectionists.
We have a super important job. Some would say the most important one. There’s a lot of pressure there for sure.
But how much of it comes from within?
Trying to complete every task perfectly does not help us become better teachers.
- It adds undue stress to an already crazy workload.
- It models unhealthy expectations and behaviors for our students.
- We can stress our students out and cripple them by having unrealistic expectations of them, especially if they already have these tendencies.
- It can cripple our ability to be vulnerable with students and peers and have deep, authentic relationships.
Worse yet, these tendencies are nourished in education’s culture of unrealistically high standards for teachers. Teachers are praised for taking on more than we can handle and working ourselves to the bone. It’s perfection masked in dedication and a pat on the back.
Not to mention, the visitors walking around our classrooms, peeking at each display, picking apart our lessons, and randomly asking students, “What are you working on?”
It’s an atmosphere that primes us to be perfectionists even if we weren’t already wired that way.
But we can work on our mindset and try to foster a healthier one.
How to Turn It Around
- Teach students to have a growth mindset. I’ve learned so much from my growth mindset lessons with students. They’ve helped me to embrace failure and learning from my mistakes.
- Become friends with good enough. Decide which tasks need to be perfect and which can just be good enough.
- Practice dropping the balls that don’t matter. What does being a good teacher mean to you? Do those things and allow yourself to drop the ball on the rest as much as possible. You’ll never please everybody anyway.
People Pleasing
The longer I’ve been teaching, the more I’ve heard the term “customer service” being thrown around. Public schools have to be careful of losing students, and therefore funding, to private schools and charter schools. There’s a push to view schools as businesses and parents and students as customers.
While I do believe in fostering relationships with my students and their families, I am NOT in a customer service industry. I am an educator.
This customer service model that seems to permeate public education can exacerbate another common teacher (and female) tendency- people pleasing. We’re supposed to please:
Students
Parents
Administrators
Colleagues
Our own loved ones
Where do we fall on this list? Are we even on it?
Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s not possible to please everyone. When we try, we usually end up pleasing no one. Plus, we burn ourselves out in the process.
How to Turn It Around
- Make choices according to your integrity, not other people’s reactions.You’ll be able to stand by and explain your choices-should you choose to.
- Become okay with disappointing others. You don’t have to love it, just accept it.
- Practice saying “I’ll get back to you.” This can buy you time to think of what you really want instead of just saying yes to everything on autopilot.
Victim Mentality
Do you know what perfectionism and people pleasing can lead to? A victim mentality.
When we are constantly living our lives trying to pander to others, it makes us resentful. We can feel like we are a victim of the system or other people’s whims. It makes us feel resentful and powerless.
How to Turn It Around
- Swallow the harsh pill that you are actually making these choices. You may not like the choices you have, but you’ve still got ’em. Say yest o yuorself sometimes.
- Practice speaking up. Use your voice for your own integrity, even if it feels like nothing will be done. It’s still planting a seed and sending a message to yourself that you matter, your needs matter, and your voice matters.
- Put yourself at the top of your list of people to please. It is not selfishto put yourself first sometimes. It actually does the opposite. You can give from your overflow instead of depleting the resources you need for yourself. It’s like putting on your own oxygen mask first.
A Martyr Mentality
We love a good martyr. They’re quiet. They don’t ask for anything. They do as they’re told.
It crawls my blood when people paint teachers as saints. As though we’re choosing to go without proper pay and adequate respect and hours to do our jobs. But we don’t have to accept this trope.
How to Turn It Around
- Start within. You might be so used to martyring yourself that you’ve stopped noticing. Start paying attention when you feel a little resentment bubbling up. Or when you’ve said yes to something because you thought you couldn’t say no.
- Advocate for yourself. We need to start advocating for ourselves like we advocate for our students. Is it true that we have to do certain things that are asked of us? Or can we push back? Teachers fight fiercely for our students and loved ones. We deserve to be on that list. At the top of it if you ask me. Everyone benefits more in the long run.
