Taught: The Podcast
Taught is a podcast where educators and others discuss how they really feel about education, burnout, and strategies to make the world and education burnout-free.
Taught: The Podcast
Behavior Support: Who needs it more...teachers or students? Part 2
Can leadership changes and initiative overload be the real culprits behind educator burnout? Join us on Taught for part 2 of Tracy's interview as we dive deep into the heart of the education system's most pressing challenges. With a focus on the systemic issues that arise when teachers are overwhelmed, we'll discuss the importance of prioritizing and streamlining efforts to ensure that educational initiatives are both valuable and effectively communicated to students. The conversation then shifts to the critical role of social-emotional learning (SEL) in today’s education landscape. We’ll tackle the complex task of balancing various initiatives while prioritizing student success, with a particular emphasis on the disproportionate impact of exclusionary disciplinary practices on Black students, students with IEPs, and language learners. Let's spread awareness and foster discussions that can lead to real change.
Book and Ted Talk mentioned in today's episode:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Laura-van-Dernoot-Lipsky/author/B07H3L2BCK?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOzDGrcvmus
https://traumastewardship.com/laura-van-dernoot-lipsky/
Season 1 :
Join the Conversation: https://taughtbymelef.blogspot.com/
Interested in being a guest on the podcast? Email promelef@gmail.com. Include your name, role in education, and a summary of your story.
Here's the book that started it all:
Taught: The Very Private Journal of One Bad Teacher
Available @ Amazon in ebook or audio:
https://a.co/d/1rNZ84h
For immediate help use link for resources:
https://www.healthcentral.com/mental-health/get-help-mental-health
Other resources:
Amy Schamberg Wellness: https://www.amyschamberg.com/about
NHS - Resources for Grief and Burnout
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/feelings-and-symptoms/grief-bereavement-loss/
Melissa Anthony MA, LPC Trauma & Grief Counselor
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/melissa-j-anthony-grand-rapids-mi/944381
Welcome to TAUT the podcast. Before diving into today's episode, I have an important reminder slash disclaimer to share. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, organization, employer or company. Content provided on this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as professional advice. We encourage you to do your own research and consult with qualified professionals before making any decisions based on the information discussed in this or any other episode. Additionally, any opinions or statements made during the podcast are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual Listener. Discretion is advised. Thank you for tuning in and we hope you enjoy the show when you get new leadership.
Speaker 2:Everything has to change.
Speaker 1:When you get new leadership, everything has to change.
Speaker 2:So and I don't think that's necessarily bad I think after having one superintendent for over 10 years, it's maybe time to think about like are the goals that we had still the same goals that we need? And let's revisit that? Right? But we did that and in that process I think they came up with I'm not going to get this number exactly right, but I'm going to be in the ballpark it was like 37 different initiatives that we're working on as a district. That's not ever going to be feasible for anyone. I don't care who you are.
Speaker 1:A few years ago, I started writing a fictitious story based on my time as an educator. It is called Taught, and the story was partially inspired out of anger and frustration fueled by burnout. Okay, actually, it was more than partially inspired by anger and frustration. But taught has also become a vehicle for me to tell what I thought at the time and in some ways continue to think was and is the real story of teaching. I now realize that my perspective is not everyone's perspective, but there are some pieces of taught that resonated with many educators.
Speaker 1:This podcast is an extension of that story and I, a former teacher, will interview other educators, asking them to share how they really feel about the current state of education. Why are so many teachers burnout? Why are so many like me, leaving the field? We likely won't solve any problems or come up with any solutions, but we can create a community of voices that maybe begin the conversation around how educators can take back teaching. I'm Melissa LaFleur. Welcome to Taught. The podcast Today is part two of a two-part episode. If you didn't hear part one, no worries, go back to buzzsproutcom and click on last week's episode.
Speaker 2:I always go back to thinking about, like what works for kids? Right, what works for kids is if we can figure out what they need, put a system in place to support them, monitor that data to make sure it's working. And if it's not, change it but like not a complete 180, right. Like, make an adjustment and keep working towards a goal. And then in our own system we are like, okay, teachers, here's 10,000 things to do and we're going to give you a bunch of deadlines, but we're not going to really give you a map as to how to do any of it. Go yeah.
