Episode 5: Listen to your gut 💜

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Welcome to Teaching La Vida Loca, a podcast for World Language Teachers seeking inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and guidance in centering joy and facilitating language acquisition for the people that matter most, our students. I'm your host Annabelle most people call me La Maestra Loca, and I'm an educator just like you, and inspiring teachers is what I do...

Welcome to episode five of Teaching la Vida Loca, I'm happy you're here. Today, I wanted to talk to you about a conversation I had with a dear friend about two weeks ago. She is one of my family loca members, and just a really incredible human. And she called me because she really needed to hear that it was okay to walk away from this profession. And she was nervous that I would be disappointed or affirm a lot of the feelings that her heart  was telling her. 

I feel that it's really important for us to talk about the fact that sometimes our heart, especially when it comes to us as educators, is not always the best thing for us to listen to. Sometimes we have to listen to our gut, and not our heart. So I want to talk to you about that today. As well as talk to about what I'm thinking for next year for myself, and really just normalize this idea of having this sort of conversation about next steps. I know we talk a lot about how hard this year is and how brutal it's been. But I think it's really important that we talk about the realities of the mental and emotional trauma that teachers and students have gone through. And I just want to let you know that it's okay to walk away. If that is what your gut is telling you.

I was listening to a podcast by Alexis Shepherd (the Afroeducator podcast). A couple weeks ago, it was actually right before her call. And it was episode eight. It's called why teachers leave; toxicity tolerance in transitions with Daphne Gomez. Daphne Gomez was her guest that day. This podcast is called the afro educator, and it's fantastic.  it's all about basically self-care, teacher self care. And it was really, really interesting listening to it , and depressing too, because it was so much of what is wrong with education right now and why teachers are so done. And I'll link to it in the show notes. But soon after I received this call from my friend. And she explained much of the different factors that was described in this podcast, for reasons why she was just feeling like done, why she needed to walk away, she expressed that she wasn't feeling joy anymore. 

That's when I just said Stop, stop. If there is nothing that is bringing you joy, or if the things that do bring you joy: moments with students or little notes they give you or whatever it is, if those things do not bring you enough joy to overcome the frustrations, exhaustion, mental and emotional damage that all of the other things building up are doing it is not worth it. It's not worth it anymore. It's not worth it. Because yes, we need to find those silver linings and find those things to pull us through and get us through each week. And that's what we've been doing for sure for the last three years during the pandemic. But the reality is, we're so burnt, and we're so tired. And if you can't find that joy anymore, it's not worth it. Because as soon as you lose your joy and as soon as it it's too hard every single day and you're just thinking I don't know that I can do this another day. It's time to walk away. It's time to walk away. I really believe we're about to face a reckoning in education. I think we're going to see teachers leaving at a much higher rate than 65% That's the number I keep hearing about, you know, teachers walking away this year, and not just walking away from their schools but walking from the profession.

And I don't know, I don't know what it's going to take to fix this. But I do know that if we aren't making the steps for our selves, nothing will ever change. Because if enough people say enough is enough, then something inevitably we'll have to change. But ultimately, we have to protect our own mental and emotional health. 

We have to do this for ourselves, first and foremost, for our families, for our loved ones. One of the biggest reasons that she was struggling with this decision was she said, well, you know, I thought I was gonna make it so much longer than the profession. This is somebody who's taught, well over 20 years, y'all!! Well over 20 years!!! But when you compare that with other professions, it's not as long..... And once again, here comes my favorite quote, "Comparison is the thief of joy". You cannot compare your years in education with years in another profession, it doesn't add up, what we do, doesn't begin to compare with what other people do in their lines of work...  20 years is an incredibly long time in education!!!!  I felt terrible that that's what she was doing. She was comparing how long she had been in the profession... what a gift she's given to the profession!!! What an incredible legacy to leave!!! I hope that I can make it that long in this profession, like, so wonderful!!!! But ultimately, the toxic positivity, the the demands of her workplace, are too much. It's too much, and it's time for her to walk away. 

The next thing that her heart was telling her was, no, no, you can't walk away. What about the kids, you can't leave the kids. That's why we can't always listen to our hearts. This one's so hard. The kids are always the hardest thing to leave. But I explained that it's also really important for them to see that teachers are saying NO, when enough is enough that teachers are protecting their mental and emotional health. Because if you imagine 30 years from now, your student being in the same situation you're in, if you're one of these people that are contemplating, can I do  this another year? Would you want your student to put  themselves through another year, like the year that you're experiencing? Would you want them to make that choice for their mental and emotional health? 

