Teachers, You Don't Have to Carry This The Same Way You Did All Year.

 This is your last week with students ,or close to it. 

And if you are honest, you are trying to manage this week the same way you managed October. The same expectations. The same energy. The same pressure on yourself to hold everything together. 

That is exactly where the weight is coming from. 

In this episode of the After the Bells series, we talk about what carrying it too tight looks like in the last week of school.... and what it is actually costing you. We name The Calling Trap, the belief that caring deeply means sacrificing endlessly, and why it follows teachers all the way to the final day. 

This week is not October. And you are allowed to carry it like it isn't. 

Week three of Waiting to Exhale. 🎙️💚 

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 0:00

Hello, my teacher friends. Alright, guys, I'm gonna be honest with you right now. I'm tired. And it's not the kind of tire that a good night's sleep fixes. It's the kind of tire that has been building since August and is now sitting on top of everything I do. Guys, it is like it's sitting on the top of my chest and I can't breathe. I'm going home with very little left. Not enough for my business, not enough for my family, not enough for myself. And if I'm being completely transparent with you guys, I'm not even practicing what I know to be right and what I teach people. And I'm Kim. Remember, I built a podcast just about this. I built a teacher ritual box all about this. I have built a teacher support system around this very thing. And I work with teachers every day who are carrying exactly what you are carrying right now. And right now, guys, I'm living every bit of it. Teachers, tell me if this sounds like you. Your students have started literally asking you out loud why they are still coming to school. The behaviors that you manage well in February are louder, harder, and more frequent now. You've been trying to keep them engaged while honestly, honestly, not even wanting to keep them engaged yourself. Because you, teacher, you're done too. And the parents, okay, the parents. The parents are starting to find out that their child may need summer school. And somehow that's landing on you, even though the grades have been visible every single day. You're carrying all of this into a week that does not look like any other week and trying to manage it the same way you managed October. And that is exactly where the weight is coming from, teachers. You know that weight sitting on your chest? Yeah, that's it. Teachers, welcome back to Teaching Without Losing Yourself the podcast. I'm Kim. After 28 years in education, I realized 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 move. Everything we talk about here is built around this simple belief. Teachers, 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're three weeks into our theme of waiting to exhale. Week one, we name the contradiction. The way may ask you to stay fully responsible while everything around you is saying it's almost over. And then in week two, we named what is actually being asked of you. And it's not content, it's not instructional, it's energy, managing energy. And managing energy at the end of a long year is a completely different kind of work. This week we go to the most practical place yet. Because for many of you, especially those of you here in the South with me, this is your last week with students. And the question this week is not, how do you get through it? No, that's not it. The question is, do you have to finish this year the same way you started? And the answer, guys, is no. And that's what we're looking at. So, teachers, here's the enemy this week, and I want to just name it directly, okay? The enemy is the expectation, the one sitting inside of you and coming at you from the outside that this week should look like it looked in October, that the engagement should be the same, that the behavior management should be the same, that the parent communication should carry the same weight and that same energy, that you should be showing up the same way you showed up in September. Guys, that expectation does not fit this week. It never did. And trying to force it into a week that cannot hold it is grinding you down right now. It's killing you. For me personally, guys, I have three left, three days left in school with students right now. There is no expectation, none, that the structures for student learning will remain the same, that they'll remain in place for these three days. That is not the expectation. We are in survival mode. Teachers, have you ever watched another teacher or have you been that teacher trying to run, you know, this tight ship in the last week of school and watched everything, every single thing around it resist that? The students, they resist it. The parents, they resist it. Teachers, your own body resists it. Because this week, you know, it has a different job than October did. So October was about building. September was about building. Guys, this week is about finishing. That's it. And finishing does not require the same pressure you've been putting on yourself to keep it all together. That's not required. Let me show you what carrying it too tight looks like right now. I know teachers right now, it's happening right now, who are writing up students this week for things they redirected quietly in November. So in November, they redirected. But today, right now, no, it's a write-up. And it's not because the behavior got worse, because the teachers' capacity to absorb it got smaller. The teachers could not absorb that behavior right now. Their capacity to do so, it just got smaller. And the expectations did not adjust with the reality of what we're going through right now. Do you know that feeling when you're trying to hold a standard that everyone in the room, everybody including you, no longer thinks is fitting anymore? Where you are enforcing rules in a week where the rules feel like punishment to everyone involved. Students feel it. They are asking out loud, why are we still here? And honestly, teachers, you're asking the same thing, why are we still here? And then they're the parents. A parent reaches out this week, upset about a grade, a grade that we all know has been visible every single day since September. And you have to find the energy to respond to a conversation that you at least should have been having in January. What about this? I mean, does this sound familiar to you? You read the message, you feel something rise up in you, and you have to decide in that moment whether to respond from what little you have left or to protect what little you have left. That is not a discipline problem. That is not a communication problem. That is a last week of school problem. And guys, it deserves to be treated just like that. So here's what I want you to understand, okay? Teachers, right now, you are on one of two ends of a spectrum. One of two. Some of you, you're holding on too tight, you're holding expectations that don't fit the time. You're enforcing structures that were built for a different time, driving themselves and honestly, your students and your parents towards an edge because you don't know how else to proceed when the rules feel weird and hazy and not, you know, as specific as they have in past times. The expectations for you are just unclear. And then some of you on the other side of that spectrum, and those of you on the other side of that spectrum, you have completely let go. You are done, you're empty, you're going through the motions, present and body only. Guys, I think I'm going back and forth between these two each and every day, honestly, probably each and every hour. Both of those places make complete sense right now, given what we've talked about over the last few weeks. And here is what neither of those places account for. There is a mill. There's a place where you're still doing your job, keeping students safe, keeping things moving, holding reasonable expectations without putting the same pressure on yourself to keep it all together the way you did in September or October. You're not lowering your standards, guys. You are adjusting to fit the week you're actually in. And I want to name something here. A lot of the pressure you are feeling to hold everything together at full force, even now, even in these last days, comes from something deeper than habit. It comes from the belief that caring deeply means sacrificing endlessly. That if you ease up even for a week, it means you don't care enough. Teachers, that belief has a name, and we're gonna do a lot of work with this name throughout the summer, too. And the name of it is the calling trap. The calling trap. I see it every single day in the teachers I work with. They have this guilt, and it's guilt of wanting it to be over. The feeling that easing up means I care less. Like if I give in a little bit, that means I'm not a good teacher. It means I don't care. And that's that's wrong. That's not what it means. This is a calling trap at work, and it is one of the heaviest things that this profession puts on you. Literally, one of the heaviest things. You got into teaching because you care, but caring deeply does not mean you're required, teachers, to give everything you have every single day until there is nothing left. That is not the requirement. And if you go home with something left for you, it doesn't mean you care less. And here's what that pressure costs, you guys. I told you at the top of this episode that I was that I'm going home with nothing left. And part of what I have had to look at honestly is where that nothing is going. Right? I'm coming home. I'm going home each and every day, and I have nothing. Sometimes I sit in the car about 20 minutes before I can even come in the door. But that costs me something. So where is that nothing going? Some of it's going to things that genuinely need it. I mean, some of it, some of it is going to the pressure I am putting on myself to keep it all together, to the monitoring, to the managing, the things that I could trust other people to handle if I let go, to the behavior correction that needed one calm sentence, but got five minutes of my energy instead, instead of that one sentence to that child, I gave them five minutes. Some of it's going to the standard I enforced that everyone in the room, including me, especially me, knew didn't fit the week. That's where some of it's going. Have you been there where you spent the most of what you had on the thing that needed the least of it? Teachers, what is that? That is what the pressure costs. Not just energy. It costs you the drive home. It costs you your your evening at home. It costs you the people waiting for you who get whatever's left after the pressure took all of its share. Hey teachers, you're not failing this week. You're finishing this week. So here is what I have been learning slowly and not perfectly in my own last week. When I trust the people around me to do their work without me monitoring every piece of it, again, I'm learning slowly, that nothing falls apart. In fact, things move better because I'm not in the way of them. And when I let something go, when I decide that this moment does not need all of my weight, I get to keep something for the next moment and the next, and maybe even the drive home. And maybe, oh my gosh, for the people who are waiting for me once I get home. Do you know that feeling when you're finally stopped, when you finally stop trying to hold it together, you know, and realize it was never going to fall anyway? Like you're working so hard to put it all together, and then you realize, wait a minute, it's okay. And it was going to be okay. Teachers, that's what this week is asking of you. Not to stop doing your job, not to let everything go, just to ask before you spend the energy. Does this moment actually need everything I'm about to give it? Not every behavior needs a full response from the full version of you. Not every parent message needs to be perfect, not every moment of resistance needs to be met with more force. Not every moment of disengagement is a reflection of your teaching. Teachers, this is not October. And you are allowed to carry it like it isn't. Boundaries are acts of preservation. And right now, protecting what you have left is not giving up. It is how you, teacher, finish well. So this is week three of Waiting to Excel. Guys, we are almost there. I know it's hard. I do. I want you to hear this, uh, not as a strategy, this is not as advice, but as someone who is in it with you right this very second. Teachers, you're not failing this week. You are finishing it. And finishing is its own kind of work. And guys, it deserves its own kind of approach. Let go of the pressure where you can. Trust where you are able. So you have something to come home to. One more week. We're gonna talk about what it means to actually let it go. But for now, teachers, for this moment, for this time, for this part of May, just finish. That's it. That's all they ask of you. Just finish. As always, we're doing this slowly, one layer at a time, together. Until next time, guys, give yourself the same care you give everyone else.