Speaker 1:I, of course I'm going to agree with that. How could you not? If you're in any portion of the system, that's exactly how it is, and it doesn't matter if it's administrators. I always use this example, even down to our custodial staff and our office staff, everyone has more than what they know how to do with, and a lot of it is systemic and a lot of it is changing the systems. So we get everything done and then we have to make some transition to something and everything gets turned upside down and actually it's hard to see a lot of the hard work that you've done just get shoved to the side. That goes back to that, leading to this idea of what we're doing doesn't have value. If it's hard for me to see the value because I keep having to throw it in the dumpster and do something new, I mean it's really going to be hard for me to impress upon the kids that what we're doing has value.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So what do we do? How do we, what can we do?
Speaker 2:um, I I don't think that there's a magic answer, but I do think that there are so many ways for us to be more efficient and effective than we currently have in place. Right and and a huge thing, um is deciding what is most important and letting go of some of the rest. I, I don't. I hear this is true everywhere, but I can't speak to other people's experiences but, um, initiative overload, um, I'm I'm trying to remember they actually just did a count, like we got a new superintendent and so then we got a new strategic plan, and then you know we did all of the things, because when you get new leadership, everything has to change.
Speaker 2:So and I don't think that's necessarily bad I think after having one superintendent for over 10 years, it's maybe time to think about, like, are the goals that we had still the same goals that we need? And let's revisit that. Right, but we did that and in that process I think they came up with I'm not going to get this number exactly right, but I'm going to be in the ballpark it was like 37 different initiatives that we're working on as a district. That's not ever going to be feasible for anyone I don't care who you are, that might be a little overshot on the number, but it was ridiculous Like this can't be what we're doing and we are so focused on doing every single thing that we do them all bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we can't put the time or effort into any one of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we can't put the time or effort into any one of them, one of the systems that I am a huge proponent of and some people will say this is a terrible thing to support in education, and I can argue with you all day as to why that's not the case, but I think the big name is MTSS, right, like multi-tiered systems of support. But I think about it often in the land of behavior, because that's where I spend a lot of my time and energy thinking, and the one that we've done in education, at least since the early 2000s, is PBIS, so positive behavioral interventions and supports, and what I'm noticing, at least where I exist in education, is that we're not doing it well, and I have been. I mean, you're like, yeah, not surprised, right? Um, I am doing a really like every month. We pull people who are social, emotional learning and PBIS leads from from buildings to do some training with them, which is incredible, right?
Speaker 2:So, again, our system is valuing this enough to say like this is important work and we're going to train these people to take it back to their buildings, but without a clear system in place as to how to do that, which we're working on.
Speaker 2:But I was like, hey, how many of you in our system we've been doing PBIS for over 15 years. How many of you who are the lead people in your building on this, how many of you were trained 15 years ago? Two of 27,. Right, yeah, okay, great. And since then, because many of you are newer than that, how many of you have been trained and could say like, yes, I know what I need to know about how to implement this system, that as a district, we have a policy and procedure around and say we're doing Two more, yeah, and those are the people who are dedicated to doing the work. So that's probably, you know, most of the people in the building who are in each building, who know what this is and how to do it and how to do it well, so we don't know how to do it, but we say we're doing it and then we say it doesn't work you're absolutely right and I think that that there you could.
Speaker 1:you could create a sentence stem. It would be a long one based on what you said, but you could put a lot of different programs in there and say that the same thing happened, because what we do and I have done this myself I'm not laying blame anywhere except for the fact that we don't have time to do it all lay in blame anywhere except for the fact that we don't have time to do it all. That's where the blame lies. But there have been many times that I just learn what I have to know and what I have to do. Honestly, as a teacher, I looked at it as what's the bottom line? What are the things that I absolutely have to do, what's the language I absolutely have to use? And the rest?
Speaker 2:of it. I did not even spend time with Right, because you don't have time or capacity.
