Back to School 2024 - Pt 1 - When Your Class List Causes Teacher Stress

Back-to-school season can be a rollercoaster, whether you're thrilled to start lesson planning or dreading the endless professional development icebreakers. But nothing causes as many back-to-school jitters as (finally) getting your new class list.
 
This is the first in a 5-part back-to-school 2024 series. I break down when to take that unbalanced list to administration and when not to, and the 5 top mindsets to adopt to ensure you don't derail your year before it's even begun.

Episode Highlights:

• 📋 New Class List: Tips on handling the excitement and potential letdowns when seeing your new class list.
• 🧠 Mindset is Everything: Real strategies and empowering mindsets to face a challenging class with confidence.
• 👩‍🏫 Empowering Educators: How to tackle an unbalanced student load and when to take action.
• 🗣️ Personal Stories: I share a heartwarming story about my childhood experiences with new teachers.
• ✨ Clean Slate Philosophy: Why every student deserves a fresh start and how this can change your classroom dynamic.
• 💪 Growth Challenges: Embracing difficult students as opportunities for growth and making a lasting impact.
• ⏳ Countdown, Not a Life Sentence: Remember, it’s just one school year. Strategies to keep a positive outlook.
• 📝 Narrative Power: The importance of the stories we tell ourselves and others about our students and teaching experiences.

And so much more!

I hope you find time to listen and feel empowered to make back-to-school as stress-free as possible.

To thrive in teaching WITHOUT sacrificing your personal life, visit www.gracestevens.com/elevate

Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life? Check out the Elevated Teacher Experience here
Check out the best-selling Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers book here
And the #1 new release for educators Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries book here

Wanna get social?
https://www.tiktok.com/@gracestevensteacher
https://www.facebook.com/GraceStevensTeacher
https://www.Instagram.com/gracestevensteacher

Old school: Website : www.GraceStevens.com (courses, blog & freebies!)

Transcript

  OK, teacher friends, whether or not you are hiding your eyes when you go into Target and Walmart and just do not want to look at those back to school supplies, or whether you're a full force back in it, lesson planning, doing all the things, groaning at the stale bagels and cold coffee at your PD, and why on earth are they making us do another icebreaker? 

Back to school season. is here. Like it or not, I want you to love it. I always loved it. Was I naive? Maybe, but it was a mindset. Anyway, this is part one in a five week back to school series that I'm doing for teachers. It's gonna cover all the things you need to know. And this week we're starting off with that much anticipated, sometimes dreaded, new class list.

Maybe you just got it emailed to you or maybe you've been hounding the school secretary until she finally gives it to you. You're all excited, you look at the list and then oh no, it is as if somebody has deflated the list. a balloon. You are not excited. I'm here to remind you that mindset is everything.

I'm not just going to stick a happy face sticker on it. I'm going to give you some empowering mindsets and some real strategies to be happy. Tackle the fact that when you look at that list, you already know you have a disproportionate number of students who are going to be challenges. Maybe you have way more students than your peers.

We're going to talk about it and all the things. I will see you. On the inside.  Welcome to the Balance Your Teacher Life podcast, where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries, and achieving better work life balance.  If you're passionate about education, but tired of it consuming your whole life, you have found your home in the podcast universe.

I'm your host, Grace Stevens, and let's get going with today's show. 

All right, I'm going to start with a quick story.  My mum,  bless her, reminded me of this the other day. She said, I was saying, oh, the teacher's getting ready to go back to school, mum. Like I've been busy with the podcast, all the other things. She doesn't know what a podcast is. Fun fact. She, I tried to explain it to her and she said, you just sit in a room and talk to yourself.

Yeah, pretty much, mum. That's pretty much what I wanted, what I do. I try to explain it to her. Blaine, it's her, there was like a radio show that you could listen in. I, I sent her a link on her phone, I don't know. Anyway, but she and I were talking about back to school and she said, oh my gosh, do you remember when you were little and every year you'd find out who your teacher was and you would cry and cry and cry and say you didn't want that teacher and oh my goodness it was going to be the worst year ever.

She said and then at the end of the year I'd have to deal with the same thing. you You would cry and cry and cry that that was the best teacher ever. And what were you going to do? You didn't want to leave their class.  All right. So it is true. No, there was only a couple of teachers that was really like, I don't want to have them.

