LLN: Inspiration for Teachers: 6 Things You'll Never Regret

In this mini-podcast episode for teachers, I address the six things you will never regret doing as a teacher. While there is such a vast amount of teacher turnover and the teacher shortage is real, teaching can be a rewarding and sustainable career if we're smart about it. Examples of things I never regretted spending time on are:

🍎 taking the high road
🍎 leaning into curiosity over judgment
🍎 embracing the "tangents" that lead to teachable moments
🍎 opting out of the "I'll be happy when" mentality
🍎 investing time in dignifying students
🍎 reading out loud to my students of all ages

I hope you enjoy this jolt of inspiration for teachers! 

And if you appreciate my content, I humbly invite you to "pay it forward" and share this episode with a colleague. Everyone wins.

➡️ To get your FREE 🎁 PDF Guide The Professional Teacher's Guide to Saying "No" visit: www.gracestevens.com/sayno

Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life?
Check out my signature on-demand self-study course, Balance Your Teacher Life. Complete details here: www.gracestevens.com/balance

📘 My latest (and greatest!) book:
The Empowered Teacher Toolkit
Check out the best-selling Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers book here
Beat Teacher Burnout with Better Boundaries book here

My TPT Store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/grace-stevens-happy-classrooms

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

Alright, if you're a regular here and you hear that sound, you know that this is a shorty episode, what I call my lunchbox love notes. These are mini episodes that I put out there just as little jolts of inspirations for teacher. Something just like that love note that somebody would slip in your lunchbox and when you got it, you would get that warm feeling like, Oh my gosh, somebody loves me.

They see me. I matter. I matter. They're taking time out of their day to tell me I'm important to them. So that's what these mini episodes are about. I see you, you matter, here's something that I'm putting out into the universe and I am trusting we'll find you when you need it. And if not, listen and remember and come back to it the next time maybe you need it.

Okay so what this mini episode about is Things I've been reflecting a lot, right? On having stepped out of the classroom. I just recorded an episode of the top five pieces of advice I would go back and give myself as a new teacher and to give any new teacher, okay? And when we think of these things, we always think in terms of things that we wouldn't do.

So here I'm going to give you this little love note and do with it what you will.  But I want to tell you here are some things that I never. ever regretted doing. Even now with distance and time and looking back, these are things that I never realized at the time were so important to me.  But really serve me well and I think they can serve you well too.

So in no particular order, I'm going to talk about six things that I always did as an educator that I will never ever regret. Okay, so the first one is taking the high road. I have never ever regretted taking the high road. The high road is a lonely road.  You, you likely know that if you have ever taken it.

But I have never regretted taking it. People go low. Student goes low, you go high. Student goes low, you go high. Parent goes low, you go high. What does that mean? That means you are never going to drag me down to your level of dysfunction. Whether that's how you're speaking to me, whether how you're disrespecting me, disrespecting others, you're not going to drag me down there with you.

I'm going to take the high road and I've never regretted it. Okay, so that's number one.  Number two. I have never regretted dignifying a student.  If I had the choice to build a child up,  I would always take it. That student who I would consider to be my spiritual practice. Right? That student who pushes all your buttons, who every day you have to resolve, Oh my gosh, I'm going to be more patient today with that student.

They're going to cause me to grow. I never regret dignifying them. I never regret showing up to school early so I can catch them doing something good before the day starts and people start capping on them all the stuff that they've done wrong. Right? I'm going to catch them doing something good. I'm going to dignify a student.

Whether that meant letting the a student take home the class pet when I knew that that pet would likely come back with some kind of insect infestation or maybe not come back at all. I did it, right? I would, I resigned myself. I'll go replace the hamster. I'll find one that looks like it. I'm not gonna  make that child feel bad about their life or their living situation, right?

Just any example, right? I never have regretted dignifying a student. Okay, so that's two. One, I've never regretted taking the high road. I've never regretted dignifying a student. I have never regretted choosing  curiosity over judgment.  Whether that came with a parent or a co worker, I would always choose curiosity over judgment. 

