Are you a teacher who is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout - or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing something different or a new job or perhaps pursuing an entirely different career - but you don't know what else you're qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search and you just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone. my name is Vanessa Jackson; and I am a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal with the overwhelmingly stressful nature of your day-to-day job and to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. You might ask yourself, What tools do I need to find a new career? Are my skills valuable outside the classroom? How and where do I even get started? These are all questions you deserve answers to, and I can help you find them. I’m Vanessa Jackson. Come and join me for Teachers in Transition.
***Hi! And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition. I am your host, Vanessa Jackson –a career transition and job search coach specializing in educators. I am here to help you reach your goals and figure out how to navigate the journey from stressed overwhelmed and burnt-out teacher to the career of your dreams. I want you to have margins in your life to spend with your family, your pets, and whatever else you want to. I provide tips and suggestions to help with stress and mental health, hacks to help your day, and job-hunting tips. If you are frustrated with your current teaching position, if you are stressed, overwhelmed, and burned out you are in the right place – Welcome! Today on the podcast it's all about connecting. We’re going to talk about how connecting is good for our health AND good for our job hunt.
Today I am going to start by apologizing that there wasn’t a podcast last week. I was at a state convention with a group that represents excellence in teaching for women educators. I was a member of the state board. This probably sounds odd. Why would I participate in a group of teachers if what I do is help people leave teaching? That leads me to our tip for better mental health – it’s also our teacher hack this week!
join a group of positive people.
Let me go back and address that because it doesn’t make sense at surface level. It didn’t make sense to me for a bit until I really sat and thought it through. I loved teaching. I love teaching now. I bet most of you did or do. I like to say that I am from a long line of teachers, but I’m the only one who ever went pro at it. I am friends with teacher buddies everywhere I’ve ever worked. If my teacher friends are happy in what they are doing, then I want to celebrate that and them. If they are in a toxic situation and ready to get out, I want to help facilitate that too. I help teachers learn to leverage the very valuable talents and skills acquired through teaching to help them get what they want.
I want to take a moment and talk about the group I was with. I am a member of Alpha Delta Kappa. I have served on the chapter level and the state board level in Alaska. And why yes, it can make it hard to participate in something when I am three time zones ahead of them. It is such a positive group of women who uplift each other and work together to do amazing things. They raise money for worthy causes, they do service projects, and are there to help you when you are feeling down.
Sadly, this amazing group of individuals has been shrinking a bit as so many of these organizations do. We all live lives that have no margins in them – there’s no room for things like this when shuttling kids to this or that and juggling the demands of a household or one’s health when also trying to stay on top of the task of everything we’re required to do as educators. I’ll let you in on a little secret – you can’t catch up. That’s what never-ending means.
I am sure most of my listeners are familiar with the Shel Silverstein classic story, “The Giving Tree,” If not, I can’t say I recommend it. I was horrified with that story from the first day it was ever read to me. Let me sum it up for you: A boy makes friends with a tree, and the tree offers to give things to the boy – apples, branches, etc and so forth until all that is left is a stump. There was nothing left of the tree left to give and STILL the boy comes back as an old man. At this point, the tree said it had nothing left to give and all that was left was this stump, to which the now-old man said that would be fine because needed a place to sit. Obviously no one ever taught the tree about the importance of Franklin Covey’s habit of sharpening the saw. Wait – maybe that’s a bad analogy for a tree, lol. How about – no one ever told the tree that it couldn’t drink from an empty cup?
If you are a teacher who has given everything and you feel you are down to stump status, then yeah , maybe it’s time to transition to something else. If your passion is still there, but you want back up before they start cutting off your branches, or worse the trunk, then it’s time to reach out to the other teachers.
Since we’re on a tree kick today, let’s look at some different trees for inspiration. The giant Redwoods. I recently learned that the roots on these behemoths are relatively very shallow. A good wind or a determined elephant ought to be to knock them over – but they don’t often fall over. They are hundreds of years old. How do they do that if they have shallow roots? It turns out that their roots grow together and get all tangled together below and a little above ground. They hold each other up with a strong root system. Let me repeat that – they hold each other up.
If you would like more information on Alpha Delta Kappa, I have put a link in the show notes, but you can find their international website at Alpha Delta Kappa dot org. That’s kappa with a K. To repeat – that’s Alpha Delta Kappa dot org. There is a Membership button and places to click to learn more about membership and to contact headquarters to join. Tell them that Vanessa from the Alaska Alpha chapter sent you.
Now let’s bounce back to networking with a little story that frankly, just occurred. We’ve been talking about the importance of connecting with others in this week’s pod, and networking is a natural extension of that. Remember, your network is everyone you know and everyone they know. I am going to share a couple of stories here that illustrate the principle of how connected we really are and we may be connected to people we’ve never officially met, but we’ll never know unless we chat with people.
I was teaching a class at a school that was overcrowded. It was band, and we do truly love large classes in band – it’s job security. And in this situation there were two of us – really 1.5 of us because I was shared to another overcrowded campus in the afternoons. But even a band director’s love of a large class has limits. And this particular class had 83 kids in it and we were having trouble getting them to stop putting kids in that class rather than routing them to the class that “only” had 65. Asking nicely and begging wasn’t getting anywhere, so we pointed out in an email that we were over capacity to clear the room in the allotted time in the event of a fire drill, and hey, we were OK with that even though we very close to the kitchens, but gosh oh golly, you never know who people are related to in a small town – maybe someone knows the fire marshal! And That WAS capped the class. Not the fact that we were wall-to-wall kids. Not the fact that we wouldn’t make it out if there was a fire. It was the fact that someone might catch it when the fire marshal came to visit. And to be fair, we were about 24 hours from calling it in ourselves. Fun Fact – I did teach the fire marshal’s kid a few years later.