When you think about it like that, it's a lot easier to say, Okay, no, I need to set this example for my students. 

You may not be ready to leave the profession, you may just need to take that risk and take that leap and leave your current school building. And that can feel incredibly overwhelming... job searching is exhausting, and you're already exhausted. And that can feel completely and totally overwhelming. And I get that. But if you're not ready to leave the profession, but you're having a really hard time finding the joy, and doing what you love to do, because of the demands that are asked of you, then maybe it's time for a change of scenery. And I promise you there's going to be plenty of job posts out there. If you look now, they're already being posted because teachers are walking out mid year, and that's okay, do that is okay too. But you can look and you can see that there's already positions being posted. And maybe it's time maybe it's time for a change of scenery. 

I had to make an incredibly challenging decision a couple of weeks ago.  I went back and forth, back and forth and back and forth. But I finally decided that it's time for me to start looking for a new place to work. I love my school. I really do. I love my school. I love where I work I love its focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. I love that I can center social justice work in in my classes. I love that I can do what I want. I love that I'm an expert in my classroom and treated as such and I'm allowed to completely design my curriculum day by day, I love all that. But I don't love that my program has kind of been cut year after year. And this year, it's just students who opt into Spanish who get to take it. Not every single child in the middle school gets to take language. Then on top of that, I only get to see my kids every other day. I love my students, they are incredible. But it is really hard to walk through this middle school building and see so many faces that I don't get to teach anymore, or so many new faces that I never did get to teach, because they never had the opportunity to experience what acquiring a second language looks like in my classroom. And it's really hard. That's really hard. I want to see kids every day. And I want my passion and my program to be seen as, as as incredible and valuable as they can be. 

I do feel like I am valued at my school. I think that parents value me students value me admin values me as an educator, but I don't think that world language is as valued as it could be. And so I'm making that hard decision to look elsewhere. Do I have anything yet? No. But is it fair of me to not let my school know, my intent? No, that's also not fair. So I, I also think that it puts a little bit of pressure on me. If I let them know to get my butt in gear and start looking, rather than sit and just be I don't think the word is complacent, but pretend to be content when I know what I want. And that is to see students every single day. Because I know the power of language acquisition, and I know what I can do for kids. 

So perhaps that's you, perhaps you're ready to just look elsewhere. Wherever you are, in your teaching journey this year, I just want you to really listen to your gut. Because it's so important to really make sure that  you are if you're staying next year.... that you really want to stay in the profession. Because we know that this is the hardest job out there. And we can only do it if we know that we are mentally and emotionally there for it. And if our joy is gone, then perhaps it's time to walk away. And maybe it's not forever. Who knows, maybe you'll come back. But for right now, if you need to protect your mental and emotional health, and walk away, please do so. 

Remember, your students, you're not walking away from them, you're not abandoning them, Oh, I hate hearing those words, you're not abandoning them. You're setting an example of how important it is to protect your mental and emotional well being if you need to walk away. So if you need somebody to tell you that it's okay. Here's me saying it's okay. My friend. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for what you've given to the profession....whatever that amount of time has been, and I am excited for your next journey! Whether that's inside a classroom or outside of it. 

If this was helpful to you, please share with a teacher that you know that maybe looking for the right words or maybe needing to hear these things. Doesn't have to be a world language teacher either. Because teachers across the board need to hear that their gut is valid and and listening to that is important. And sometimes we have to just tell our hearts, hold on a minute, need to speak with my gut. I am thinking of you and I hope that you have a fabulous rest of your week.

I have a free professional development opportunity coming up before I go that I wanted to tell you about... On Monday, March 7, I will be on zoom with any of you that want to be there. I would love to have you! I'll be talking about how I am motivating my students, how I'm gaining their buy in, and how I am increasing engagement for March. March is a really long month. It's actually insane. I was looking at the calendar thinking, oh, gosh, why is it so long until I have my next break?! So I just wanted to share some ideas with you that have been working lately, for me since the new year in  increasing that engagement in my in my world language classroom because I feel like this year, it's like pulling teeth sometimes!

So if you're interested, that link is also in our show notes. I would love to have you come and join me, and I'd love to inspire you! 

Short and sweet. I said it wouldn't be long! And that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining me!  I promise, next time to include a brain break. This one was just about letting you know that I'm thinking about you and I am here for you and and your gut and your gut instinct is always right. Trust yourself. Sending you love teacher. Until next time, I'll be teaching la vida loca, and I am confident you will be too! take care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai