Teacher Communication Tips: 5 Things You Say That Annoy Other Teachers

It's time to level up your teacher communication!

Could YOU be unintentionally pushing your teaching colleagues away? In this eye-opening episode, we dive into the seemingly helpful phrases that might actually be damaging your workplace relationships. Whether you're a veteran teacher or new to the classroom, these common expressions could create tension without you even realizing it!

🎯 Key Takeaways:

• 🤐 The dangerous trap of "it could be worse" and why this well-meaning phrase actually invalidates your colleagues' experiences
• 🏆 Why saying "they never behaved that way for me" is secretly undermining your fellow teachers (and what to say instead!)
• 📊 The career-damaging impact of declaring "this is the worst class ever" and how it affects your professional reputation
• 👑 Veteran teacher alert: How "paying your dues" comments might be creating a toxic hierarchy in your school
• 🎓 New teacher pitfalls: The fine line between sharing fresh knowledge and coming across as a know-it-all

💡 Pro Tips:

• Transform competitive misery into collaborative support
• Learn the art of curiosity-based responses
• Master the delicate balance of experience-sharing

✨ Remember: Awareness is the first step to positive change. These insights aren't meant to shame but to empower you to build stronger, more authentic relationships with your teaching community.

Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life?
Check out my signature on-demand course, Balance Your Teacher Life. You can go the self-study route or join a cohort with group coaching for Summer 2025.

Check out all the 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

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, welcome to today's episode. If this is your first time visiting us in the podcast universe, welcome. I promise if you are a teacher, an educator, an admin, a curriculum coach, anybody who is looking to have a more positive experience, who's looking for strategies, practical strategies, not fluff from a real teacher who's been there, done that.

Then you are in the right place. Welcome to the podcast. If you are a returned customer, yay,  I'm glad to see you. Come on in. All right. So we all know that a huge part of self care And having balance and a joyful positive work experience is getting along with our co workers and setting healthy boundaries with people who are just not our cup of tea, right?

Either they're negative or they say that thing that tends to irk us. And I gotta tell you this week's episode is different. I've had many episodes on the strategies for how to set boundaries with  toxic co workers, et cetera. But Oh, here we go this week,  what if the problem's you?  And I mean that in a loving way.

I'm inviting you to reflect because I'm going to tell you the top five things that you could be saying that are annoying other people without you knowing. And I have been very, you know, self reflective in the past. These have been some hard lessons I've learned when people have been kind enough, gentle enough to point it out to me when I've said them that that is not a helpful contribution to the conversation, let's say.

Okay, so here we go without. Any further ado, it's going to be a short one, but I encourage you to really, you know, think about it.  And here it is, the top five things you are saying that could be alienating you from your teaching. Co workers.  Okay, first off, judgment free zone. This is not an episode to beat yourself up over.

It is an episode to maybe just, you know, with knowledge comes power, right? We say that with knowledge comes power. I prefer to say with awareness comes power. comes choice.  Awareness needs to come first. The first thing is you need to become aware. Am I doing some of these things? How can they be being perceived?

And I'm telling you, I'll just put it out there, guilty of all of them myself. So here it is. The first thing, the first thing you could be saying that that you think is being helpful  and helping you feel connecting and relating like I'm having the same experience as you is when a co worker says, you know, they're having a bad day and they say something like, Oh my gosh, Oh, I'm having such a bad day.

This thing happened. And they tell you a brief story about what's happening. And you add the words, Oh, it could be worse. And worse than saying it could be worse, then you go and add your story. Listen, I am so guilty of this in lots of circumstances. I always thought what I was doing was validating somebody by saying, Oh, gosh, look, I understand because I have the same experience too.

But it's actually invalidating them. What it comes across. As much of the time it's just trying to one up your colleagues struggle, right? Instead of offering support, instead of truly validating by saying, gosh, that sounds really tough, or even if you have time, Oh, tell me more, right, whatever. But. When you share your own story, example, oh my gosh, this kid was so dysregulated today, this happened, that happened.