- Find the payoff. Why do you keep sacrificing yourself? Do you think it makes you a good person? Paints you as a good teacher? Positioning yourself as a martyr is probably benefiting you in some way. It can be cringeworthy to look at, but figure out what you’re getting from sacrificing yourself. Is there a better way you could meet this need without sacrificing your boundaries?
Compassion Fatigue
Teachers are compassionate people. We sacrifice our time, money, resources, and energy for our students. And for each other. It’s the only profession I know of where we steal things from home to bring to work instead of the other way around! 😂
But there is a price to pay in caregiving professions like ours. Constantly putting others’ needs above our own can be exhausting. And the breaks don’t always coincide with when we need them.
How do we still care, but also protect ourselves and respect our limits?
How to Turn It Around
- Take a day off when you need it. I struggle with this one. It still boggles my mind that there are professions out there where one can just call in sick with no preparation. Can you imagine? It’s often easier just to go in and white knuckle our way through a day than it is to plan for a day out. But there are definitely days I should have called out. I felt like was on the verge of losing my health and sanity and it was probably more harmful to myself and to the kids.
- Set boundaries. Before you make the same mistake I did and wait until you’re on the verge of losing it, try setting regular boundaries. More often than not, it will help to prevent you from getting to that headspace in the first place. The biggest change I made was limiting my work hours more and more. Some of the other boundaries I put in place were turning off my ClassDojo outside of work hours, not keeping work email on my phone, and only checking email once in the morning and once at the end of the school day.
- Do something that completely takes your mind off work. Once I put those boundaries in place, I felt like a new woman pretty quickly! But then I had a new (and much better!) problem. What to do with all that time on my hands! My passion for my business (Yes, the one you’re reading right now!) was reignited and I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I also started going on nature walks again, reading, cooking, and listening to podcasts. Make time to have a life outside of work. Anything else really does make us dull. And that stinks for everyone.
- Have compassion for yourself too. You are human. You are not a superhero. Turn some of that compassion inward and treat yourself as kindly as you do others. Honor your feelings, needs, and boundaries too.
Imposter Syndrome (This is my favorite one.)
Teachers are used to being treated like shit.
I won’t even try to sugarcoat it because it’s anything but sweet. We’re so used to being treated poorly that we don’t even realize things could be different. Constantly being disrespected, gaslit, and underappreciated would lead just about anyone to low self-esteem.
I’ll say it again….
WE.ARE.NOT.SUPERHEROES.
We are human-beings worthy of the care and respect we share with our students and their families day after day. I don’t say this lightly, but the constant mistreatment is not unlike an abusive relationship.
How do we even begin to unpack that?
I’ve been mulling over some ideas.
How to Turn It Around
- Follow people who see your worth. Even though I don’t plan on leaving the profession any time soon, I follow the Teacher Career Coach on Instagram. She constantly posts content that reminds teachers that many companies love to hire educators. We’re disciplined, driven, talented, and we’ve got one helluva work ethic! Even if you decide to stay in the classroom, I want it to truly be your choice. Not because you think you can’t do anything else or no one else will have you. (You see what I mean about the abusive relationship thing?) That is far from the truth. Find messengers who counter these harmful and repetitive messages and remind you of your worth. 💓
- Keep a list of your work (and personal accomplishments). Besides being a confidence booster, it is a good idea to keep a list of your achievements for professional purposes too. The more specific you can be, the better!
- Diversify your income streams. You’ll start to feel empowered. You’ll start to see that teaching is a choice, but it’s not the only one. If you stay in the profession, you can do so from a place of empowerment.
Closing Thoughts
One might say these are largely feminine traits and teaching is a largely feminine profession. Maybe this is why we are underpaid and undervalued. Regardless, we can start cultivating traits that command respect by starting to treat ourselves the way we know we deserve. And then accepting nothing less from those around us and the system we work within every day.
We are not superheroes. That narrative harms us.
We have our weaknesses. Most of them have to do with putting others before ourselves. We may have to unlearn the dangerous lies that this is what it means to be a loving person, woman, and teacher.
We might have to see the ways in which constantly sacrificing ourselves depletes us in ways that help no one. Despite working within a system that constantly expects us to do so.
But we can learn new ways. We can support each other in our efforts to do so.
After all, we are teachers. 💗