Teachers, you are not managing content anymore, you are managing energy.

You're Not Managing Content Anymore… You're Managing Energy.

You planned the lessons. You have the materials. You are ready.

So why does it feel harder than ever?

In this episode of the After the Bells series, we go one layer deeper into what May is actually asking of teachers right now. The testing pressure has lifted. The instructional heavy lifting is done. But somehow you are more drained than you were in October.

That is not a coincidence. The job quietly changed on you — and nobody handed you a new job description.

This week we look at what you are really managing right now, why the behaviors are increasing, why the parent emails feel impossible, and why you cannot pour from a place that has nothing left in it.

This is part of our May series: Waiting to Exhale.

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We’re not here to fix.
We’re here to notice. 

If this helped, pass it to another teacher who might need it. 

Until next time… 

give yourself the same care you give everyone else.

 ~Kim 🌿 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

All right, teachers. So, you have your planned lessons. You got them. You have gathered all the materials, all of the resources to do those lessons. Girl, you're on it. You know exactly what needs to happen today. You, my lady, you are ready. But somewhere between your car and your classroom door, something has changed. You probably feel it. I know I do. When I arrive, I feel so prepared and so ready and so capable, you know, almost excited about the work. So what has changed? It's not the lesson plan you created, it's not your prep work with resources and materials. You have all of your copies, you have all of your manipulatives. They're ready to go. So again, teachers, what has changed? Hey guys, it's something inside of you that's changed. And by your first class segment or your first period, you already know. You're already feeling like you've been there for hours. I mean, you feel like you have been there literally for hours by first period. How is that even possible? You haven't even started yet. And the lesson has almost instantly become the least of what's draining you right now. Welcome back to Teaching Without Losing Yourself the podcast. I'm Kim. After 28 years in education, I realized that I couldn't get teachers what they needed within the system. So I decided to support teachers from outside the system instead. That's why this podcast exists. This is After the Bells Beyond the Box, a moment made just for teachers, even on the moon. Everything we talk about here is built around this simple belief. Teachers, you can stay in education. You can stay in teaching without losing yourself in the process. Our goal is always to help you see what is getting in the way of that so you can see things more clearly than you did yesterday. So, teachers, we are two weeks into our focus on what teachers are really doing each and every day in May. What are they doing? What are you doing? Teachers, you are waiting to exhale, waiting to breathe. And waiting, guys, to feel that sense of normalcy. You know, the one we know everybody else has every day of the year. Last week we discussed the contradiction that teachers were experiencing. Okay, that contradiction is the way that May asks you to stay fully responsible while every single thing around you is saying that it's almost over. This week we're going to go one layer deeper because once you see the contradiction in what May asks of you and what you see really happening, the next question is this What is actually making this so hard right now? What is it that is quietly draining you when nothing on your schedule has really changed? What is pulling at you that your lesson plans and all your pretty to-do lists in pink and green that they can't even explain? I don't think the answer is really what you guys may expect it to be. So I want you to think about this, okay? We would all agree that August is a tough part of the year, but goodness, it is so different from May. Earlier this year, your hardest work was instructional. Your work was pacing, planning, delivering content, checking for understanding. Guys, that was the job. But is that what we're seeing right now? The content is not a challenge for you. Ladies, you got that. You understand that part of the work well and how it flows. That's your bread and butter. What you're encountering right now is different. Teachers, what you are managing right now is energy. You are managing your own energy, and you are managing the energy of everyone else in the room. What a job, right? Think about it. Most of the testing is done. The high stakes instructional pressure that you've been carrying all year, that has lifted. You teacher should be feeling lighter, but somehow you don't. How in the world can that be? How can you be in a place where it actually feels harder than ever? Hey teachers, guess what? The job just quietly changed on you with no warning. Your job changed from instructional focus in preparation for testing mode to something completely different. It changed quietly without any announcements. And guys, no one even handled you uh the way they needed to by giving you a new job description for your new job in May. You went from managing what gets taught to managing whether anyone, including yourself, has anything at all left to give in the month of May. And that is completely different kind of work. It takes a completely kind of energy that you are not familiar with. And it is truly exhausting in a way that even a really good, well-planned, highly engaging lesson plan cannot fix. So, no, you didn't get worse at teaching. The job changed without you knowing it. So let's look at a few real moments from your day just to make this a bit clearer. You're sitting in a staff meeting. You know the ones that you have in May that everyone's so excited to go to. Yep. Someone is presenting something and you are sure it is really important. And you're sitting there trying your best just to stay present and you're taking notes, right? You're nodding at the appropriate moments, you know, with everybody else. But inside, inside, you are somewhere else entirely. You're thinking about the stack of ungraded assignments on your desk and whether they will go in the gradebook or not. You're thinking about the email you haven't answered. What about that student? You're thinking about them and if you need to follow up with them, and oh my goodness, this is what you're thinking about the most. Literally from the moment you open your eyes to, but definitely in that meeting. You're thinking about that Friday that cannot get here fast enough. And then someone in the room, who doesn't know how to read the room apparently, asks for your input. And you have to somehow pull yourself back into that room, like you are surfacing from underwater and become engaged in things that you don't even have compartments for in your mind. You have no empty space for this information, and now you have to be engaged in it. That kind of thing didn't happen in October. Now, in October, you still went to meetings you weren't really, you know, into, but you were both physically and mentally in those meetings. Right now, you are only there in body. I mean, and that is nothing but the truth. Just the body. You don't have the energy to devote to this meeting. Not to the presenters, although they may be nice, they may be fun, they may be funny, they may be good, not to the collaboration opportunities, even though they may be things that may be