And you say, oh my god, it could be worse. I had to do a room clear because of blah, blah, blah. Now you've just hijacked their story. Okay, and it feels like you're being kind of, like I said, this kind of competitive. And what it does, first off, for the purposes of, you know, this episode, it's annoying to other people.

They feel like you're not a good listener. Okay, like they're not a good listener. They just hijack the story. It's all about them. They're self centered. These are things that people think. In a different way, what actually happens is you're contributing negative energy to that conversation and it kind of spirals.

Then you just, you're prolonging the misery. It, we, we call that competitive misery, right? And it's very prevalent in education, you know, admiring the problem. Oh, I have it worse. And I have worse students. I have worse parents, all those things, right? It's, it's really not helpful. It doesn't make you feel better.

It doesn't make that person feel seen or heard or validated in any way. So do not add to the conversation. with one of your own stories. Do not say it could be worse. My situation is, right? That's the first thing. I did a whole episode on breaking the cycle of competitive misery, and that is episode 45.

So if you think this is a tendency you have, you might want to go back and listen to that whole episode, a little bit of the psychology, the thought process, and really what's happening in that world. process and why you might mean well, but it's coming off as annoying. Okay. So episode 45, you know, might be your jam breaking the cycle of competitive misery.

All right. So that's the first thing. It could be worse than adding your story. That's annoying.  Second thing you're saying, Oh, I've been so guilty of this. Oh my gosh. If you used to work with me, I'm so sorry. Okay. You're in the staff lounge. And this, the teacher who is a grade ahead of you, let's say I taught first and they're in second, right?

Hypothetically, that, that teacher's like, Oh, this kid, this, this kid, that, this kid, the other, it's always the same kid that they're complaining about, right? Oh, and that's painful to be around. But then I would say, Oh, they never behaved that way for me.  I mean, come on, what an awful thing to say. What I meant was,  gosh, that's weird.

I wonder if there's something going on with them because I never saw too much of that behavior, right? That's a totally different vibe that comes from a place of curiosity. And hey, I wonder what's going on in that student's life or that student's circumstance. And it comes from a place of empathy and caring, which is totally different than me saying They never behaved that way for me because with that, the implication is that teacher isn't doing a good job.

Hey, what is it you're doing that's making them behave that way? Cause they didn't behave that way for me. Right? The underlying tone of that is I'm better at classroom management than you, or I'm better at connecting with students than you, right? It's just, it's really a slap in the face to that teacher.

Their experience is real, you know, and  it  may really well be true. that that student never had a problem in your class or very few problems and now suddenly they're their number one, you know, student to gripe about. So just a little tweak. If you need to say that comment or you truly care, you can turn it into curiosity.

Ha, I wonder what's going on with that student. I wonder what's going on with them. Make it about the student, not the teacher. Again, some helpful phrases, you know, might be something like, you know, I never saw too much of that. Behavior. I wonder what's going on with that student. Is there something I can do to help?

Right. That's a totally different vibe. Okay. So that's number two, that you might be saying that's annoying people.  Number three,  this is what you might be saying. Now, listen, there's a difference between a bad day and a bad attitude. Right. We know that everybody has a bad day. Everybody needs to vent once in a while.

But what I'm talking about is don't be that teacher who says this every day and worse every year. And it is this is the worst class I've ever had.  Right. I just don't say it. Don't say this is the worst class I've ever had. You cannot just lump  all the students into one big kind of overgeneralization.

Okay, whenever we use you know, kind of like those absolutes, always, never, all of them, you know, we're generalizing and it's not helpful. So let's say that you do have a really challenging class, maybe out of 30 students, you know, seven. Eight, nine, you know, back in the day, if I had 30 kids, I would say maybe three of them, four of them would be on behavior plans, or I used to laugh, hey, I have enough corners in the room, right?

