Being an empathetic human, but especially being an empathetic educator.

 Warning, this will be a long, sappy, and personal post without any actual teaching methods or materials being shared.  

Well, hello there!  I have taken quite the hiatus from the blog.  To be honest the last two years of teaching were really hard and scary for me.  Coming back after Covid to full time school with students who were not used to paying attention all day, being around that many other people, being without their technology and also to some groups of parents in my state (and others) who wanted to say that teachers are pushing political agendas has not been for the faint of heart.  This school year has thankfully been so much better, which I will elaborate on more later. During the last two years I was questioning if I had it in me to continue teaching.  No joke, in 8th grade I decided I would become a German teacher and I held onto that, even when I moved to a high school that did not offer German and I had to take a three year break from it.  I started over in college with German, got a teaching job at 22 and have been teaching the last 17 years.  My career is something I truly love and feel called to do, so questioning whether I was strong enough to do it was awful.  The students and climate have been gradually changing over my career, but for me returning after Covid years I feel like I have been really thrown into these challenges at an accelerated intensity.   

My biggest challenges have been seeing how addicted to technology my students can be, how hard it is to get and keep their attention, how anxious and stressed they are, balancing my love for lesson planning and teaching with the parts of my job I am less passionate about and seem to take so much time away,  all while watching teachers being blamed or belittled in the media and seeing so many #quittingteaching posts showing numerous educators leaving the field.  I was holding it together for my students during the school day, but at the end of the day I honestly was dry heaving, seeing splotches or blurs, having a hard time catching my breath, feeling confused and exhausted.  Once in a while I would cry while eating breakfast before going to work.  I felt immature and weak; there are people facing much bigger problems and I should not be this upset over my small issues.  Reminding myself to be grateful for what I have, meditating, working out, and seeing a therapist were not doing enough and my body was still physically reacting to the overwhelm of the average day of a teacher.   Staying at school some nights until 6:00pm and still feeling like I could not keep up with the work, offer my students every opportunity that I came across in order to show them how relevant learning German is, keeping up the relationships with my family and friends, and staying on top of things at home was just all too overwhelming.

So why is this year so different?  We all know teachers talk in school years and not calendar years, right? Anyways, I think a combination of things have helped.  I have read or listened to a few books and podcasts that help me feel like I am not alone.  Girl, Stop Apologizing, The Easy Genius Way,  Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress, Stop Negative Spirals, Declutter Your Mind, and Focus on the Present (The Path to Calm), and anything by Brene Brown are my go to’s.  And girl, I have stopped apologizing for everything.  In the past I felt guilty about taking time to relax or telling others no.  This is probably the biggest thing that therapy did help me with.  I don’t feel selfish (or as selfish as before) for just sitting instead of cleaning my house, telling my husband or family that I really need some time to myself, paying for reflexology massages once or twice a month, and saying no to professional opportunities that I am not passionate about or that I just cannot fit into my life right now.  I protect my Sunday yoga and don’t give up that time. I was a co-department chair at my school for three years, but deciding to say no to keeping up with that and joining less in school committees has given me some time back.   I know I could still say no to more and teach in some easier ways, but I love looking for and sharing ideas and creating lessons.  I want to sponsor clubs, offer field trips and plan exchange programs even though they are extremely time consuming.  My personal mantra has been I can’t do everything every year.  

I am trying not to take my students’ behavior or lack of effort so personally.  Say it with me: Their brains aren’t fully developed!  Seriously saying this out loud helps me.  I told a class of mine that their behavior isn’t totally their fault, because of this fact and a student asked if I could call her mom and tell her this.  Students aren’t not turning in homework or other assignments because of me, they are not even thinking about me.  It’s how they are wired.  If they snap or are having a bad day, it usually has nothing to do with me.  Not all students are going to love German and want to become German teachers and that’s okay!  They don’t like German and I did not like all of my classes in school either.  I think more about my chatty impulsive self in high school too and even tell some students they are my payback or karma for me trying to touch my Chemistry teacher’s hair and talking way too much in school.  Teenagers are weird!  It is what makes them fun but also what makes them difficult.   If you think about it, more students probably paid attention, did their work, and told you how much they love your class today than those students who didn’t.  Our stupid human brains and their stupid negative bias make it so hard to let go of the tough stuff.  Keeping cards, notes, emails and drawing from my students and reading them on rough days really helps.  