Speaker 1:Especially when it's forever changing, as we already talked about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right, which is why I go back to we can't do 27 or 32 things. We can do three, yeah, if that maybe one. Well, and one at a time, right, and then you cycle through them and keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back. But we can't if we're doing all of those initiatives. And again, we have to prioritize what really matters. What's going to not only and I say this because I know that there's no getting away from this like not only what is going to increase student test scores, which I loathe to say, but what is actually going to make students and adults want to be at school, have a positive experience, because when that's happening, more learning will occur.
Speaker 1:Do you think that there are? Are there areas around this that we should be more concerned about? So my question is we have all these students. Are they all being affected equally by what we're talking about here? And, of course, this is a loaded question because I know what you think. I just want to hear you say it.
Speaker 2:And we also, as districts, as states and as a whole country, have data to prove that there is huge disproportionality and top areas. Students we don't serve, well, and I'm thinking specifically of disciplinary data. So students who are most often excluded from the educational environment right, so they're in school, suspended out of school, suspended, just kicked out of the classroom. Those are the big ones, right, because if you're not at school, how do you learn? Right, so I start with that. And the students who are most impacted by that are Black students, first and foremost, students who have IEPs and, oftentimes, language learners. So our students who need us, right, to have these opportunities to learn. We're like well, you're too difficult for me, so you can just leave now.
Speaker 1:So, coming full circle, we've got burnout teachers from too many demands who don't know how to get their own needs met showing up into classrooms not being able to meet the needs of the students because they are not in a place where they can meet their own. And when we try to put these initiatives in, we say, okay, we can't do that, and so we continue cycles where the same groups of students are not making progress or getting their learning needs met or getting their learning needs met. That's enough to just make you want to run for president. Nope, me neither. Okay, I just thought I'd throw it out there. You never know, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, so I said when I started this podcast I'm like, oh, we need to talk about solutions, but these are big things and I think that they can't be solved by two people or even one group. So I'm going to have to do some more thinking on this and more conversation, I think. Thinking on this and more conversation, I think. But I'm really excited to hear that you're doing the position that you're doing, because it's unusual to have in a school district and to see that there has been enough noise out there that your district thought that it was important.
Speaker 2:You know, interestingly, the department came to be right before social emotional learning became a politicized issue, so we made it in just in time and now we are contested. It is believed that we should not exist. We actually did in our department, trying to think about, like, how do we do this work and how do we do it? Well, right, because this is really foundational work to support adults and students in our system. And we're like we are like I identify as a white person, many of the people I work with also do. And we're like we are like I identify as a white person, many of the people I work with also do.
Speaker 2:And we're like we are, you know, middle-class white people and that doesn't necessarily match all of the demographics of the people in our system, like students that we serve. So, like, let's ask them what do they need? And overwhelmingly, from educators, family and community members and students, we were told they need social emotional learning. They want it, they want to do it in a way where students feel empowered. Families want that for their students. And then there's this small vocal group of people who are like how dare you indoctrinate my children?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Social emotional learning should only happen for kids who need it and should and outside of school hours, and everything else should happen with families and not at school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I. I'm glad that you brought that up, because there are so many of these things that we see that are generational right.
Speaker 1:So we have a generation of people who teach their children whatever their values are, and then that generation of children does something very similar. So for the portions that have those needs being met, that philosophy is fine. Has that same experience is really, really frustrating, Because over the years I've definitely had my share of parents send me those emails that are like why are you doing this? Why would you be talking about this? Don't you need to be teaching reading and writing and math? And yes, I do. But not everybody comes from the same socioeconomic background and not all of us come from the same home life.
Speaker 1:And I think you know my backstory. Because of my backstory I present as a middle class white person who does all of the things that middle-class white people do. But my growing up was very, very different from that and I see those students and if we don't have some interventions in there, where are they going to get it? Their parents don't have the skills and it's not just parents, right. Their communities that they're coming from do not have those skills that they need to take care of themselves in a lot of different capacities and again, I'll just use myself as an example.
Speaker 1:That way I'm not offensive to anyone, but my mother was a pretty major drug addict and I was raising myself and my brother and sister at the time during my formative elementary years and up into middle school and high school, and I had people from other areas come to me and say hey, you know what? First of all, you're cussing like a sailor Not appropriate. People do not want to approach you when you're doing that. They are afraid of you. They don't think that you're polite. Here's something you might try instead.