There was enough way to keep the kids separated. But recently, I really know, the last few years I taught, right, into 2022,  and remembering that I'm still in the classroom now as a substitute, and I got to tell you, Kids do not save their best behavior for substitutes. Newsflash, right? Now it seems like it's eight or nine, right?

In a, in a class of 30, like there are a lot of students who  have behavior challenges, who are acting out a maladaptive ways.  Even if you have nine or 10 of them, you had 21 kids who are doing well. Right. So we can't throw them all in. And the thing is, when we keep saying, Oh, this is the worst class,  you know, if you, I work with a teacher who said it every year, like, then you just seem like you have a really bad attitude.

Okay. So I'm not saying that we can't vent and that we have to be toxically positive. Right? We're not like, if the gas gauge is on empty, we're not sticking a smiley face sticker on it saying, Yeah, yeah, it's all good. Like, we're going to run out of gas, right? We've got to have some, some strategies.  We've got to address the situation that is challenging.

But I have never found the really the phrase like, this is the worst class ever. To be helpful in any way. I find it annoying. I also find like it's not fair for the next teacher. They're like, hearing you say this, they're gonna be stressed. Oh, what's coming down the pipeline? Right. Unless they're experienced to know that, oh, maybe this is a teacher saying this, who is always just. 

Negative. Well, that's just the way they are. Then, you know, a teacher might really start stressing and worrying. And I've known teachers who've wanted to change grades just because of the reputation of the class that was coming up. Okay. So just don't say it, please. I mean, if you need to vent to your teacher bestie, like, Oh my gosh, I'm struggling.

What is happening? This class seems to be like one of the most challenging I've ever had. You know, that's different than sitting in the staff room every day just lamenting, this is the worst class I've ever had. All right, so those are the first three, right? It could be worse, right? Don't add your story. 

Don't say, they never behaved that way for me.  That's just a slam on the teacher that currently has them, who is experiencing some negative behavior. Number three,  do not, this is the worst class ever. Just please don't go there.  Alright, number four. There is this whole class of comments. Number four and number five are going to deal with veteran teachers, especially teachers who've been on that campus for a while.

You know, school can be a little clicky. If you're some of the most tenured teachers, I always think of Rizzo in In Greece, if you're old enough to remember that movie where there are now the seniors in high school and she shows up and she's, we're going to rule the school. So, you know, if you're the rule, the school teachers, you know who they are.

They've been there the longest.  There are a whole bunch of comments that you could be making. If you're that, that teacher, that is just. They're just kind of annoying and they all fall into this one category,  excuse me, and this category could basically be summarized as we have paid our dues. We have paid our dues.

You have it easier. You have no idea what we went through. We have paid our dues. Okay, so some of those comments might be, so I worked in a school that was very small and for many years they didn't have enough teachers to have a union or whatever. And so we would always, you know, when it came up that we had to sign up for adjunct duties, you know, I have a lot of episodes  about the dreaded duties and how to only work with ones to the best of your ability to, you know, that you're passionate about. 

But every time any of those circumstances came up, like we have to Find the  adjuncts or lots of things. It will be based on tenure. Oh, even something as simple, as petty, as signing up for field day activities. Oh, those tenure teachers needed to have that list first. They got to pick. They got to pick because they paid their dues.

Okay. And so how it comes up. That, you know, that's policy, that's a school policy that the tenured teacher's got it first. Okay, I respect that, right? But the comments that they make are more annoying, right? And that's the kind of thing, like if we only had to sign up, let's say, in our district, it was the equivalent which was a joke, we all work tomorrow, but it was the equivalent of maybe 15 hours.

You had to choose enough adjunct duties that would equal 15  extra hours. hours during the school year. The idea being, Oh, it's only half an hour a week. Okay. So that list would come around. You'd get cool into the office or be pinned on the board. And we'd go through, you know, the tenured people. Of course, the tenured people would take their favorites.

They would take the ones with stipends. Okay. They paid their dues, whatever. But this is what would annoy me is if, Oh, I have to sign up for some, I don't know, something I didn't enjoy or something I had no skills at. Like for me, it was always sports. Like, don't make me coach something.  I don't know how to coach.

I have other gifts. But then I would hear like, Oh, well, for 15 years, we never got stipends for anything. Oh, for 15 years, it was mandatory that we had to do X, Y, and Z. Oh, for 10 years, we never even had a contract. Just all that stuff that says oh, here's an example. So, I tutored after school. I volunteered tutor in my prep period.

My prep period was the last period of the day. Lower grades went home at 2. 10 and then upper grades went home at 3. 10 and there were two bus routes and most of my kids caught the bus. So, technically, if I, instead of taking my prep period, if I tutored them from 2. 10 to 3. They could still get home on the bus, right?

So why would I not do that? Okay, so for 10 years, I tutored kids after school  free in my pet period, prep period. Excuse me. It's what I wanted to do. I volunteered  and just did it, right? These kids needed some skills remediation. I was happy to help them do that. I felt like in class, I didn't have enough time to work in small groups.

So that's what I did. Okay, so the last few years. that I was at that school, suddenly teachers got paid a stipend. If you wanted to tutor after school, you got paid X amount of dollars. And so that amount was offered to me too. And I'm like, sure, I'll do it. But what I really made a point not to say was, Oh my gosh, for 10 years, I doodled for free.

Okay, so that's kind of the vibe. You see what I'm saying? If you're a veteran teacher, is there something that you're saying that is giving off that vibe of, hey, I paid my dues, and like the new people should, you know, Get last choice in things, right? Or the epitome of that, I don't even want to go there because this is not your responsibility unless you are an admin and if you are, stop doing it.

Stop giving, setting new teachers up to fail with giving them the most challenging kids, the most demanding parents, simply because they don't know any better when they look at their class list. They don't know, oh my gosh, how come there's an unfair distribution here, right? Okay. Off topic, but okay, back, that was my little, oh, I can't, I can't help saying that because we know it's true, we know it happens and it's not fair.

And it doesn't set new teachers up to be successful. Okay, so that's it. Number four, right? If you're a veteran teacher, be careful. Nothing that gives that vibe of, you know, Oh, we had it worse. What are you complaining about? You know, people's complaints are valid. Okay. So that's if you're the veteran teacher.

Now, what if you're the new teacher? Let me tell you that if you're the new teacher, there are a lot of landmines you could Also,  you could also be standing on and these will broadly fall into the category of you know it all. I'm just going to say it. You know it all or you know better. Okay. And some things you could be doing about that.

Now, of course, right, you do know lots of new things that we don't know. Okay, some teachers have been teaching on the same campus for 25 years. How could they possibly? I mean, if you're a new teacher, probably you're way ahead of the curve, or at least, let's say, less intimidated by technology. Right? Many of us, I mean, I'm good at tech.

I run a podcast, a website, you know. I do all the things. I create digital assets, digital publishing, you know, I was an older teacher. I learned the new skills, but there are still things that, you know, younger teachers might feel come more natural to them. They've grown up with it. And, you know, like social media and all those things, you know, it's, it's harder for some older veteran teachers do feel more intimidated by that stuff.

So there are some things you do know better,  right? And maybe up to date on some more current research, whatever, but you're not winning any friends when you come in and you say something like somebody's talking about I don't know. Like, oh, here's a great example. Okay, right here. Here's the example.

When I said I tutored  kids after school for 10 years, I used Read Naturally. I used that program, Read Naturally. And, you know, now, of course, Ooh, sold a story if you listened to that. podcast. It's a great podcast. It's a limited series. But anyway, if you have extra time and you're nerdy about curriculum, or if you do teach English language arts, especially to younger children, I'm really recommend that podcast, Soul to Story.

But anyway, okay, so now the  efficacy of Read Naturally has now been called into question. And so let's say that You know, it comes up that I worked with the kids with Weed Naturally and I hear someone, you know, a new teacher come in, Oh, well, you should know that that's been debunked. Like, we don't, you know they don't recommend teaching it that way anymore.

Or this new program that they're so up and like, Oh, well, I learned this. This is the latest techniques. I remember a teacher coming in and she had just come from teacher training college and she was all like, oh my gosh, well, you know, I am trained in the next generation science standards, right, in GSS and you know, the cross curricular connections and she was using all the words and all the buzzwords and this new thing, like it was a new thing.

I'm here to tell you, cross curricular connections,  It's thematic units.  We've been teaching that way for decades. Then they went out of style, it went to a scripted strict curriculum, and now we're back in it, especially with the science. So, you know, the things that you might think are new and revolutionary, you know, we might have already been doing, they just happened to get rebranded under another name,  so that people can, you know, maybe they did get improved, but I don't want to sound too I skeptical, but a lot of times it's just stuff that got rebranded, that got updated so that we can be sold the latest, greatest curriculum.

Okay. So that is really a lot of that is, you know, pushed forward and funded by curriculum developers. So just be careful if you're a new teacher that you don't say anything that comes off As kind of know it all. I remember a veteran teacher summed it up once. There was a new teacher and every day at lunch it was something like, well, in school I learned this, or, you know, just all the things that were leading us to believe that we weren't doing it the right way.

We were doing it the old way. They knew the new way. And I remember the teacher saying, gosh, you're very confident for somebody with so little teaching experience,  which was a very You know, it was a very cutting thing to say, but it was what we were all thinking. Like, honey, you've been here 10 minutes. 

Like, I value new ideas. Of course I do.  But just be aware, is there something I'm saying that's giving the tone of, you know, you're not doing your job. Okay. Or I know better. Okay, all the jargon, all the things. Okay, that's it. To summarize, hey, I feel like a Taylor Swift song, me, I'm the problem, it's me, right?

While I'm busy teaching you all about how to set boundaries with toxically negative people or how to work effectively with co workers that bother you, right? If that really is your situation, again, episode 65 was navigating negative coworkers. We talked about the validate and bounce strategy or all kinds of things.

Okay. But what if you are the person  that I'm going to say that is being perceived as negative. But if you're the person that is saying things that you believe are helpful and supportive,  are being taken in a very different way and honestly they're just annoying people. Okay, so here it is, the list to summarize.

You might not be all of them, I mean you won't be all of them, but you might be some of them. Number one, don't say it could be worse. Don't hijack the story by adding your own, you know, drama of the day. Number two, don't insinuate that it's child is behaving completely differently from another teacher for, by saying like, they never behave that way for me.

Become curious, ask the questions. Gosh, I wonder what's going on with them. I wonder why their behavior has changed. Make it about the student and their behavior, not about the teacher, what they're doing wrong. Number three, this is the worst class ever.  Just don't say it. Just don't say it. Number four, if you are a veteran.

Nothing that gives off that vibe to newer teachers. Hey, I paid my dues. You know, you don't know how easy you have it. You don't know how lucky you are. You know. The crew that rule the school. If you're part of that crew, be a mentor. Pull people up. Don't come off as low key resentful that they have it better than you.

And number five, if you're a new teacher, yeah.  Share, share your insights in the appropriate way. You know, in, in, with the limitations and just be a little bit more self aware.  Is there a possibility that I could be coming off in a way differently than I think I am? And that's just important in life in general.

Listen, I coach on the you know the soft skills,  the EQ, the emotional quotient, and it's hard, you know, there really is for a lot of people they're not terribly self aware of how they come across. Okay, so those are the things, the five things, not to say in case you're annoying other people and with that.

Listen, go have yourself a great day. A great week. There will be challenges. I know you can deal with them with grace and hopefully with some perspective. If you invest in the tools to help you feel better.  more empowered to create your own experience. Okay. So with that, I will leave you until next time, create your own path and bring your own sunshine.