Their reputation preceded them. Right. You know what?  We're sitting here feeling the same way about our class list, aren't we? Aren't we? I hope you're not crying. But anyway, let's talk about it, because it is real. So the first thing to acknowledge before I get into these really five critical mindsets is just, if it is intrinsically, Unfair, then do something about it.

And when I say do something about it, do something other than sit around complaining and feeling powerless. Okay, now let's acknowledge first off that there is a reality in teaching, in education that I do not have a solution for. Okay, I'm going to be honest. This you're going to have to, you know,  positive mindset your way out of.

And that is this reality.  I've hinted at it before, but you know it's true. Especially you know it's true if you're the teacher. You know what? I was the teacher. Every grade has one, and that is the teacher who has, for whatever reason, really good classroom management skills.  And what I mean by that is, basically, you just don't send your kids to the office, you deal with it in house, okay?

So, you're very experienced, not even as much experienced, but competent maybe, in dealing with students who have provide, prove to be really challenging to other teachers, okay? And, or, you have really good skills. Good skills with parents, which fun fact I'm going to coach you on next week. We're going to have a whole episode about that on productive parent relationships.

Okay. But let's say there's challenging parents and you've had their siblings in the past and worked really well with them, or you just have a way with parents that again, what does it mean that you're really good at working with them? It means you keep them out of the office. Okay, so if that happens, if you are that teacher, you already know you will get a disproportionate number of students who have, shall we say, special circumstances, whether that's due to  their behavior or difficult circumstances they have in their home life or high maintenance parents, like you're going to get more of them than your peers.

Okay, you just, oh, that's not by evil design. That's because every administrator, you know, just wants to make their life easier. They're as overwhelmed as we are. If you have a good track record of like, oh, I always used to hear it. Oh, Mrs. S, this student will thrive under your care. I already knew what that was.

Okay, so you're going to have to kind of accept that. It doesn't seem fair. But.  Be honest. Sometimes you don't know who, you know, other teachers have challenging students too. You just don't know about them. Maybe they don't talk about them. I doubt you have all of them. However, if it is intrinsically unfair, if every student who's on a behavior plan or on an IEP  is in your room.

Every single one of them is in your room. True story. Just saying. If every single one of them is in your room and your two grade mates have none of them, that is intrinsically unfair. Okay? If you have a disproportionate number of students. Now listen, In the lower grades, you know, I taught the lower grades for many, many years and class sizes was maxed out at 25.

After 25, they had to pay you a stipend for each additional student. So I tried very hard to make sure no elementary school teacher, you know, had more than in K through three had more than 25 students. So at grade four, it, it, Popped up to 35. But, so let's say I started off the year with 24 students or 25 and my peers only had 18 or 19.

Now I was, you know what, honestly I was okay with that because what that meant was they didn't want me to have more than 25. Every new student who came was going to have to go to one of my teaching buddies.  Way better for me. I would much prefer to have all the students in front of me at the beginning of the year when I am setting classroom standards, we're practicing procedures, we're building community.

It's so much easier to do that with a whole cohort of students than to have students trickling in at certain times in the year. You know, you only hear about it, you know, 10 minutes before school starts and you've got to run around, try and find a desk, try and find a book, try and find a Chromebook. All the things.

Okay, so I was okay with that, but I'll tell you right now, maybe she's listening. This weekend I was with a really good friend of mine and we taught first grade together for like nine years and then she went up to teach upper grades and so she has seventh grade right now. You know, she just got her class list.

Come on, she had 35 students in one class and her the other teacher had 25. Okay. So, you know, you can say, well, it's only 10 students. Shouldn't they've given them 30 each, but when you went through all of her schedule and all her prep, all her periods that she had to teach, she had  200 students and the other teacher had 125.

Come on. That's a 75 student difference. That is not fair. That is 75. more grades that you've got to manage, that you've got to grade all those papers, that you've got to, you know, manage those extra bodies in a classroom. It's 75 more report cards. It's 74 75 more potential teacher conferences for sure.

It's 75 more sets of parent communications to manage. That's just crazy. Okay. Time to, you know, Call your union rep. And if you don't have a union rep, time to call a meeting with the administrator. Maybe they are unaware, maybe they have a really good reason, but if they do, they better tell you about it.