Speaker 1:Never occurred to me that you shouldn't use those words because no one had ever talked to me about it at home. Did that make my home life, everybody there, horrible? No, and that's a very small example. But you know what, if you go into any work environment and you're using foul language, you're not going to get the respect and the promotions and whatever else you're hoping to get out of that environment. But again, using myself as an example, I can tell you right now it would have never occurred to me not to use that language if I hadn't had some very kind, well-meaning people who said you have a lot of great ideas, but you have a really foul way of getting them out of your mouth, so might think about doing this a little bit differently. You know, and it was super helpful to me, and that was actually I dated a guy. His parents, his parents, were like woo, you know, they didn't say stop dating this girl, she's trash. They said we see potential in you. Here's something you might change.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think that that's what you just said. There's the whole idea right In social emotional learning how do we help or support students to develop the potential within them? And that looks different for everyone and I don't think that it's because some kids need it and some kids don't. I don't think there's a person on this planet who doesn't benefit from being thoughtful about who they are, how they show up in the world for themselves and in relationship to other people. Absolutely, how they show up in the world for themselves and in relationship to other people. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's all social emotional learning is talking about. It's how do you manage yourself and how do you manage your relationships, and if you think we can be in school and not talk about that or deal with that, we're going to do it one way or another. We're either going to punish kids and tell them they're bad, or we're going to punish kids and tell them they're bad, or we're going to teach them and say here are some other ways of doing this that might help you find more success in your life, and kids who need that fall across the spectrum of what their family dynamic looks like or where they've come from. Yep.
Speaker 1:And you're leading me right into our three for the road. So here's your magic wand. What is one thing you would change? You only get one, though Immediately in education if you could Go.
Speaker 2:I think the one thing that needs to change I'm going to it's two-h, but it's one right, so we need to really just start trusting teachers to make decisions. But we can't just put trust in teachers who've been working in a broken system because we're doing it in a broken way, right, like we have to put trust in teachers while providing them with all of the resources and supports that they need, which can't be ever changing. Yeah, um, I cannot tell you the amount of educators I talked to who don't feel valued, who don't feel respected, who feel overwhelmed. That needs to change. Yeah, that is the thing that needs to change. Teachers need to want to be here. Yeah, and the attitude around that needs to change.
Speaker 2:But it's not just an attitude, because if we could just say like I feel like we keep shifting back to early COVID times but do you remember when people were like teachers are amazing, we respect and value teachers so much and then it quickly turned into I can't believe these teachers are still getting paid when my kid is sitting at home learning, right, and I don't think again, I don't think we've recovered from that. As a whole, I think there's still a lot of questioning what teachers do and what their value is. And we show that value in a lot of ways, and one is by not having any sort of clear direction as a system, and I mean like across our country, as to what education looks like. We don't pay teachers enough, for the most part, to do the work that they do, and I mean I could go on and on and on, but-.
Speaker 1:You touched on something, though, and there's a name for this, and I should know it because I just listened to a podcast about it, but I don't remember the name of it. But it is this phenomenon that happens actually, to be honest, with most of us around something at some point, but it's where you think you can do something just because you know a little bit about someone else doing it, or you see them do it.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I'm talking about? It's Dunning-Kruger effect, yeah, oh, say it again. The Dunning-Kruger effect. Yeah, I was at a conference all of last week and that was mentioned in one of the sessions I was in.
Speaker 1:And it's exactly that, right, like we know just enough to think we know just enough to think we know everything, and then once we actually learn more, we realize we don't know anything Exactly, and I think that this has teachers have definitely been victimized by this, because I think that everybody thinks that you can get a expo marker and a whiteboard and a math book and voila, you're a teacher. They don't see what goes on behind it, and I want to say that I've been a victim of this many times. It's usually around sporting activities. Most currently it's around my Pilates stuff. I see the other girls doing stuff. I get up there and do it. Respect, respect to those girls, and I think that that could potentially happen for people who really took the time to see what we do.
