The Quiet Lie of Educators

Two or three weeks into summer, when the June exhaustion finally starts to lift, something else shows up. The quiet. And in the quiet, a voice that starts second-guessing everything — the students you didn't reach, the lessons that didn't land, the feeling that everyone else has it figured out while you were just trying to get through the year.

Edward calls it the quiet lie. And it doesn't come in one big dramatic moment. It comes in small ones, stacked up over weeks, using real moments from your year as evidence against you.

This episode is about negativity bias, the believement gap, and what it actually looks like to push back on a voice that counts on you being alone with it.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Big 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? Ooh, what's going on, Pod? Welcome to Homeroom Attendance. I'm your host, Ever DeShazer, and today I am asking, are you present or are you absent? Let's begin.

The Quiet Lie Of Summer

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I want to start today by talking about something that nobody says out loud in July. We are now two to three weeks into summer. I know someone's listening, they probably just I know New York schools, they like just walked out yesterday. But the exhaustion from June is starting to lift. You've slept, you've caught up on all those shows on Netflix and all that television that has absolutely nothing to do with lesson plans. You maybe even cooked a real meal, which felt unreasonably luxuri luxurious, and then something happens. The quiet shows up, and in the quiet, a voice shows up with it. A voice that starts doing a specific kind of damage. You start second guessing situations that may have happened during the school year. You start questioning whether you actually reached those students. Everyone else seems to have it all figured out while you're just trying to play catch up. You start to think maybe that you're not as good as you thought you were. You start to think that what if September is worse than this last year was? That voice is the quiet lie. And it does some of its most effective work in the summer when you're still and there's nothing pressing to drown it out. The most dangerous disruption you'll face this summer is not going to come from your district or come from your school, it is going to come from your own head. Educators are extraordinarily hard on themselves. And I don't mean that as a soft compliment. I mean it as an observation about a real pattern that can cause real damage. Teachers and school leaders routinely measure themselves by their worst moments. We measure ourselves by a student we couldn't reach. Um, and that stays with you longer, you know, than anything else. The we measure ourselves by the lesson plan that flopped, and that gets more mental airtime than when you changed an entire relationship with someone through reading. The parent meeting that went sideways continues to play on loop while the ones that went well disappear like they never happened.

Negativity Bias And Why It Sticks

SPEAKER_00 3:35

And there's a name for this in psychology, and it's negativity bias. And I think most people do this. It's not like just a teacher thing, but I'm specifically talking to teachers because the human brain is wired to give more weight to negative experiences than positive ones. It is a survival mechanism, and you know, it goes back as far as our ancestors, um, you know, and they needed to remember where danger was and not where the berries were. But our brains did not get the update that has taught us that you're no longer being chased by things, you know, physical things these days. You know, typically these days we're being chased down by anxiety and depression and you know, all of these negative thoughts that we create in our head. And really, right now, the thing a lot of us are just trying to survive is, you know, it's like third period on a Friday in February. So the bias runs unchecked in your life. And this summer, with all the stillness, you get it gets a microphone. The quiet lie isn't one big dramatic statement. It's a hundred small ones like death by a thousand cuts. You know, they're stacked up over weeks, slowly building the case against you, and the case sounds credible because it uses real evidence, it uses those real moments from the year where you struggled, and it just arranges them in the most uncharitable way possible to get your attention while you're quiet. Your brain will build the prosecution's case against you all summer long if you let it. Your job is to see it and defend it and remember those good moments where things actually went right, and don't let that quiet lie talk to you and plant self-doubt about why things went wrong, are going to continue to go wrong.

Social Media Comparison And Hustle Culture

SPEAKER_00 5:49

The second part about the quiet lie, because it doesn't just work on what happened last year, it works on what you think is coming next. It sounds like comparison, and summer feeds it so well. You know, you're scrolling in July and you see a teacher posting about the classroom library that they're already excuse me, rebuilding, and principal sharing, you know, their back to school theme review or reveal, you know, an educator on a podcast talking about the book they wrote during spring break, and something in you can deflate or get defensive. Either, you know, it's I should be doing that, or that can't be real, or it makes you feel guilty about the lack of what you feel like you have accomplished this summer. And what's actually true about that is you are not behind. You are not failing by resting, you are not less committed because you are not producing content about school in the middle of the summer. The hustle narrative in education is loud and it is persistent. And social media has given it a very good-looking platform, but it is not the whole picture. The educator posting their classroom setup in July and the educator sitting on the porch reading a novel in July, both can walk into September equally ready. What matters is not whether you are visible on some platform, what matters is whether you are honest with yourself about what you needed this summer. Rest is not a reward that you earn because of a good year, it is the requirement for doing the work at all.

