Heidi: This is episode 226 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 are talking about the October reset, how to
transition from back to school survival mode to sustainable
teaching that actually feels good. Plus we're sharing a
teacher approved tip for recharging your energy bank.
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. Emily, what's our suggestion for this week?
Emily: Well, this week, try the one minute check in with
yourself right before students arrive. You just set a timer on
your phone and spend 60 seconds just noticing how you're
feeling—tired, excited, overwhelmed, ready. You don't
have to fix anything or change anything. It's just a good
moment to acknowledge however you're feeling.
Heidi: I love this. I think this is so helpful, because sometimes
we are so busy running on autopilot, especially as
teachers, that we don't even realize we're exhausted until we
have reached a point where we're completely depleted. Taking a
minute to just pause and think about how you're handling things
can really help you make better choices about your energy
throughout the day, and hopefully save you from reaching
that depleted point.
Emily: Yes, love that. If you like this idea or anything else
we share here on the podcast, we would love it if you would take
a second and give us a five star rating and review in your
podcast app.
Heidi: Well, Emily, can you believe it? September is almost
over.
Emily: I don't know how the months just get faster as the
year goes on, like January never ends, and then once we're
hitting September, it's just like, zoom, zoom, zoom. But I'm
hoping I can get my feet under me now that it feels like we're
settling back into the old routine.
Heidi: Oh, yes, totally the same. I swear the Fourth of July
was, should have just been last week. And now we're talking
about October.
Emily: I know it's basically Christmas.
Heidi: Yes, I've definitely got whiplash. I don't know what's
going on. And I guess it makes sense, because we spend all
summer prepping for back to school, and we have all the
effort of trying to get the year off the ground, and that by the
time we finally get through those weeks, we're just wiped
out.
Emily: Yeah, so tired. And unfortunately, at that point,
there's not a break in sight, at least not in the near sight.
That can feel pretty overwhelming. It's like trying
to nap while pedaling a bike. The house projects, the family
needs, the personal goals that you put on pause, they're all
now clamoring for your attention all at once.
Heidi: Not to mention that all of the school demands aren't
going anywhere. So if no one is going to give us a break, we're
going to have to manufacture one. And October is actually the
perfect time for what Emily and I are calling the October reset.
Emily: Everything's better with a title.
Heidi: Yes.
Emily: So if you think of it like gardening, September was
the planting season. You're doing all that intensive back
breaking work of getting everything established.
Heidi: Right. There was all your room prep, procedure teaching,
so much procedure teaching, relationship building. That was
like preparing the soil and getting all your little seeds in
the ground.
Emily: And now you're in a different season, the intensive
planting is done, but that doesn't mean the work stops.
You're just in a different phase, the tending phase, and
tending requires a completely different kind of energy.
Heidi: Which this is actually good news, because you cannot
sustain planting season energy for another eight months, you
would just completely burn out. Oh, for sure.
Emily: Even if you love your students and your work, teaching
is super demanding. It takes energy and time every single
day. So it's natural to feel a little drained and wonder, how
am I going to sustain this?
Heidi: That is the question. So today we're going to help you
figure out how to shift from planting mode to tending mode,
and we've got five strategies for making this transition
effective so that you can build something sustainable instead of
just white knuckling your way to June.
Emily: Our first strategy is to give yourself permission to feel
the crash, and by crash I mean that drained battery feeling
that shows up in October. This has a little different flavor
than that end of school year exhaustion that I'm sure you're
familiar with. Maybe it's pumpkin spice, or maybe it's
knowing that there are still eight months to summer break.
But either way, it is something we all face.
Heidi: Oh, this is so important. When you are high on September
adrenaline, running on four hours of sleep and still getting
200 task cards laminated, just feels like a normal Tuesday
afternoon. But October comes in with a hard dose of reality.
Emily: I used to think something was wrong with me when I felt
tired and kind of flat after the excitement of the new year wore
off, because I'd started so strong. Why couldn't I just keep
going that way?
Heidi: Right. And when we tell ourselves that operating at
level 10 every day is normal, but all we can muster today is
level 6 energy, it kind of feels like a failure. But the truth is
that running on back to school adrenaline is not sustainable.
Your body is actually doing exactly what it's supposed to by
slowing down now.
Emily: It's like how marathon runners don't try to maintain
their sprint pace for all 26 miles. September was a sprint,
and of course, you're tired now.
Heidi: Yes, and the worst part is that while you are recovering
from that sprint, you suddenly notice all of the plates that
you dropped while you were in survival mode. Maybe your
friends all think you're mad at them and you don't remember the
last time you exercised.
Emily: And there's a good chance all that produce you bought back
when you were so sure that this was the year you were gonna pack
a salad for lunch every day has just turned into a lovely
science experiment in your fridge. All that to say, there's
probably a lot that needs your attention.