My schedule has changed this year and has made an immense difference.  My prep hour is now the first hour, which at first worried me, but has made me feel much more at ease starting my day.  At my school no matter what, students are at the front door at 6:40am and let in around 6:50 or 7:00am.  As much of a compliment it is that students want to come and chat or sit in my room with me, and that other teachers stop by to say hi, ask, or share something,  the constant traffic before school is overwhelming for me.  In our school staff and PLC meetings are before school, so some mornings I have a meeting starting at 6:50am and then only have ten minutes before the first class starts.  I am a morning person, but like to ease into my day.  The schedule at my school is the hardest part of working there for me;  we have a traditional schedule Mondays and Fridays and block periods Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.  Teachers do not have a prep hour one day a week.  If we have a shortened or special week, the days are moved around.  One of my colleagues has said how much he loves having first hour prep and he requests having it to our administration.  In the past I would have felt bad asking for what I need, but when this year is towards the end I will also be asking the admin to try their best to allow me to keep the first hour as my prep hour.  Another thing is that my class sizes this year are quite a bit smaller.  Of course, when I first saw this I was upset and worried about the next four years of the German program, but this has also helped cut back on time spent on grading and classroom management has been easier. 

Connecting with other German educators and being an AATG member have always been extremely beneficial to me, and attending our state conference (IFLTA) and ACTFL this year have completely rejuvenated me.  I have been able to reunite with colleagues from across the country who really inspire me and share our worries and triumphs as German educators.   I always tell my Spanish colleagues that we have such different challenges and worries than each other.  They don’t understand the pressure of seeing other German programs close and wondering if mine will someday and I don’t understand the time it takes 8 Spanish teachers to agree on something or come to a fair decision.  I cannot stress how uplifting it is to attend professional development, and that it is especially important for teachers who are a singleton in their subject or who are having issues at their own school.  

It may be a very small or very large part of this calmer year puzzle, but I have also started taking an anti-anxiety medication.  My doctor and sister would both talk to me every few months about trying medication, but I wanted to try other ways first and again I felt like I should not be this upset over my seemingly small problems.  After physically feeling worse and worse at the end of the school day and crying more often before work, I decided it was worth a try.  I take the smallest dose possible and have not had to increase dosage.  I feel more like myself than I have in years.  Once in a while I tell my students that I am having a rough day, feeling stressed and falling behind on things like grading, or some personal things.  This is not a weekly thing and saved for my worst days, but students actually really respond well.  One day I asked my third year to meditate or sit quietly while I meditated and now they ask to meditate once in a while.  I hear them vocalizing a little more often when they are stressed and it seems more like they are acknowledging their feelings, giving themselves a minute and then getting back to focusing instead of making excuses or putting their heads down.  At lunch other colleagues were saying how they also sometimes tell their students that they are having a rough day and we all said it made us feel a little immature and selfish.  Then we decided it is actually good to show them that everyone really does have bad days but that we get through them and they will pass.  It’s a good skill to practice self advocacy in a healthy way.  

Another reason why I stopped blogging is because I worry that when I share ideas I come across as a know-it-all or like I am bragging.  I don’t think I am doing things perfectly or have incredible ideas, but rather I think I try really hard and steal some awesome ideas.  I am the Ideaburglar; the Hamburglar steals hamburgers, Yogi steals picnic baskets, I steal ideas.  I am good at researching, reaching out to other teachers, asking questions, and compiling ideas then morphing them into something that works for me and my students.  While at ACTFL last week, a pretty amazing teacher mentioned all the wonderful Spanish teacher blogs there are.  German teachers really do have great Facebook groups, but there aren’t too many German teacher blogs out there.  Thinking about this and the many posts I have seen this year from teachers saying how tough this year has been on them have inspired me to try to start this little blog back up.  In the upcoming weeks I will post about my take-aways from the IFLTA and ACTFL conferences which I recently attended.  

The purpose of this post is hopefully to reach those we are having a rough year or week and give them hope that this is a season and will come and go.  You aren’t alone and it’s okay to take care of yourself.

Another disclaimer: if you hate everything I say, want to comment on my simplistic writing styles and atrocious spelling, or were bored to tears reading this, that’s totally fine.  You can disagree with me, but for this post you can really keep those thoughts to yourself.    I am being incredibly open and vulnerable here and in order to protect myself and perhaps others who feel similar to me, if there are negative posts, I will delete them.  This is my mental health and hopes in reaching others who are having a hard time, not me writing about what I feel are best practices in language teaching.