Audit Evidence And Name The Lie

SPEAKER_00 7:32

So, what do you actually do when that quiet lie is creeping into your head? First, we have to audit the evidence. When that voice in your head starts building its case, ask it to prove its work. The same way you ask your kids, like, I need to show your work show your work on this math problem. Ask that lie to show its work. Don't just don't just dismiss it, but examine it. If you're telling yourself you didn't reach your students this year, ask yourself, was it all of them? Every single one of them? Because I am willing to guarantee and to bet that that is not true. And when you find the ones you did reach, you hold on to them with the same grip you've been holding on and giving to the ones that you didn't reach. The full picture is more accurate than the edited version your negativity bias is going to keep showing you. Secondly, let's name the lie specifically. There's a difference between I had a hard year and I'm not good at this. The first one is a fact, the second one is an interpretation. The quiet lie loves to dress up interpretations as facts. When you notice this happening, call it by its right name. That is not a conclusion, that is a story that I'm telling myself. And stories can be revised, but it's our job to revise them. And third, you got to talk to someone who is in the building with you, not just event, though that has its time and place because I do think we have to get things out of us so we're not just holding them in and letting them bubble, but we need a reality check. The people who watched you work all year have a more accurate read on the impact than the voice in your head does in July. A trusted colleague, a mentor, somebody who can remind you of the things you did that you've already forgotten. Because the quiet lie counts on you being alone with it. The quiet lie loses power the minute you bring it into light. The quiet lie does its best work in isolation. The antidote is an honest conversation with someone who actually saw you show up.

The Believement Gap For Educators

SPEAKER_00 9:46

The believement gap is a concept that I developed some years back, and it anchors a lot of my work, and it's usually talked about in relation to students and how staff believe in the students, the gap between what we believe about a kid and what the kid is actually capable of when we get out of the way and trust them. But educators have a believement gap as well. There's a version of yourself that your students experienced this year that you have not fully given yourself credit for, a version that stayed late, that worked hard, that made the calls, that had those difficult conversations, that wiped a kid's tears, that found a way to connect with every with another kid that someone else had already written off, a version of you that held things together, even though the circumstances outside of work were not fair or not, you know, you're not fully funded, or your classroom, you had to struggle to get that Amazon list paid for, and sometimes you don't feel fully supported by your administration. That version is real. And the quiet lie is trying to make you forget that you showed up through all of that and did your job. Do not let it do that. You know what work you put in this year, you know what it cost you to get from September 1st or whatever that start date was to June 10th or whatever that finish date was. You know what it meant to the people you did it for, even if the students never said it directly. Carry that into summer. Let that sit next to the rest that you're getting. Let that be part of what you are restoring. And when September comes back, you are going to walk back into school knowing exactly who you are. Like the kids say, I am him, you are her, not the version that that quiet lie is trying to break down and destroy over the summer. I want you to walk back as the full version, knowing you did what you were supposed to do, knowing that you stood on business, knowing that despite every reason you had to leave, you finished and crossed that line.

Share It And Walk Back Confident

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Before I let you go, again, if this is an episode that resonated with you, this is not a long one. I need you to share it with someone, but I need you to receive it. There is no reason for you to walk back into whatever building you're walking into in September, second guessing yourself. Like this episode, review this episode, give me some stars. If you're on YouTube, check it out there, like it there. If you're not on YouTube, go check it out on YouTube. But again, keep showing up as your full self. Keep trusting your students, keep trusting your co workers, keep trusting yourself because the world needs you to show back up in September as the best version of yourself. You have been present for homeroom attendance, class is dismissed.