Heidi: Oh, all of the poor, poor lettuce that is lost in the name
of back to school stress. It has lived its whole life just to end
up as mush in the back of my fridge. For me, this was the
most disheartening part. Well, not the lettuce part. But,
although, that is sad, RIP lettuce, but the way that life
just fell apart when school started. Honestly, as we were
working on the notes for this episode, I got a little teary
just thinking about it. When you're pushing through the
exhaustion to try to maintain good momentum at school, and
when you finally get a second to come up for air, and then the
first thing you see is the laundry pile that's overtaking
the bed. And once you see that, every other ignored task starts
clamoring for attention, and that moment can feel so
overwhelming, to say the least.
Emily: But since you know that that rough moment of wake up is
coming, you can plan for it. Decide now on a simple reminder
you can repeat to pull yourself out of that spiral. So try
something like, this is a normal part of the process. I've
figured this out before, and I will do it again, or, it's okay
to rest before I restore.
Heidi: The chaos of regular life at the start of October is not a
reflection of your worth or your competence. It's just the
natural result of spending your energy on a very demanding
season. Don't put pressure on yourself to have everything back
to normal all at once.
Emily: You will be much happier if you start small with just one
or two neglected tasks and take it from there. So remember,
you're not behind, you're not stuck, and you're definitely not
alone.
Heidi: Yeah, I think most teachers feel this way in
October, even the veterans who've been around the block a
few times. The difference is whether you beat yourself up
about it or you use it as information to make better
choices going forward.
Emily: And that's what we want to help you do today, use this
awareness to build something better.
Heidi: So that sets us up for our second strategy for October,
and that is to identify what's growing and identify what's just
taking up space. So going back to our garden metaphor, by
October, you can see which plants are thriving and which
ones are struggling.
Emily: And what does that mean in your classroom? Well, that
means looking at your systems and routines and asking, what's
working what's making my life easier, and what's just creating
more work without any real benefit.
Heidi: I love this, because it's not about throwing everything
out and starting over, please don't do that, but it's about
being strategic with your energy. Maybe your morning
routine is running smoothly. That is so great. Keep watering
that.
Emily: But maybe your homework system is causing you more
stress than it's worth. Maybe you're stressing over those
anchor charts that none of your students even bother to
reference, those might be weeds you need to pull.
Heidi: Another place where weeds sneak in is with technology. If
you have got a new tech tool or a program that seemed like the
answer to all of your prayers but isn't living up to the hype,
see if that's something you can shelf for now.
Emily: Oh yeah, that shiny new app that was going to
revolutionize everything, but is actually a daily headache. This
is actually easier to see in October than it was in
September, because now you have some real data. So you've lived
with these systems for a few weeks now.
Heidi: Right, in September, everything feels urgent and
important, but now you can step back and ask yourself, Is this
actually helping my students learn, or is it just something I
think I should be doing?
Emily: You can apply this same filter at home too. Look at what
was truly essential for keeping your household running in
September, and put time and effort into making those systems
as supportive as possible.
Heidi: And then take a good look at the rest of the demands on
your time. Use the major life derailment that came with the
start of the school year to get perspective on what is worth
preserving and maybe what needs to go.
Emily: The third strategy for your October reset is to build
in micro recoveries. Think of these as little moments
throughout your day where you can reset your energy instead of
just pushing through until you collapse.
Heidi: This approach is so different from the I'm just
going to wait till winter break mentality. We are talking about
tiny breaks that you can actually take during your
regular school day.
Emily: Even two or three minutes really can make a difference. So
maybe it's drinking your coffee while looking out the window
instead of grading papers, or taking three deep breaths before
you pick up your students from specialty classes.
Heidi: You might actually do a form of this naturally. Do you
ever just sit in your car for a few minutes when you get home,
no phone, no to do list, just sitting? Maybe, if you're like
me, you might beat yourself up a bit about taking this pause in
the car, because there is a perfectly good, much more
comfortable couch waiting inside. But sometimes having the
space to breathe is the bridge we need between demands.
Emily: I know I feel like the car is like this zone in between
responsibilities, and so if you're sitting in your car with
it not on, somehow you're like hidden from the responsibilities
of your life if you're just in that secret space in your car.
Heidi: Especially if you've got kids waiting inside who are
going to want things from you.
Emily: Oh, amen. I usually just stay there until someone comes
looking for me. So this is creating little buffer zones in
your day, instead of going from zero to 60 and then back again
all day long.
Heidi: Yeah, that is a sure fire recipe for exhaustion. The key
is that these micro recoveries have to be realistic. As
restorative as it would be to spend your planning time
meditating.
Emily: I almost laughed out loud.
Heidi: Yeah, it's not very practical. So look for
opportunities that fit in a real classroom with real constraints.
Emily: Although if you do manage to meditate during your prep
time, tell us your secret. So maybe you're going to do a 30
second desk tidy at the end of the day as a micro recovery that
can help you switch from teaching mode to prepare for
tomorrow mode. Or you can try giving yourself a soft landing
routine once you're home from school. Let your kids have 15
minutes of screen time so you can reset before diving into
making dinner. Transitions take work, so look for ways to make
them a little gentler. And before I had kids, when I got
home from school, I would lay on the couch and watch a rerun of
The OC.
Heidi: I love that as a reset.
Our fourth strategy for your October reset is to protect your
energy. This is about recognizing that your energy is
not unlimited, and being strategic about where you spend
it.
