Stopping Isn't the Same as Restoring

You made it to summer. But surviving the school year and being ready for the next one are two different things.

In this episode, Edward gets honest about what burnout actually looks like in education — not the dramatic version, but the quiet one where you're still showing up, still doing your job, but that version of you that used to get genuinely excited about a lesson idea at 8am hasn't shown up in a while.

He covers what real rest actually looks like (and what fake rest is costing you), why reconnecting with who you are outside the building matters more than people admit, and why you need to answer the question "why am I going back?" before September gets here.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Presence Question

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Education needs people who are truly present, not just in the building. I'm Ever DeShazer, and welcome to Homeroom Attendance. Your seat is safe. What's going on, Pod? Welcome to Home Room Attendance. I'm your host, Ever DeShazer, and today I'm asking, are you present or are you absent? Let's begin.

When Did You Last Do Nothing

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I want to start by asking, excuse me, you a question, and I need you all to be honest about this question. When was the last time you did something that had absolutely nothing to do with education? Not a professional development book, not a podcast about teaching, not a planning session disguised as a vacation, not a PD that brought you to Las Vegas. Something that was just for you. Something that reminded you that you are a full person who happens to be an educator, not an educator who occasionally remembers they have a life. And I want you to take a second with that. I was thinking about this last weekend. I was sitting outside and just sitting in a chair on my patio, doing nothing. And I was reflecting and thinking, I can't remember the last time I just did nothing. And it felt great. So often, especially for me, uh juggling multiple businesses and a son that's busy in sports and trying to do things with my family. There's always something else I could be doing. And I've noticed that with a lot of educators. We head into summer running on fumes, and our plan for summer is to just stop. You know, it's to stop waking up early, stop answering emails, stop doing all these things. And we have, as educators, we have earned that stop. So I'm not trying to guilt that out of you, but stopping is not the same as restoring. And that distinction matters more than most educators are going to realize. What you do in the summer is gonna determine who you show up as and who you walk into your building as in September. And I hate to break it to you, September is closer than you think. So

What Teacher Burnout Really Looks Like

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I want to talk to you about what burnout actually looks like in education. It doesn't always look like things falling apart. Sometimes it looks like functioning, you continue to show up, you do your job, you hit your marks, but there is a version of you that used to get genuinely excited about a lesson idea at eight in the morning, and now you can't remember the last time that that happened. There is a version of you that used to know every kid's name the first two weeks, and now you're looking at rosters in the beginning of October, wondering where that energy went. This is not a character flaw. This is what happens when you pour out more than you take in over a long period of time. There's research on teacher burnout, and it's not subtle. A 2022 Gallup report found that K-12 workers in U.S. reported the highest burnout of any industry surveyed. Higher than healthcare workers, I'm sorry, nurses, higher than people that worked in hospitality during the pandemic, I'm sorry, bartenders and servers, but educators. The people we hand our students and our children to every single day are running on the least amount of replenishment. And the response from most school systems and districts and schools has always been to add more, more professional development, more data review, more committees, more of the things that are already depleting the people who need restoration. Summer is a time that's supposed to be about correction, and for a lot of people, it's not doing that job. We've heard this a million times.

Fake Rest Versus Real Rest

SPEAKER_00 6:00

But first and foremost, you need actual real rest, not fake rest. You know, you need real rest. Fake rest is scrolling on your iPhone for three hours and calling it a day. Fake rest is saying yes to the summer social events because you feel guilty saying no after being unavailable all year. Fake rest is checking your school email just once every morning because you can't fully let go. Real rest means you let your nervous system actually decompress. That looks different for everybody. For some people, it's sleep where you're actually getting uninterrupted sleep without an alarm for more than two days in a row. Like sleep debt is a huge thing that a lot of people don't understand. For some people, it's physical. Getting back into a body that spent, you know, nine to ten months sitting in meetings and standing in hallways. For some people, it's silence. Like for me, it was just the silence of sitting outside. And and when you're not filling every quiet moment with noise, you will be shocked at what you might hear. Whatever real rest looks for you, it needs to come first. Before you start planning, before you start setting those goals, before you open the notebook that you bought specifically for your summer reflection, I want you to rest first. Because here's the thing about the nervous system it cannot process restoration and activation at the same time. You actually have to get still before you can meaningfully move forward.

