Heidi: This is episode 280 of Teacher Approved.
You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping
educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm
Heidi.
Emily: And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story
Window, where we give research-based and
teacher-approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and
more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources
from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
Heidi: We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to
the show.
Emily: Hey there! Thanks for joining us today. In today's
episode, we're doing something a little different because our
brand new book is releasing tomorrow, and in honor of that,
we are looking back at four things we wish we had known a
whole lot earlier in our teaching careers, and we've got
a teacher-approved tip to make back-to-school season a little
easier.
Heidi: But first, let's start with a try it tomorrow, where we
share a quick win that you can try in your classroom right
away. So, Emily, what is our suggestion for this week?
Emily: Okay, this is a good one and it's super easy. So, this
week, plan something to look forward to after the back to
school chaos settles down. So, it doesn't have to be big. It
could just be dinner out with a friend or buying a book that
you've been wanting and then tucking it away to read after
everything dies down. The first few weeks of school are so
intense, and so it helps you to know that something good is is
already on the schedule. It's coming later. You've got
something to look forward to, even if it's small.
Heidi: And the scheduling really is the key to making this work.
Even if you have to move your plans around later, at least
it's on the calendar. It's kind of like keeping your pieces on
the game board, because here's what will happen: otherwise,
you're going to get busy and you're going to forget, and then
you will be sad. We don't want you to be sad. So pick something
today and put it on the calendar.
Emily: And if you like this idea or anything else we share here
on the podcast, we would appreciate it so much if you
just took a second and gave us a five star rating and review on
Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Heidi: Well, as Emily mentioned, today is our little book's
birthday eve, and we are pretty excited. Tomorrow, our little
book baby goes out into the world.
Emily: I know. I can't believe it. Honestly, it still doesn't
feel real, even though we've like held the books in our hands
because we started this so long ago. It was November of 2024
that we started this. Honestly, even a little before that,
because that's when you wrote up that book outline after we
talked about that idea.
Heidi: That was, like, September. So almost exactly two
years ago.
Emily: So weird, and you'd think that with all that time, we
would have written it way early and had all this extra time to
spare. And that is that is not what happened.
Heidi: Yeah, yeah, you would think that. But we finished just
under the wire, same as always.
Emily: Actually, I think the wire had to be pushed back a
little bit. If you've listened to us very long, you can
probably guess it's because we wanted to include too much
information.
Heidi: Yeah, some things never change.
Emily: Yes, we're perfectionists too, so we had to like go over
every sentence a million times.
Heidi: I know, and now I'm scared to look because, like, I
know as soon as I look at one of these pages, I'm gonna find a
typo. I just know it.
Emily: Yes, or something that I wish we'd said differently, or
whatever. So I haven't read any of it yet. I've just flipped
through it to appreciate it.
Heidi: I wasn't prepared for how hard it would be to have it in
its final evolution, where we can't make any changes. So if
you find a typo, no, you did not. Okay?
Emily: No, you did not. Never tell us a word about that,
please. So our hope is just that this book becomes something
teachers can keep coming back to every year for some reminders
and a little encouragement from two teachers who have been
there.
Heidi: Back when we started teaching, we kind of had this
thought that there was a perfect system out there, that somewhere
in some magic binder or book, or from that teacher down the hall
who seemed to have it all together, that somebody had it
all figured out, and we spent a lot of time looking for that
system.
Emily: And I don't even know if we realized that's what we were
doing. We were just constantly trying to improve everything we
were doing to this like point of perfection by bringing in all
these new ideas every time we'd hear something new we wanted to
try it.
Heidi: All the time, yeah.
Emily: But the thing is when we couldn't find that we spent so
much more energy trying to build it ourselves. But in the
meantime, whenever you had a management issue with a kid that
didn't go the way you wanted it to, if your lesson flopped, if
the piles of papers on your desk were getting so big they're
tipping over, we felt like we yet again were proving that we
were failing at this.
Heidi: And I guess if you really look at it, we technically were
failing. Because we were failing at being perfect teachers,
because obviously that's impossible. But looking back, I
just have so much love for those poor baby teachers who were just
leaving it all on the field every day. Because we weren't
failing at being effective teachers.