Okay, so that's the first thing. If it really is ridiculously unbalanced, then Call your union rep. Email your admin. Keep the paper trail. Don't just mention it to the secretary. Don't just say, hey, maybe you don't know. Every  kid in an IEP is in my room. Can you make sure the next one who comes goes to somebody else's room?

Just because, you know, it's just meetings. It's just more meetings. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I didn't want a kid with an IEP in my room. Come on now. I have a big heart, but you know what? I got to go to all those meetings. I got to fill out all that paperwork. I got to manage kids coming in and out of my room.

It's so disruptive when. You know, four times a day kids are coming in and out and have different work and have different homework. Like it's just, you can't just put that all on one teacher. Okay? So that's first thing, feel empowered to do something other than complain. Okay? So that's number one. What if it just is what it is that year?

There's way more boys, right? The year that I had 21 boys and like seven girls. What the heck? And then I go and ask my peers, and yeah, I had way more than them, but we were just boy heavy. It's the way it was, right? Maybe, you know, for whatever reason, it's just the you you're gonna have. Here's the five top things I want you to think about.

These are mindset shifts, but they can make all All the difference. Okay. You ready?  Number one. Okay. Before you start telling yourself, Oh my gosh, another year of uphill battles. What the heck am I going to do? I want you to evaluate past comments with a grain of salt.  Okay. Now I never looked at those. We used to get, Oh my God.

I can't believe I'm going to say this. I think they still call that. Pinks and blues. You know what the pinks and blues were? Yeah, you do. If you taught elementary, you got these cards that, that the previous year's teacher had to fill out. At the end of the year, you fill out, you know, just, it's supposed to be a snapshot of the kids so you can see if they need special services.

And some of the stuff was very, you know, it was objective. It was absolutely the stuff I needed to know. Does this kid go to speech? Do they have specials? Do, what were their test scores? Do they have allergies? Is there some kind of custody issue, right? If I'm handing students off at the gate and I need to know that I'm not allowed to give them to a certain individual who isn't on a card, right?

All the things, okay. Stuff that was critical to know. Yes, is on there. But then there's other stuff. They use these cards to sort, right? They're supposedly, you know, old school supposed to sort them so that, you know, we have equal classes, right? Who's an English learner, like some of those in every class, right?

Okay. But then there's stuff we kind of objective not objective, excuse me, subjective, right? The teacher will write comments. Now some of them are helpful, like, you know, and people are very diplomatic functions best when in an area we're not distracted, right?  Then there's the teacher who writes, they need to sit by themselves, they're the class clown.

Okay, not so diplomatic. So, those are the things I tended to avoid. I didn't want to know what another teacher's experience of that child was. Okay, I wanted to take those past comments with a grain of salt. Like my story of me crying, fun fact, Mr. O'Neill, fourth grade, crying, crying, didn't want to have him as a teacher.

He was scary. He was this, he was that. How did I know? I don't know. Other people told me that, you know.  I had a sibling who had a very different learning style from me. I can imagine that he would not have done well with that teacher. He would have told me how awful he was. And, you know, I was a completely different student, right?

I had a great year with that teacher. OK, so it's the same thing, right? Have you ever read a movie review?  And just been flawed, like, were we watching the same movie? Right? Different strokes for different folks. So, I just want to remind you that before you let somebody else's, you know, comment colour your perspective, consider the source.

Just consider the source. Has that teacher left negative comments on more than half the students coming out of her class? Right? Then that's on the teacher, it's not on the student. Okay? I always want to have my own experience of students. Thanks. Okay, I don't tend to go look in their cumulative files. I mean, if there's something specific I need to look at.

But if I have a new student and, you know, if somebody hands you that cube and it's three inches thick and they're only in second grade, you already know what you're getting, right? It's full of behavior reports in there would make that cube so thick, okay? So, just, I always tell myself, you know what?

That was their experience. It doesn't need to be. Mine. Different students. Maybe they matured over summer. Okay. Maybe they just were sitting next to their friends who encouraged their antics and maybe now they're in a different room. Okay. I'm a different teacher. I have a different style. My energy teaches more than my lesson plans and my seating chart.

Okay. So, I would just take the past comments with a grain of salt. So that's the first mindset. Okay. The second mindset is, come on now, everyone deserves a clean slate, okay? Everyone deserves a clean slate. We all love the magic of new beginnings, right? Just like we reflect on our practice over summer and imagine how can I be a better teacher next year?