Speaker 1:Educators and I'm not just talking about teachers at this point either I'm talking about, like I said earlier, the office staff, the custodial staff, the school nurses, librarians, the tech people, the administrators, all of us paraeducators. We have each of us, huge responsibilities in our area as well as expertise, and I'm going to say that most of us have some sort of natural talent for what we're doing as well, and those things do not get respected at all. It is exactly what you said Post-pandemic teachers are great as long as you're risking your lives. Yeah, you should be out there risking your life. Yeah, front lines, go out there, teachers finally doing something, you know, yeah, we're all about it. So is that what it takes? One of us and I'm not going to go on a tangent here, I'm probably going to have to cut this out because I am all riled up now. But the other thing is do I have to take a bullet for you to respect me, a punch to the face? Is that because I feel like that's where we're headed?
Speaker 2:I feel like we're already there, right, like that's happening all too often. I mean, the group of paraeducators I worked with, that was their complaint, right. They were like we are getting hit, kicked, punched every day and they're like, and it's not that our admin team isn't coming in and doing this work with us, like they're on what they called the front lines with them, but there's no system in place to change it or make it better. We can't keep doing this. It's got to be better. And you're right, we should not talk about taking bullets for students, but we cannot be trusted as educators to decide which books students read or which curriculum we teach. But in Tennessee now, we should be trusted to have guns in our classrooms. So that's a wild new situation that I want. No part of that's not that new.
Speaker 1:So you know, I put that in my book and I wrote that years ago. But the situation I was talking about happened in 2012, where I sat at an in-service, and that was the discussion, and it's happening in Texas as well.
Speaker 2:To shift us back. Thank you, I need that. Thank you, I need that. It is a really hard career choice and I don't like you obviously don't know what teachers do. If you think that that's what you want to do to relax in your retirement, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Nothing relaxing about it, for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean, in Washington state we just passed legislation what was like in 2019 or 2020 around the need to educate educators on the impact of secondary trauma. So your retirement career is going to be one where you experience secondary trauma Like wait, what I don't, I don't think you know.
Speaker 1:So right back to that Dunning-Kruger effect, On my on my website, for this podcast every week I make sure that I post. I have a friend who is a grief and trauma therapist Her name is Melissa. She does online work and she is available should anyone need that. And I have another friend who's in Colorado, amy Schamberg. She also is doing work around specific. Amy's work is specifically around educators and processing whatever they need to process, as well as setting up systems of future self-care.
Speaker 2:I would also plug a book that I share often with educators and I say this because I found it super supportive and I know many others who have, but now I'm going to blank on the name of it. It's Laura Vandenute Lipsky. She wrote I say this because I found it super supportive and I know many others who have but, um, now I'm going to blank on the name of it. It's Laura Vandenute Lipsky. She wrote I will think of the name of it as soon as we're done talking today. Um, but she's got a really good book on burnout and um, secondary trauma and vicarious trauma. She's also got a really good Ted Talk, which, if you don't want to read the whole book, I would just watch her TED Talk because it's phenomenal and helps you understand how skewed your perception becomes when you spend a lot of time around people who have experienced trauma and in education. That is a lot, is a lot.
Speaker 2:Some stats that I often share In 2019, the CDC said that at least one third of students were coming with at least one adverse childhood experience, which we know to potentially cause trauma. And that is only using the oldest data on trauma for students. Now we look at it in a much more broad way and I really like that. One of the potential causes of trauma is like natural events, like hurricanes or earthquakes or things like that, but also pandemics.
Speaker 1:So now our likelihood of experiencing students who have experienced trauma is you know, a hundred percent, yeah, you're not going to have one, that hasn't.
Speaker 2:Right. Everybody has and we all need to figure out how we, as adults, can stay regulated to be around kids who are going to become dysregulated and need our help.
Speaker 1:So send me the link to the Ted talk and the book and I'll put it. Today's show notes for your episode. Absolutely, yep, okay. So let's, let's lighten it up. Okay, see, we get to talking about. Well, we're not going to lighten it up actually, because, since we're talking about trauma, because of the nature of what we do, we do witness trauma, we absorb it, we see tragedies To your comfort level.