Emily: No, or loving ones. Yes, our rooms were cluttery, and we
were sometimes scrambling to get our planning done. But we were
doing so much right. It's just that it's hard to notice the
good that's happening when you're so fixated on reaching
some impossible ideal.
Heidi: Yeah, and I think we would have said perfection was
impossible, but it was just that that job is so hard that it
seemed like there had to be big answers we were missing because
how can someone keep doing this for 30 years if every day is
this demanding?
Emily: Right. But eventually we did figure a few things out, and
I wish we'd realized so much sooner that instead of chasing
the perfect system, we really needed a system that was
responsive. That would have saved us so much stress and time
and guilt.
Heidi: Yeah, and it would have saved us from a lot of
work-filled weekends. So that is the philosophy that guided what
we put into Structure and Spark, the book. We want to help
teachers create the kind of responsive system that helps
both teachers and students have their best chances at succeeding
every year.
Emily: So we put all those tips that we tried and fully tested
over the years into the book, so that other teachers can learn
those same lessons sooner than we learned them.
Heidi: And instead of just doing a rehash of what's in the book,
we decided for this episode to zoom out and take a look at four
of the big lessons that we have learned over the years.
Emily: So these are the ideas that influence the practical
tips that we put into the book. So to start with, our first
lesson that we wish we had learned earlier is that you need
to make systems instead of treating every day like an
emergency.
Heidi: Oh yeah, if you're spending the whole day triaging
which of the demands you're dealing with are most urgent,
you're basically living in constant panic.
Emily: This is basically where the structure half of Structure
and Spark comes in. Of course, the book is more focused on
systems for students, but when those systems are in place, it's
much easier for you to build your own systems for getting
your own stuff done.
Heidi: And it definitely helps when you know exactly what needs
to get done instead of jumping from emergency to emergency and
just crossing your fingers that you've covered your bases. So,
Emily, what's one system that you built that helped get you
out of that emergency mode?
Emily: Well, I do think this is probably cheating, but I would
say getting a rock solid morning system, morning routine in
place. And the only reason that I say it's cheating is because I
never had to scramble to figure out how to do this because I had
the benefit of an older sister who had taught the same grade
already for, what was it, five years, six years.
Heidi: I think five, yeah.
Emily: Yeah, so you helped me plan my morning routine from the
start with the things you already knew I needed to have
and because of that my mornings ran so smoothly. And I know that
systems for mornings had a big impact on the rest of each day,
and I was able to do what I needed to do in the morning, and
it just set us all up on the right foot for a successful day.
Heidi: I am very glad that I had something worthwhile to share.
It's got to be the teacher in me, but I feel like if I learn
something the hard way, I want to tell everybody else about it,
so maybe they can have it a little easier, and that's
probably why we have a podcast now.
Emily: And it's probably why I was just telling you how I'm
basically writing a handbook as the PTA president for the one
coming behind me because I'm like, why didn't anybody tell me
any of this stuff? Okay, Heidi. Besides your morning routine,
when did the system help you get out of that emergency mode?
Heidi: Well, a big boost for me came when I set up a regular end
of day routine on Fridays. So the opposite of Emily, Emily had
the morning routine. I've got an end of day routine. But Fridays
became a particular hinge point for me. Normally, I would get to
Friday afternoon. It'd be 3:30, and I tell myself, I will figure
it out later. I'm just too tired to stay and, figure out next
week.
So that meant I either had to work on Saturday or start Monday
behind. And a lot of weeks I chose that Monday option, but
when I set up a Friday routine, it meant I could start every new
week ready to go and not frantically trying to pull the
day together. And surprisingly, it also resolved that problem of
feeling too tired to stay after school, because I had a finite
list of tasks, and most of them could be knocked out pretty
quickly. But without that list, it just turned into, Well, I
have to stay until I've caught everything up, and you can never
do that.
Emily: When you know that there's a dedicated time in your
schedule for tackling all your different tasks. It does free
you up to focus on what's in front of you instead of feeling
you have to hop from one thing to the next.
Heidi: And not having to start from zero every time you're
trying to do something really does make you more productive.
Okay, Emily, what is our second lesson that we wish we'd learned
sooner?
Emily: Okay, this is a biggie. You're not failing at
management. You're just not being proactive. Once you've
taught for a little while, you get a sense of the ebb and flow
of the school year. And when you can predict something, you can
plan for it. So, when did you make that shift toward
predictive classroom management, Heidi?
Heidi: Well, I don't know if there was like a specific aha
moment where everything changed all at once. I think it was more
just slowly realizing that there were pieces I could put into
place that had a really big impact on how the day unfolded,
like getting the morning routine down just little bits at a time
until I had more of a framework.
But one memory that I had was very clear. It was a field trip
morning, and I really felt like I was crushing it as a teacher.
So on a normal school day, my students arrived over the course
of about 30 minutes, and I would just send them out to play on
the playground until the bell rings. That morning, I had the
good sense to realize that my kids were going to be coming in
extra energized, and if I were sending them out to play where
they are all already hyped up, they're going to hype each other
up. So that morning, I kept everyone in after they arrived.
I had calm instrumental music playing, or probably some Enya.
I had everyone get their morning work underway, and then I had
them work on calming fast finishers while I dismissed each
table for a bathroom break, so we weren't rushing. Yes,
everyone needs to go, even if you don't feel like it. Being
able to just manage all these pieces and keep the energy in
the room under control was such an eye opener about how much I
could impact the flow of the day and the energy of my class, even
when things were at their craziest. Now I have the
vocabulary to be able to say that what I was doing was
increasing the structure to balance the increased spark. But
at the time, I was going on vibes.
Emily: But I love that you said you at the time were like, Man,
I am killing it! Like I love that you notice it in the moment
of like, Dang, I'm doing so good today.
Heidi: Well, what about you, Emily? What did you start doing
differently once you got better at predicting problems?
Emily: Well, the first one that comes to mind for me is turning
the kids' desks backwards. Which, if you are a long time
listener, you've heard us talk about that a lot of times. You
can absolutely predict that if your students can keep things in
their desk, there will be some problems, maybe a lot of
problems. They will sometimes get distracted by playing with
what's inside. I know my children have gotten in trouble
for doing that at school at times, and that desk is going to
become a mess. So you will have to spend time having them clean
it out.
And when I had them turn their desks around, I immediately
eliminated the problem of students being distracted
because they're playing around inside their desks, and I never
had to wait to start a lesson because two kids can't find
their writing folder somewhere in that black hole of their
desks, and I never had to find room in the schedule for monthly
desk cleanouts.
Now, I do want to say this idea is not going to work for
everyone. Maybe you don't have any place to store desk items,
so you have to let them store things in their desk, or maybe
you just don't like this idea, and that's okay. But the
principle here was the discovery that when you think ahead about
what's likely going to cause friction or suck time out of
your day, or it has done that in the past, then most likely there
is something you can do to prevent it, or at least improve
it. And we always say that our favorite classroom management
tool is to prevent problems before they start.
Heidi: Yes, absolutely. Prevention is always easier than
repair, and with the desk turnaround, like with some
seating arrangements, it didn't work for me to have group
supplies, so I did let students keep stuff in their desks. But
the desks were still turned around; they had to reach, they
had to reach over the edge. They were fine. They're kids; they
handled it, no problem. There's really so much you can do to
minimize problems, even if you can't fully prevent them, if you
have a little bit of proactive thinking about it.
Emily: Right. The third thing we wish we'd learned sooner was
that our job was to be on the student side against the
problem, not to make the student the problem. It's like that
thing I hear about parenting, where it's like the baby is the
problem. We are on the same team, and the baby is the enemy
here. We're not fighting with each other about the baby, so
it's the same idea. You and the student are on the same side
here, and a student who won't pick up a pencil isn't giving
you a hard time. They're having a hard time, and so you're on
their team to help solve the problem.
Heidi: And I found that when you can remove your own reaction
from the situation. It really does help you realize that this
kid isn't doing this on purpose. Something is making that child
feel like they can't do the work, and that's what you're up
against. So, Emily, what shifted your thinking about this over
time?
Emily: Well, honestly, I think it probably took having kids for
me to learn this. So, I only got to employ this knowledge in our
preschool teaching years, not in second grade. But you know, when
your baby cries, it's not because they like crying; it's
because something's wrong. And you can safely assume that the
same is true for students because most students want to
follow the rules and do what they're meant to be doing.
Notice I said most. If the kid is struggling to do that, it's
either because the work or the expected behavior is too hard
for them, or it's that something else is going on that's making
it too difficult for them to do what you're asking. Because who
knows what happened before they came to school today?
So when you get to the root of it, you can help give them the
scaffolding they need to get to where you want them to be, or
you can help them work through their dysregulation or whatever
other problem is making it too hard for them to go with the
flow today. Being on the same team as the student against the
problem instead of you against the student and their problem is
such a huge shift in thinking. What shifted your thinking about
that, Heidi?
Heidi: Well, unfortunately, I'm in the same boat as you. It took
me a really long time to come to this as well, and I think it was
when we were teaching preschool, because when a three year old is
having a meltdown, it's really easy to understand that the
problem might be that they didn't get enough breakfast, or
we were asking them to wait longer than their little body
could handle. But when I was teaching eight-year-olds, I
definitely had the attitude of get it together. No, I was never
mean. I wasn't mean or shaming, or I didn't punish. But I was
very matter of fact. Like, okay, you're choosing not to do your
work right now, so you get to make it up during computers. But
knowing what I know now, I think I would have gotten a lot
farther if I'd addressed the problem behind the behavior
instead of assuming that the child just needed some tough
love to get things in line.
Emily: Yeah, and all of this comes back to preventing
problems where you can. If you fix the reason the student is
behaving that way, you have a good chance of minimizing it in
the future.
Heidi: And plus, being a teacher is so much more enjoyable when
you don't see every misbehavior as a challenge to your
authority. It keeps your stress level so much lower, and it
helps you handle a tough moment in a constructive way instead of
getting caught in a power struggle and making things way
worse.
Emily: Right. Okay. And our last lesson that we wish we had
learned earlier in our teaching careers is that your whole life
doesn't have to be about teaching for you to be a good
teacher, even though it can feel that way some weeks. What's
something outside of teaching that you wish you had protected
better, Heidi?
Heidi: Oh, for sure, it was time off. Like I looked at my
holidays and weekends kind of like bonus planning time. Like I
worked every single Labor Day my entire teaching career. But you
know back then, especially when we were starting, we weren't
having these conversations about work-life balance. The messaging
was very much that martyr narrative that you are
shortchanging your students if you're not sacrificing yourself
for your job.
But that is such toxic messaging. And I wish that was
something I had taken to heart sooner. Actually, this is
something I wonder about a lot. Would my life look different
now? Would I maybe have not so many health problems if I had
prioritized my life back then? But then I look back and I
honestly don't know if I could have done much differently in
those early years. Like my first year of teaching, I was given a
teacher's guide for math, some paper-based 10 blocks, and a
reading bazel, and that was all I had to fill all of the content
and 180 days of school. Since this was way before teachers pay
teachers, and I'm so old. This is even before the internet
really had anything on it.
Emily: No, you were going to the internet to find ideas. You were
going to the teacher store to look at the idea books they have
there, and hoping there were a few ideas in the book you picked
out.
Heidi: Or I would spend my Saturdays at the university
library because they had in the education section they had
copies of textbooks from all these different textbook
companies and so I would make copies out of those to find
lessons I could teach my students. That was how I spent
my weekends.
Emily: Yeah, so there probably isn't a lot you could have done
given your particular situation, but it is sad to look back and
think of the effect that that had on your health and your
personal life to have to work that hard all the time.
Heidi: Yeah, for my $800 a month.
Emily: Yeah, right?
Heidi: Well, Emily, what would you tell your first year self
about work imbalance?
Emily: Well, I mean, this is a hard one because, especially in
your first few years of teaching, it's like if you care
about doing it well, then this job is going to take over your
life, all your time and energy, if you let it. And it's hard not
to let it if you care. And we definitely let it be that way
for a long time. And to be honest, part of the problem was
I didn't even mind it that much because I really loved being a
teacher. I loved working with you to create new systems and
curriculum for our classes. When we spent all summer doing that,
we were going back and forth between our classrooms. I was
having a great time.
Heidi: It was fun.
Emily: It's hard when you're genuinely having a great time to
notice the fact that it made it so we had very little left to
give to anyone or anything else in our lives, and that is just
not fair to teachers. You are obviously a whole person who
deserves to have a thriving life outside of your job, and if
giving that time to yourself and to your loved ones isn't
motivation enough, don't forget that old saying about not being
able to pour from an empty cup. When you eat, sleep, breathe
teaching, you never get a chance to refill your cup. So in the
long run, it probably makes you a little bit of a worse teacher
because you stop being the best version of yourself when you're
so drained.
Heidi: 100%.
Emily: Yes, and at the very least, you need to get motivated
to give yourself this space and time away from school
responsibilities so that you can actually be a better teacher.
But you don't have to earn time away from school because it will
make you a better teacher. You deserve that time no matter
what. I feel like we all know that, but do we really know it?
We need to know it.
Heidi: And what else makes this such a challenge is that it's
not like you ever get to the end of your to-do list. There's
always more that needs to be done. You're always behind
somewhere, and this job is just going to take and take and take
until you don't have any more to give. So it really does come
down to setting boundaries, and then the hardest part, holding
them. I don't know how to make that easy, but it is definitely
worth it.
Emily: But that is why being able to predict what's coming is
so valuable. That's how you can make sure you're putting time
and energy where it will make the biggest difference, so that
you can leave work on time and go enjoy your life.
Heidi: So, if you take one thing from today, we want you to
remember that you don't have to be a perfect teacher. The goal
is just to be a responsive one. And unlike perfection,
responsiveness is actually something you can achieve.
Emily: Speaking of which, this is where we tell you where you
can learn more about our system. Structure and Spark: A Flexible
Framework for Every Classroom Curveball comes out tomorrow.
Heidi: And that means today is your last chance to pre-order
and get our bonuses that go with it. Those close at midnight, so
if you want them, place your pre-order with your favorite
online bookstore, and then fill out the quick form at
secondstorywindow.net/book, so we know where to send
everything, and you can find that link in the show notes.
Emily: Now for our teacher-approved tip of the
week, where we share an actionable tip to help you
elevate what matters and simplify the rest. If this one
sounds familiar, that's because this is your annual reminder to
think of next year's back to school while you're prepping for
this one. So let's hear more about it, Heidi.
Heidi: Okay, we know that the timing of this makes it sound
like we're adding one more thing to your overflowing plate, but
we do have to talk about this right now because right now you
have a clear perspective that is going to fade very quickly over
the next few weeks. So take 30 seconds and set up a list,
whether that's a note in your phone, an email to yourself, or
a Google Doc. It doesn't matter. You just need somewhere that you
will remember to look again. And then, as you are prepping all of
your back to school tasks, write down all of the things that you
are doing right now that could have been done ahead of time.
Emily: Yeah. So, drafting your meet the teacher letter is a
good example because you can write most of that before you
even know what grade you're teaching, and that means it's
something you could get out of the way any time between now and
next year's first day, and that frees up a little time and
energy for the tasks that can't be done in advance. So, the
second you catch yourself doing something that didn't need to
wait, that you could have done sooner, add it to the list.
Heidi: And then while you are at it, flag anything that someone
else could have done. Like they probably can't write your meet
the teacher letter, but cutting out papers is something anyone
could do for you. And that way, when you have parent helpers in
May, or if it's state testing and all of the interventionists
that usually pull kids need something to do, you've got
tasks that are ready to hand off that are going to get you ready
for the first day of school.
Emily: And even if your helpers can't do all of a task, if they
can get you started, you'll still be ahead of the game. So,
for example, if you're doing the saving Sam team building
activity every year, have a helper fill baggies with paper
clips and bowls ahead of time. Then all you have to do on the
day is add the gummy worms. So even those small tasks save time
in the long run.
Heidi: All right, to wrap up the show, we are sharing what we're
giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your
extra credit?
Emily: I'm giving extra credit to the color stack challenge
game. So I told you about piles recently. This is our other
favorite game from this year, and it is a game where you pull
out a base and then you put five tubes on the top of it. So think
of it like it's up, it's vertical like a Connect Four
board, but imagine it's just five round pegs basically, but
they're plastic. And then you've got a collection of these big,
they're not beads, obviously, but they look like a very, very
big bead that would go on these tubes.
So the way it works is you'd pull out a card, and each of you
set up your board to start the exact same way, so that it's not
just like if they went on randomly and then someone has a
bit of an edge because theirs happened to work better with the
puzzle that needs to be solved. So basically, the idea is you
want to get all of the little beads of the same color on one
tube, and there's only enough room for those 10 beads, and
there's enough tubes that there's two empty, so you kind
of have a spot you can move things.
Heidi: I think I've played a game on my phone that's similar.
It's like a color stack challenge.
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Heidi: Okay, I'm with you.
Emily: Once you guys have your boards set up the same way with
the starting, then you're both racing to see who can get all of
their colors sorted the quickest. And the rule is, you
can only put one color on top of a bead of the same color, or you
could put it on an empty tube. That's the only place you can
move. So if you have three pinks in a row and there's a enough
room on another tube that has a pink, you could move that over
there. But you couldn't move it just to get it out of the way
and put it on some greens just to move it.
Heidi: Yeah.
Emily: So mostly I can beat my kids at this, except my teenager
is way better at it than me, and it makes me so mad. I always
want another rematch, and then she beats me again. So it comes
with two of the stands. I think I might buy another set because
it's it's only like $15. It's pretty affordable. I think I
might buy another set so that all four of us can play at the
same time.
Heidi: That sounds like a fun game.
Emily: They even have a travel size one that I keep in my
analog bag to just like solo play, and I don't have to rush
because nobody's beating me. But it's pretty cleverly designed,
where you like slide the pegs out the bottom, shake up the the
container, and then slide them back in, and that mixes it up
for you, so it's kind of fun.
Heidi: Well, I'm gonna get that for my analog bag. That sounds
really good.
Emily: It's cute.
Heidi: Because I know I've liked playing that game on my phone,
but then you're on a phone, so.
Emily: Yes, exactly. And the game that I used to play that on
had so many ads, and I was not gonna pay for an app like that.
I'd rather just do it with my hands anyway. It's much more
fun, so definitely get that. What are you giving extra credit
to, Heidi?
Heidi: This is easier to explain because it is a game, but this
is a phone game. But it feels analog, because it it doesn't
have a timer. It's just very gentle. It's called yarn fever,
and I know I've seen tons of versions of this in the ads I
get served online. I just picked this one at random, but so far
I've really liked it. The ads only pop up at the end of a
round, and then that's my signal to be done. So I don't play
multiple rounds in a row because I don't want to sit through
that. So that's actually been really good for me.
So the idea is you have like a 3d image. Let's say it's a teddy
bear, and then you have two boxes of spools in certain
colors. So maybe you have blue and pink, and the teddy bear is
in all these different colors. So you tap the pink on the teddy
bear, and that corner of the teddy bear, like the yarn,
travels to the spool. So you have to fill the three spools,
and then that basket's taken out, and you get a new color. So
the idea is to unravel all of the yarn that is making up this
picture. So it's very calming. There's not a timer. I just like
to be able to tap. It really has been a nice little unwind, if
you got to be on your phone.
Emily: Okay. All right, I'm going to try yarn fever, and
then afterwards, when I hit the ad, I'll put my phone away and
I'll do my travel color stack challenge.
Heidi: There you go. Sounds like a win. What an evening!
Emily: Hey, we know how to live around here.
Heidi: Well, that is it for today's episode. Remember that
pre-order bonuses for Structure and Spark close tonight at
midnight. So after you order, head to
secondstorywindow.net/book and fill out a quick form so that we
can be sure to get you those bonuses.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm Heidi.
Emily: And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow
or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an
episode.
Heidi: You can connect with us and other teachers in the
Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.
Bye for now.
Emily: Bye.