Reclaim Who You Are Outside School

SPEAKER_00 8:03

The second thing I need you to do, I need you to reconnect with who you are outside the building. This is such an underrated tip, and I don't think people talk about it enough because they just tell you to rest and recharge and rebuild. When you are in a school building, you are somebody specific. Mr. So-and-so, Miss Johnson with the third grade classroom, you know, you are Coach Davis, who knows all the kids' locker combinations. You are principal Johnson, who, you know, is holding the whole school community together. And those are real and meaningful um identities, but they are not the only thing. And what I've seen that happens, especially to educators who love this work deeply, is that their professional identity slowly becomes their only identity. Summer comes and they don't know what to do with themselves because the structure that told them who they were every day for those 10 months is suddenly gone. That is a sign that the work has been consuming more than its share of you. You are not just an educator who rests during the summer. You are a full person who educates for a living. That's a different relationship with the job. So this summer, I want you to do something that has nothing to do with school. Read something that is completely irrelevant to education and enjoy every single page of it. Play video games with your kids because it's a mindless activity that draws you out of your emails and work thinking. Pick up something you used to do before your job took over the calendar. I want you to travel somewhere, even if it's just jumping in a car and driving two hours from home, cook something, build something, plant something, put a puzzle together. But more than anything, I want you to be a person. The educators that walk back into buildings in September with the most energy are not the ones who spent the most time preparing. They are the ones who more than likely spent time actually living life in the summer. They come back with something to give because they gave something to themselves first.

Get Clear On Why You Return

SPEAKER_00 10:41

And the third thing, use your use some of your summer to get clear on why you're going back. Not everyone goes back in September the same way that they left. Some of you are gonna be in roles that are no longer the right fit. Some of you are in new buildings, some of you are in buildings where a culture is taking more from you than it's giving back. Some of you need to have a conversation with yourself this summer about whether you're still doing whether what you are doing still matches why you started. That answer may surprise you. And I want you to be very clear that no matter what the answer is, it's not failure. It is clarity, and clarity is a gift that so many people don't have in their life. For most of you, that conversation is going to confirm exactly what you already believe. And that is that the work that you do matters. Those kids in that building need you, and you are exactly where you are supposed to be. And if that's where you land, you walk back into your building in September with a conviction that is 10 times more powerful than any PD training could have actually done. But you do have to do work to get there. You can't just drift from you know mid to late June into August and show up into September hoping that the passion comes back on its own. Passion doesn't come back on its own. You have to go and get it. So ask yourself this summer: why am I going back? Not the answer that you would give at a job interview. I want you to be honest with yourself. Give the answer that lives underneath that resume and that profile that you've created. Get to that answer and write it down. Put it somewhere that you will see late in September when things start to feel hard again. News flash. Things are going to feel hard again. They always do. And when they do, you need something to come back to.

A Real Summer And Closing Ask

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And this is where I'm gonna get ready to wrap up. As an educator, you gave so much this year. If you're in education, you gave more than most people around you will even fully understand. The emotional weight of this work, the cognitive load, the relationships that you hold, the problems that you're solving at seven in the morning that most people don't even know about, it deserves to be acknowledged. You deserve a real summer, but a real summer is not just about being absent from the building, it is about the intentional work of becoming someone who has something to give again. Rest until you mean it. Reconnect with who you are outside of the job and get clear on why you're going back to work in September. September is coming, it always does. The question is whether you'll be there and what version of you is going to walk through that door. My hope is that is it it is a full, recharged, and present version of yourself. So before we wrap up and before we close this out, if you enjoy this episode, as I always encourage you to do, just subscribe and leave a star review on whatever podcast platform. If you're watching on YouTube, hit the little thumbs up button. If you're not watching on YouTube, check it out on YouTube. Um, yeah, that's all I got for you. But you have been present for homeroom attendance. Class is dismissed.