Speaker 2:Talk about one of the things that has had the biggest impact on you so it's interesting because I was thinking about this question and there are so many things to process, so many things that come up, and I think an easy thing would be to think about things that have, like, personally happened to me and that that stuff doesn't feel as hard as watching what is happening and it feels like the most traumatic thing. Have so much respect for teachers and sometimes we create our own environments that are really hard to walk into, like I. I had to sub one time actually many times, but one time in particular when I was subbing, I went into a classroom that was a little bit disorganized, a lot bit disorganized, and there were not really clear plans for me to follow, and quickly things got out of control and I think I'm a person who has a pretty good grasp on classroom management and managing students, even when there's not a clear plan or even when it's a little bit tricky, and I could not get this together and suddenly I have a second grader who is throwing Chromebooks at kids and a fight on the carpet between two children and I literally had to break it up and hold a student by the shirt while evacuating the classroom right, like that's one thing, but that wasn't it? The thing that was hard for me was leaving there that day and knowing that they were coming back to the same thing the next day Because nothing was going to change right.
Speaker 2:The kid who was throwing the computers and getting in a fight it wasn't going to be different. There wasn't a magic fix. He wasn't going to come back and suddenly not do those things the next day. The teachers who are crying and leaving the profession. Everybody is feeling so overwhelmed that there's not moments of joy and connection, and that, to me, is the traumatic piece. Like how do we all keep coming back?
Speaker 2:when it is that hard every day.
Speaker 1:Very well said, and it is. We're all coexisting in that trauma, aren't we? Yep? I think that one of the things that comes to my mind when you say this, too, is that I asked earlier, a bit flippantly, what's the solution, knowing that we don't have the solution If we did, somebody would be doing it. But I think that the deeper level of that is is that it can't just be a solution within the education system. We're all going to have to get on board with this, and that's what makes it so challenging is that it's got to be a full societal effort.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't think we can afford to wait for everybody to agree yeah, right, like we know the right thing to do, and even though it's scary and even though there's going to be pushback, we need to start doing it and show that this is what needs to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and I think you had mentioned in your survey that sometimes those loud voices, that of the few, are driving the majority of what we do, and this essentially, is bullying right. I mean, I think we as a profession have to stand up to the bully Right and if the bully doesn't like it, they can figure out their own education system, which they threatened to do most of the time.
Speaker 2:Anyway they threatened to do and they do, and that's the thing, right. Like as a public education system, we need to work for everyone, not for the loudest voices, and the the voices that need us the most are the ones who don't or can't speak up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, now I really am going to lighten things up, I promise.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay To balance out that whole mess. We do think kids are funny. I know you think they're funny. I know I do too, because we've talked about this. What's one of the funniest things you've experienced in your time as an educator?
Speaker 2:Okay, this was so early on. So, like I said, at the beginning, I thought I was just going to be a special education teacher and that's where I'd spend all of my time and the first time I was put into a classroom for a practicum. So I had been in a teaching program for two months or something and had no experience in a full classroom full of tiny humans and they were like you're in kindergarten, which if you work in education, you know that's like maybe the scariest place to be. And I remember immediately being like what I will take a classroom full of 12 kids who might punch me in the face any day over this classroom of 25, five and six year olds, like this is the scariest thing I've ever done. And then immediately they're like this is the scariest thing I've ever done. And then immediately they're like now you're going to teach a lesson.
Speaker 2:I'm like wait, what you want me to manage? All of these kids at once, get them to all do something at the same time. Like I, I obviously cannot do this, I am doing the wrong thing. This is terrible. But I did pull together a lesson. It's a lesson I've used many times over since and if you are in education. You probably know this book it's called. Is it the most important thing about?
Speaker 1:an apple is that it's red.
Speaker 2:And then it goes on to describe like other things about it, like it's juicy and crunchy and whatever, but the most important thing is it's red. So we, and it talks about lots and lots of things like that. And then I, I'm leading this group of kindergartners after reading this book with them, like what's important to you? What are some things that are important to you? And, mind you, I have no experience in what kids are going to say to you. And, mind you, I have no experience in what kids are going to say, especially at this age. And they're sharing and they're like you know, my dog's important to me, or it's important that we, you know, have dinner together, and like very great answers from little kids.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden, one of them's like it's important for me to be naked. And I was like wait, what naked? And I was like, wait, what? I don't? I don't know what to say about this. And but you can't miss a beat, especially with kids at that age. And so I I remember quickly having to come up with something to redirect this conversation. And, um, my, my practicum teacher is just kind of looking at me like, yeah, what are you going to do Right, didn't offer me anything and I'm just like. I know I came to it quickly but it felt like it took an hour and finally I was like, yeah, it's so important to have privacy at home. And that was it. But I have never stopped laughing at that Like, of course, of course, the first lesson I ever teach in the scariest environment I've ever been in, this kid's like telling everybody about being naked at home.