What could I do differently? You know, maybe that student matured over summer. Maybe that's Some conversations they've been having with themselves. How can I be a better student? Right? Nobody should have to drag around their baggage from last year. Okay? So just assume the best intentions. Just,  everybody's sitting in gen pop, right?

Everybody's sitting together. You know, you're not separating kids at the beginning of the year automatically. What a horrible thing through coming in and already, Oh, this teacher already thinks I'm troubled. They are going to rise or fall to the occasion, whatever your expectations are, students know that.

So give. them a clean slate, okay? Even if you know or you saw how they behaved last year, so it just isn't somebody else's opinion. You've witnessed it yourself. Now that they're with you all day, you know, maybe they have matured. They are ready to have a clean slate and let them know, hey, everybody begins the year here with a clean slate.

We're gonna have a great year. Here's how we do things in this class. Everybody tends to have a positive experience here. You know, just set off the year with positive, good expectations. Okay?  Not with that groan. Oh, right. Not like, Oh my gosh, I had their sibling. They were a nightmare. This kid's going to be the same.

What did I say? My, you know, that I'm totally different than my, brother. And I gotta say my children are totally different from each other. Totally different learning styles. One learning came very, very easy, very easy, very high achieving academically, but had a lot of anxiety and other issues to contend with.

And then her little brother,  happy go lucky, easy going little guy, get along with everybody really caring and considerate. But I'm telling you.  Getting that kid to learn was like pulling teeth. He wasn't interested. Not interested. So, there you go. So don't base a student based on the sibling that you've had.

Okay, so that's second. Okay, we'll be at number one, take past comments with a grain of salt. Number two, every student deserves a clean slate. Number three, embrace the challenge of growth of challenging students. Listen, you know in your heart of hearts, the students who have caused you to grow the most,  Right?

Really have been the challenging ones. If everybody was compliant in academically, you know, advanced, what a nice, smooth, easy year you would have. Would it be as rewarding? You know, those students who really kind of, made me stretch my skills and, and, and learn some more tricks to put in my teacher toolkit.

Those kids, honestly, they're the kids I remember the most, not just because they caused me to grow the most, right? Like with my spiritual practice, like, oh my gosh, today, you know, no matter what, I'm going to stay calm and caring and hold this kid accountable, but in a loving way, right? So they not only caused me, you know, to grow, but  But I always, like, those are probably the lives I impacted the most.

Maybe, maybe I was a bright spot in their day. Maybe I was the only calm, consistent, caring, positive role model in their life who believed in them. You know, maybe not, but that's a story I could tell myself, right? Is that this kid needs me. Right.  Right. This kid needs the best of me.  Right. And so I would always embrace those challenges.

And again, in the moment, was I always loving it? Absolutely not. But if I go back and I pull out, now this is a strategy I've had before, right? What I call the Jen Sinceros Badass list, right? Where I'd make a list of all the lives I truly know, my heart of heart, I've impacted over the years. Okay? If I look at that list, were they the quiet, compliant students?

Right? They were the students who had a lot of challenges. Okay? So the greater the challenge, the bigger the impact, right? And that's why we all got into this, to have an impact. Okay. So that's number three. Number four. Remember, it's a countdown, it's not a life sentence. It's not a life sentence. I used to say every year a new adventure, right? 

180 days. If you got to check them off your planner, like you're stuck in prison counting the days, so be it. But recognize that you will not have this child. forever. Okay? Unfortunately, their parents will. You will not, right? Some chapters are more difficult than others in our school careers. Some years, everything goes smooth with the class.

Other years, you know, the so called dream class. Sometimes we didn't realize they were a dream class until we're looking back, right? I call that creative reminiscing. Oh, remember that year? That dream class? Like no class is a dream class, don't be holding your breath for that. And if you're looking back at a class and thinking they were a dream class, there were some students in there who when you saw their name on that class list,  you probably, you know, had a, an anxious moment like, Oh no, how's this going to go down?

Okay. Just remember, it's not a life sentence. You can do anything for 180 days, my friends, 180 days. Now that might seem like a lot of days, just count down to the next holiday. Okay. That's, you know, we all do it. How many days until winter break? How many days till spring break? How many days till the end of the year?

Okay. Some years we start counting way earlier than others, but that is just a reality. Okay, it's not a life sentence. It's not somebody you're going to have to work with for the rest of your life. It is one school year. All right, and then the last thing I will say is  mind the stories you tell. Now, this is always one of, you know, this is one of my  My, parts of my ECHO framework for Educator Empowerment, right, which is other people's experience doesn't need to be your experience, okay, but mind the stories you tell.

Words have power, narrative has power, the story you spin in your mind shapes your reality, right, talk about that a lot, the mind is not the territory, right, when you  Tell yourself, you ask this, you know, disempowering question, why do I always get the students, right? That's disempowering. An empowering  question is, you know,  why was this student kind of, what does this student need for me?

What does this student need for me in order to shine, right? This student was giving me To me, for a reason. That's a way more empowering kind of mindset. Right? Nobody wants to be in victim, woe is me mode. Right? Every time you repeat your story in your mind, in the staff room, at the dinner table, right?

You're reinforcing that narrative and that reality. Okay, remember, you might be the only bright spot in that student's day, but mind the stories you tell. Don't go  complaining about that student every lunchtime in the lunchroom. Okay, all that's doing is setting him up for failure next year with the next teacher who's listening to you.

Right? It's not giving you a break from the student. Then you're going home and complaining about the situation. Like, why? Why are you going to do that? Okay, I know I've told this story before of a teacher who every single day would just as soon as she came in. And we knew better, you weren't allowed to use teachers students names.

That was a rule we had to install after it came up again and again and again. And parents were sometimes in the staff room, that's where our copy machine was. Maybe they were volunteering or helping. Like, do not bring up students names. So then it would be that veiled, oh, my friend. We all knew who their friend was.

It was a student that drove them crazy, the student that they tormented, and maybe low key bullied. Let's be honest, okay? My friend this, my friend that, every lunch. And I remember one day saying, gosh, it sounds like you really need a break from that student. Yeah, I do. Okay, then why did you bring them to lunch? 

Right? Why are we talking about them? It's if they're in the room right now. Let's talk about something else. So, mind the stories you tell. Yes, in the staff room, at home, in the dinner table, and the story you tell yourself, Why always me? Why do I always get these students? It's not unempowering. Mindset, right?

Be empowered. Come on. Be, be, be the teacher you wanted to have. Okay? It was not a disempowered complaining teacher. Alright, so that's it. Listen, trauma is real. I understand. You get that list. Ugh, every year, every year I do that. Here's the thing not to do. Don't let the other, if there's a really negative teacher in the grade behind you, don't let them look at the list.

Right? I've fallen into that trap. They'll come up, there'll be bossy boots. Let me see your list. What, what? It doesn't even concern you. They are not your students anymore, but you know the teacher. Oh, oh my God. I can't believe they put these kids together. I told them to separate them. Oh, you need to know about this kid.

Swear to God. True story. This kid lies and steals. Oh, wow. Whoa, let's pretend I didn't hear that. Okay. We could have packaged that in a nicer kind of more diplomatic passage. Okay. So avoid that teacher, right? It's not their business. Okay. It's not their business. So stay in your own lane, my friends in you have the power to have a great year.

It starts with that list. It starts about you being excited. I used to remember making their labels. You know, I used to. Have a themed classroom. All right, we talked about that. Did it really enhance their learning? No, but it made me happy.  So that's why I did it. It made me happy. And I would love writing kids nameplates and putting them on their desk knowing they were going to peel them off and Gribble on them and do all the things that annoyed me, but it didn't matter.

While I was writing their nameplates, I would just write their name and be like, Oh, in my head, I'd say, welcome, I wonder what kind of year you're going to have? And I would just have this, you know, happy picture of them sitting happily in my class. Do not dismiss the power. of positive visualization. Okay, that's it.

Go get your list, go make your tags, go label your books, go find the desks. I know you have more kids than you have desks. Of course you do. I know the, you don't have the right number of books. Of course not. That is a universal problem. I have taught in a school with very little resources and then I taught in a school with massive resources and still.

It seemed I was chasing down desks and books and Chromebooks and chargers and all the things. So just accept that is part of your fate. That is nothing that is being personally done to you.  And until next time, remember  you create your own path,  bring your own sunshine.