How to Deal With More Policy Threats

Hey, Teachers!

Education is under attack. How are you dealing with the increased threat of safety on the job? Especially if you live in a state where educational policies and mandates are cutthroat? 

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When our voices are being silenced more and more, and we're grappling with bans that have reduced the quality of our instruction, instituted robotic moves, and made us guard everything we say far beyond just being careful or diplomatic, how do we remedy the pain of feeling this invisible?

How do we continue to help our students socially and emotionally?

Are you wondering if being a teacher is even worth it anymore? 

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Following are 7 STEPS for self-preservation and reclaiming your hard-earned "teacher professional identity" and worth despite damaging legislation threatening to tear us down with every passing month.

1. Affirm your worth

     Say out loud where you stand, who you are as an educator, and what you believe is possible.

     Be intentional about the words you choose to describe yourself as a teacher, your hopes, and your capabilities. Write that statement, and post it where you can see it.

2. Identify the limitations and restraints

     Identify what is destroying your teacher autonomy and spontaneity. 

     Beneath each limitation and restraint, write ONE action you can still take in instruction, that isn't curtailed or crushed by the threatening policy, lack of school resources, or diminishing teacher support at your school site.

3. Remain neutral about your political beliefs 

     Remain publicly and politically neutral at work related to your opinions about all decision-making involving local and state bans and restrictions.

     The more vocal you are in an individual fight against legislation you can't move or change right now, the more likely you are to become negatively targeted.

4. Be vocal when it's reasonably safe to do so 

     When collective teacher action is wise and reasonably safe given all the restrictions, laws, and ways you are required to uphold a professional code of ethics in your state, use your voice whenever possible to create possibilities for positive change at your school site--if those changes don't conflict with mandates you're forced to adhere to.

     Never "go it alone" fighting against educational reform policies or associated imposed structures, authoritative decision-making, or supervisors who may or may not understand your teaching world. More often than not, being too vocal in isolation will backfire and won't yield the positive results or opportunities for real change you're seeking. (And always be cautious about your collective teacher voice. Being strategic is paramount, and so is being lawful if you want to keep your job.)

5. Address the time factor 

     Address how you're approaching time in every dimension of your life, and especially in the classroom. How much time are you investing in this struggle? How much time are you investing into internal negative thoughts? Personal complaints? Taking the complaints home? A belief that your job is impossible? Feeling expendable? Frustrated to the point that you're physically ill?

     Are you letting your anger diminish the quality of instruction in the teaching and learning dynamic, and erode what's still possible in teacher-student relationship building? Your students didn't ask to be victimized or targeted by discriminatory practice stemming from laws that are destructive, shameful, and strip teachers of their rightful authority in the field as expert practitioners. 

      Your students didn't choose their upbringing or environmental challenges either.

6. Keep a personal journal 

     Keep a personal journal--gratitude, spiral, composition book, running Google doc, or even printer paper...and dump your emotions onto the pages. Write during meetings. It looks like you're listening and note-taking (and maybe you're doing that too), but you're really using the time to invest in YOU.

     Get out your emotions on paper as if someone you care about is listening to EVERY WORD, and agreeing with every thought. Your journal is unedited, safe, and only for you. It's a much better place to vent than verbally in the heat of the moment to someone you love who's trying to be there but doesn't fully understand...or on social media accounts where you might regret your choices.

7. Rely on a close friend 

     Find a trusted friend outside of the work environment and definitely off the clock and contract hours. Find someone who may or may not be a teacher, but who knows your heart and wants to help you through these tough times.

     In all my 30 years in this profession, I have never seen such a bleak and desolate landscape in education as what we are traveling now. The valiant push for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our circles of influence remains a top priority if this nation is to be all it can be. 

     And we can't lose sight of what drives us to teach, to promote goodness, and advocate for kids, those unique and rewarding reasons that brought you into education in the first place.

     We don't have to let the bleakness and desolation destroy who we are as teachers. We can work within the limitations, and hopefully, we can make it through to a time when this landscape begins to flourish again. Our students still need us.

      When we choose to emphasize goodness in the most confining and seemingly hopeless of situations, that goodness is a seed that grows.

      Our students are listening to us. Watching us. Our choices on the job remain some of the most important ones we make, even if they don't feel important in the face of adversarial mandates and stifling predicaments.

      We always have choice about our personal perspective and teaching purpose.

      No one can take that away from you.

FIGURE OUT BETTER COPING STRATEGIES. BOOK YOUR FREE DISCOVERY CALL WITH DR. SHEA