interesting and that you could use. You don't have energy to devote to any of this. You just don't. What about a parent email? You know the one, that parent email. It's 4 p.m. and you're about to escape. And I use that word loosely. You are about to escape from your classroom space with dreams of being in your home, dancing through your mind. A question from a parent comes in at 4 p.m. And it is not just any parent. It's that parent. Something that in September would have had, you would have answered that, you know, like in two minutes, right? Clear answer, thorough, professional answer, even to that parent. But today, you had to read that sucker three times. You start typing, you delete it, you start again. Not because you don't know the answer, but because you have nothing left to pull from, to put into that response. Teachers, you are empty. What used to take two minutes is now sitting in your drafts folder at 9 p.m. while you're at home, not looking in your draft folder, hopefully. And what about you with your students? You're literally watching them second by second, watching them check out and trying everything in your bag of tricks to bring them back. You are trying more movement, more student choice, more energy from you. You're trying that. You're literally on a stage trying to bring your uninterested audience to a level of high engagement. But here is the thing nobody says out loud, teachers, you cannot keep pouring energy into a room from a place that is already running really low. You cannot keep pouring energy, teachers, into a room from a place that's you, that is already running low. Teachers, you can't give what you don't have, no matter how hard you try. It's you just can't do it. And when it doesn't work, when the engagement still isn't there, a part of you wonders if you are losing your touch. You're not, you are just trying to pour from a place at you that hasn't had a chance to refill yet. During a time where every single person, like every single one of them, knows that this is really over. So here's why this matters. Your students feel done. I don't mean that as a criticism of them, guys. They are human beings. These children are human beings. Testing is over. Grades are done. They know they're done. They knew they were done when you say it was the last day to turn in an assignment, right? Grades are done. They figured that out when you gave them the final day to turn in missing assignments. I mean, remember that. They know that it's not a trick, it's not a secret, it doesn't work. The school year in their heads ended sometime in late April. So, what you are walking into every day is a room full of people who don't fully understand why they are still there. And yep, I will say it that room includes not only your students, but your coworkers, all of your parents. Guys, it includes your admin. Don't let their words fool you. They're ready to go too. It includes everybody. And the behaviors that come with that the talking, the not paying attention, the bickering, the resistance and defiance, oh my God, at an all-time high. And all of it makes complete sense when you know what's driving it. That is what happens when structure stays in place, but the sense of purpose, the why behind that structure has faded. Teachers, you're trying to hold the structure. The students have let go of the purpose. They'd have let go of the why for the structure that you're trying to hold. They know the glue that held all that together, they know it's gone. And you are the only ones required to hold it together, and the only ones held accountable when it falls apart. Teachers, this is not a teaching problem, this is an energy problem, and no amount of better planning is going to change what May does to a room full of people who are already to be somewhere else. And here is what our monthly work on waiting to be uh waiting to excel becomes different. Last week, when we talked about the contradiction, being responsible when everything feels feels over, right? This week the costs look different than last week's, okay? This week it shows up in the staff meeting you just sat through, but weren't weren't really there, okay? It shows up in the email that's still sitting in your draft folder. It shows up in the moment a teacher, excuse me, a student pushes back, and instead of redirecting with your usual steadiness, you know, you usually got this, you feel something sharp. Oh my goodness. Oh, this is a day. You feel something sharp rise up before you can catch it. That sharpness that you feel when that student pushes back, that's not you. It's not who you are. That is what happens when patience, you know, that patience you've had all year, has been extended way past this time. That patience has been extended way past its capacity. That's where that sharpness is coming from. You've been on since August, and small things are requiring large amounts of the tiny, tiny, tiny bit that you have left. That's the real cost of this phase. Not the work. We're honestly not worried about that. It's over. The weight of managing energy that you simply do not have enough of right now. So, guys, this is what I want you to do with this. Remember, we focus on bringing things to your awareness. That's the state we stay in here, so that you can use that knowledge to make better choices. Stop measuring your days right now by what got taught. Just stop. Start asking what actually needed your energy today and what got it anyway. Because right now you're spending energy in places that are not giving anything back. The meeting that only had your physical self. Remember that one? Only the body was there. The email you rewrote four times to that parent. The engagement battle, this engagement fight with the students that you fought all alone. None of those require more effort from you. They just require you to recognize that you are in a different season of the job right now. It's just the natural flow of the work. This is the season you're in. In this season, teachers protecting your energy is part of doing your job well. It's vital. Not every moment requires the same level of you. Not every behavior is a signal that something is falling apart. Not every quiet room means you have lost them. This week, teachers, just notice where your energy is going so you can use that awareness to make better choices. Because when you can see it clearly, you can stop spending what little you have. It's only a tiny bit. You can stop spending what little you have on things that were never going to give it back to you. So this week's focus on waiting to excel, waiting to breathe, just waiting for that moment of normalcy. Know this is not the content, it's the energy. And managing energy at the end of a long year is some of the hardest work teaching's gonna ask of you. At this point, guys, I have eight days left. I'm sorry, get my count right. I have seven days left, and honestly, getting through each day is extremely difficult because I'm dealing with the lack of energy in myself and those around me. So teachers know, you know, that you're not failing at this at this time of the year. You're not failing at this thing called teaching. You're not losing your edge. You are carrying something heavy in the hardest part of the year to be carrying anything at all, much less something heavy. Teachers, we're gonna keep looking at this slowly, waiting to exhale one layer at a time, because you deserve to get to the end of this year with something still left in you. As always, we're doing this together, one layer at a time. Until next time, give yourself the same care you give everyone else.