Speaker 1:And you know, all of us are having classroom meetings now at all levels and you gotta be careful with those, because you ask one, it does not seem like a loaded question and every once in a while you'll get. You know, my dad drinks beer till he falls asleep on the couch every night and my mom hates it. And you're just like Ooh, yes, the couch is a great place to sleep. Sometimes I fall asleep on the couch, you know. And then of course, you have another kid oh, do you drink beer every night too? So they're great. Kids are great.
Speaker 2:Very honest, the most honest, yes.
Speaker 1:So I have a bonus question for you Hopefully you haven't been. I mean, I want you to listen to the podcast, but hopefully you haven't been, so you won't know what I'm going to ask. But you go into the staff room, the sink is full of dirty dishes, but you need to get a glass of water. What do you do?
Speaker 2:Oh see, that's not a fair question because it really depends, right. Do I have time to do those dishes Maybe? Maybe, I mean, I'm going to be honest in my own experience. I work with the kids that everybody has nothing nice to say about, so I don't use the staff room, which makes me personally not want to do those dishes.
Speaker 1:I get that. So whose job is it to do those dishes? Uh-huh, I get that Uh-huh. So whose job is it to do the dishes?
Speaker 2:I know we all hate it, but the sign-up I think, is the only right way. Like we have to figure out how to be in community together and that is one of the ways and this is totally a tangent from your question. But I remember also trying to advocate that we just don't talk about students in the staff room and the pushback I got from that was wild.
Speaker 1:I also like I want to be able to use this space and on, though, because, if you'll recall, I also went on a tangent, but mine was I'm not cleaning your damn dirty dishes I will clean the microwave once a month, but I'm not coming in here and cleaning up after you pigs and and you know what, they took me up on it. I remember that, yeah, we had a clean microwave all school year.
Speaker 2:We did, and I appreciated that, because that is the only thing I would go in there to do. I would get my lunch out of the refrigerator, if I needed to, I would heat it up and then I would leave. It was a rare occurrence that I would sit in there and I certainly wasn't using the dishes. And I mean, the signup is one thing, but also how hard is it to put your own dish in the dishwasher?
Speaker 1:I agree. That is actually what the signup sheet should be right. Who's gonna empty the dishwasher? That's it. That's the only job, that's all the signup.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's it, and if that's the case, you should sign up if you use it, because some of us just opt out.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right, and there should be enough of you, because there's always dirty dishes in that damn sink. So there's enough of you to do your signup list to empty the dishwasher.
Speaker 2:All right, absolutely. That's how I feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see you. I see you, tracy. Okay, thank you so much for coming on my podcast. Is there anything else that you would like to say before we go?
Speaker 2:I just think it's incredible that you are creating this space for us to have these conversations, because I don't think, as we alluded to or didn't even allude to, but clearly stated we alluded to or didn't even allude to, but clearly stated most people don't know what's happening really truly in the world of education. So glad you're doing this and I hope this can be part of the conversation about what needs to happen to make things different. I wish I knew more.
Speaker 1:Today's episode was produced and edited by me. The theme music is by Otis McDonald featuring Joni Ines. If you know someone who might enjoy these conversations, please share the podcast episodes as much and as often as you can. It's as simple as copying the link you use to access today's episode and sending it in a message or sharing it on social media. I'm a small, independent operation and your shares broaden our audience. Perhaps you or someone you know will be inspired to talk about teacher burnout. If you would like to get your voice on my podcast, contact me via the link on my webpage taughtbuzzsproutcom. Coach, speaker and author Rashid Ogunlaro said it may take many voices for people to hear the same message. Join me in being one of the many voices rising up to get the message out around educator burnout. This is Melissa LaFleur. Thank you for listening to Taught the podcast.