Or try to at least over judgment. Let's say that a parent has very different values from me. Or very different hobbies. Okay I, I had a, a family that I loved but they were so big into hunting. Oh my gosh, these kids, it was every reward they had was I'll take you to like go shoot a deer. Or, Or I remember the star of the week picture.

Oh my God, there were only like six, it was first grade and they were holding like full camo and holding two dead rabbits in their hands. Little girls start crying, right? Not my values at all.  Instead of being in judgment, I got curious, you know, I wonder what is it about that that you enjoy? Help me understand.

Okay. Well, it came down to tradition. It came down to family time. It came down to a lot of different things I could respect. So curiosity.  Over judgment, right? When a co worker is acting so not kind to you, help me understand, help me understand what's going on, help me understand what I can be doing to help us have a more productive relationship, right?

That's being curious over judgmental. I have never regretted that. All right, next thing I have never regretted, oh my gosh, you know, I'm gonna say it, setting a healthy boundary. I've regretted waiting way too long to set them, but once I learned how to set them, I have never set a boundary that I regretted. 

You can always go back and upgrade your operating system. As I like to tell people, if you're finding that some boundaries are too stringent,  you can change them. You're in control. They're your boundaries. Learn how to set them. Go listen to any episode here. We, we've had 60  of them about setting boundaries one way or another.

Have never regretted it. All right, next thing I never regretted was those tangents. Those tangents that, that sometimes were like, well, that's bizarre. Why are we going off in this direction? But I'm telling you nine times out of 10, they led to the real Teachable moments. So don't fear those tangents. I know that there is so much pressure for us to cover all the curriculum.

Oh my gosh, we need to do small group rotations starting at this time. We need to move on to this at this time, right? Our minutes are mandated and we feel like we have no breathing room. But those tangents that are student led, that are led by genuine curiosity, can really be teachable moments and I have never seen that before.

Okay, and then the last thing that I have never regretted doing, and I did it so much over 20 years, even though sometimes I felt like it was a covert activity. Like I would be nervous, like one eye out the door, is somebody coming? Am I going to get in trouble for doing this? And you know what that thing was?

That you can be like, Oh my gosh, what did Grace used to do? That probably, you know, might've got her in trouble at some point. You know what it was? It was reading books aloud to children. I know that shouldn't be a covert activity, but certainly on some campuses. It was, right? If it wasn't directly tied to the curriculum.

And I could always make a way to tie it to the curriculum. How about the curriculum being, We Teach Kids To Love Books. We teach kids to be inspired. To read, to move beyond kind of just their regular thinking, to expand their thinking, to delve deep into these worlds and their imagination, to do something beautifully Centering, right, and to feel those words come to life.

I have never regretted it. I've never regretted all the times a librarian told me, Could you please give me a heads up before you're going to read a book? Because now all the kids come in and they want it and I don't have enough copies. Okay, 20 years, that same scenario played out how many times?

Didn't matter the book, didn't matter the grade. Whether it was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Listen. Got some of the most persuasive writing ever from students out of trying to convince Mr. Willy Wonka to make their candy, right? Whether it was Hugo Cabret in Suddenly Kids Getting Fascinated with Clocks and Magic Tricks and Autonomatoms and, and all those things, right?

Whether it was I Read the Lie and the Witch in the Wardrobe with all the voices. Which I'm really good at. And then suddenly, like, kids wanted every one of the chronicles of Narnia, right? I've never regretted reading out loud to a class, and making it a whole big thing. It's a beautiful thing. A lot of kids do not get read to at home anymore.

And for them to sit and listen to you, regardless of their age, is still a beautiful thing. All right, so that's it. Some of the things I never regretted. Let me summarize real quick. Taking the high road, dignifying a student,  leaning into  Curiosity, not judgment with parents, co workers or anybody who I just has a different viewpoint than me, right?

That could be, I feel like, a healthy skill that we could all embrace in every area of our lives. The world would be more peaceful.  Other things, setting healthy boundaries and never regretted, never regretted those teachable moments that came from a tangent, never regretted reading out loud. to students.

Okay, that's it. I hope that something in there inspired you or validated you, made you feel like, hey, I do that. Yes, you do. And you will never regret it. All right, know that I love you. I believe in you. And until next time, create your own path, bring your own sunshine and good Lord, read some good books.