Why did I get the idea about that little bit of underhanded shenanigan? Another little example of networking. I was 12 and on my jr high basketball team. I had piano lessons on Wednesdays, and the deal was that I got out of practice at our halfway break and went to piano lessons. One week I didn’t get changed and out the door before everyone went back on the court and coach locked the locker room. Shouldn’t’ be a big deal, except I was locked in. And this was the 80s, so NO cell service. I was beating on the door and screaming (who could hear that on the court) which led to tears because I knew a parent would be mad. After all, I didn’t get out fast enough, and Mom was mad. She finally came in and I finally got out, but let’s just say I was rattled and disheveled at that point. In true GenX fashion, I shouldered the blame for not getting out the door in time and I was admonished to get out faster next time if I didn’t want to get locked in again.
I know some of you listened to that and were horrified. But that’s how we rolled in the 80s.
Shortly thereafter, my mom was complaining (Venting? Ranting? Commiserating?) about the whole fiasco with her best friend who stopped her and said “that’s not OK. That’s a violation of fire code” And the conversation turned to how schools should have no where where people can’t get out. Mom’s best friend happened to be married to a guy in the fire department as a volunteer fireman and so the fire department got involved. I have no idea what happened between here and the end, but panic bars were installed in the locker rooms so people can get out in case they got locked in. So even though no one apologized about the incident or even mentioned it to me again – you’re welcome future generations who wouldn’t get locked in.
There’s something funny in there about that all happening because of piano lessons, but there is another example of how something got done because someone knew someone what was married to someone who knew who to chat with to get the thing done. I think that’s 4 degrees of separation there if you start with me.
So back to present day:
I was waiting to drop something off in the lobby of a bank and I got to chatting with the security guard because I chat with everyone. And in chatting with the security guard, he asked what I was doing in the area and I mentioned “hey, I'm just dropping off paperwork.” I added that it's far from home, but I was very excited about that cause it's close to my favorite bakery. He asked what my favorite bakery was and I told him, and he lit up like a Christmas tree and tells me, oh, I went to high school across the street from that bakery. So now we’re connected. So I continue “When did you graduate”, I ask, and he says that he graduated ten years ago. (2014 for those of us to tired do the math). I pointed out that I was teaching at the middle school nearby from 2009 to 2012. And he's trying to figure out if we were there at the same time. I shared that I taught orchestra at the time and he says, “oh, well, that would that would explain it. I was in band.” So now we have another link in our connection, so I ask: “Were you in band with Mrs. Smith? (Smith is not really her name.) And he answers very excitedly, “yes!” I mentioned that in addition to teaching next door to her, that we were in college at the same time. 6° of Kevin Bacon my ample rear! 6° of band is what it should be called.. So now he's telling me how he was the only person who played the saxophone in a clarinet class. And I laughed and I said, “well, they must have really liked you because they did not do that sort of thing very often.” And we continued this grand conversation until someone made it to the lobby to pick up my paperwork. That security guard who was a complete stranger to me was connected to me by one link in the middle. ONE. Until I wandered into a facility 30 miles from house in a top ten city for population with a metropolitan area of 2.5 million people. And now we’re connected through band and a love of a very specific bakery (link to that bakery in the show notes)
The takeaway here (for me and for you) But it really underscored for me the fact that we probably all are connected and we are connected in a variety of ways. Networking, y’all! And if we just take the time to talk to people, you can find where that connection is and in that connection that people will begin to remember you favorably. Always look for a way to put on pink socks, even if they aren't pink socks. Because of course, pink socks refers to just some little something that's different about you and makes you memorable.
You’ll notice I was asking a lot of questions and allowing the security guard to talk and to talk about things he enjoyed.
There are so many ways we can be connected to someone else – school subjects like band, sports, songs, shared interests like sci-fi or comedy.
LinkedIn calls these links connections for a reason. When you job hunt you have to connect with someone – with EVERYone. A random application for a corporate job description is like picking out a potato at the grocery store – there are so many that work for what you need, you eventually just grab and go. Connecting with others is how we build our network. Connections help us get our feet in the door. Connections are an important part of being memorable.
And I would tell you I am introvert who can function as an extrovert when necessary. I require alone time to recharge. But I can ask questions, listen, and smile. And that’s really all it takes to make a connection.
So go out there and find connections – come to the Teachers in Transition Podcast Club Facebook group and connect there. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Chat people up in line or while you are waiting. All it takes is a smile and a genuine curiosity. If you are a female educator and interested in continuing to teach, but you still feel burned out -connect with Alpha Delta Kappa and meet other women who want to make a positive difference in the world. Tell them I sent you.
In the upcoming weeks, we are going to doing some exercises that come out of the book, Finding Your Element by Sir Ken Robinson. If you have a chance to read it or listen to it on audible, you’ll really enjoy it.
If you know other teachers who are stressed, overwhelmed, and burned out, share this podcast with them. So many people feel just like you do about their situation, my goal is to help as many teachers as possible to find jobs they love where they feel not just appreciated, but also valued. And some really exciting news this week! Our website is up and live again! You can go check it out at TeachersInTransition.com (and of course a link is in the show notes!)
I would love to help be your guide and coach you through your journey. You can reach out for a complimentary discovery call and NOW you can schedule it right through the website. I want to help as many teachers as I can because it’s just going to get worse. To paraphrase a Chinese proverb: The best time to start working on your transition plan was about six months ago. The next best time is now!
That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques. And I want to hear from you! Please reach out and leave me a message at Teacher in transition coaching at gmail dot com. You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099.
I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!