Emily: I think teachers are really bad at this, because we
just care so much. We want to give everything to everyone, and
even if we just give the bare minimum, the list of demands is
never ending. But it's also not sustainable to live like that.
Heidi: Oh, right, so this is where you have to make some hard
choices about where your energy goes. Maybe you spend less time
on bulletin boards and more time on planning engaging lessons, or
maybe you simplify your grading system so you have more energy
for relationship building.
Emily: One question I find useful is what are two or three
things that will have the biggest impact on my students
learning? Those are the things worth spending your energy on.
Heidi: One way to make this more doable is to make it visual, and
you can do this with a list. Write down your to do list for
the week and circle the two or three tasks that have the
largest impact on student learning. Those are your non
negotiables. Everything else can bend, flex, or wait.
Emily: We really can't give equally to every expectation, so
we have to be strategic about identifying what truly matters,
even if that might mean disappointing other people. Your
principal might want you to volunteer for multiple
committees. Your grade level team might want you to do the
bulk of the planning, but you have to protect your core energy
for what matters most.
Heidi: I want to recognize that I understand that disappointing
people does not come naturally to a lot of people, and by
Emily: Yeah.
Heidi: It will probably feel uncomfortable, but try reminding
people, I mean women.
yourself that saying no to an outside expectation means you
get to say yes to your students needs and your own well being.
Every time, good enough is still good.
Emily: Which brings us to our final strategy for your October
reset, and that is to focus on consistency over perfection.
Going back to our gardening metaphor, plants don't need
fireworks to grow. In fact, that sounds like a hazard.
Heidi: Yes.
Emily: They need steady sunlight and water, and classrooms are
the same.
Heidi: This is huge for teachers, because we tend to
have grand visions, and social media definitely hasn't helped
this. But putting too much effort into having
Instagram-worthy organization and perfectly optimized routines
and lessons that have students hanging on every word is how
teachers burn out.
Emily: So instead of striving for the most beautiful
classroom, maximizing every moment or orchestrating a daily
dog and pony show, just show up consistently where it matters.
Make sure students have what they need, leave space for
connection and reset, and teach the standards in engaging but
low prep ways. That's what makes the difference for you and your
students.
Heidi: I think about this with things like grading. I know the
expectation from your administration might be that you
grade every assignment, but it's better for everyone if you're
consistent about only assessing the work that can inform your
teaching, and you can give everything else a pass or a fail
and call that graded.
Emily: Yeah, your students benefit more from steady,
consistent effort than from extraordinary, sporadic effort.
Heidi: The nice thing is that you are the one who gets to
decide what works for your classroom and your life. That
doesn't mean you have to cut everything down to bare bones
and just do the minimum, but rather look at this as an
opportunity to clear out what doesn't serve you so you have
room to inject more joy into your day.
Emily: A sustainable teacher life isn't just about doing less
work, it's about adding fuel to what lights you up. Think about
the things you love about teaching. Maybe that is the
perfectly coordinated bins or big over the top lessons. If
that's for you, then find ways to make that manageable.
Heidi: But if what you love about teaching is quiet moments
with your students, sharing a funny new book, or watching a
student learn something new, find ways to slow down and be
present in those experiences.
Emily: Sometimes it's not about adding something new, it's about
making sure we recognize the good stuff that's already
happening.
Heidi: And there is so much good stuff. Ultimately, the goal is
to create something you can maintain, a happy little garden
that you can tend without burning yourself out.
Emily: Okay, so I'm going to recap our five strategies for
the October reset. First, give yourself permission to feel the
crash. Second, identify what's growing and what's just taking
up space. Third, build in micro recoveries. Fourth, protect your
energy, and finally, focus on consistency over perfection.
Heidi: The beautiful thing about October is that you still have
time to adjust. Your classroom routines aren't set in stone
yet, your students are still learning what to expect from
you. So this is actually the perfect time to make changes.
Emily: And remember, this isn't about doing less or caring less.
It's about doing things in a way that is sustainable, so you can
actually make it to June feeling good about your year.
Heidi: We would love to hear all about how you are handling your
October reset. Come share with us in the Teacher Approved
Facebook group.
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. This week's teacher approved tip is
to create your October energy trio. Tell us more about it,
Heidi.
Heidi: Well, I love this tip. First of all, it sounds like an
appetizer sampler, which everyone loves those.
Emily: They'd probably be all pumpkin based if it's October.
Heidi: But the good thing about this tip is it's creating your
own personal energy management system, and it only takes about
10 minutes to set up, but it can make a real difference in how
sustainable your days feel. Think of it like having a
toolkit ready to go when you need it most. So here's how it
works. First, choose one energy gainer, something that actually
brings life back into your day. We're looking for something that
genuinely makes you feel more alive or connected to why you
love teaching.
Emily: That could be something like reading aloud to your
students, playing music during transitions, or buying yourself
fresh flowers once a week. The key is that it has to be
something that taps into what truly energizes you, not just
something you think you should enjoy.
Heidi: After you choose your energy gainer, choose one energy
saver, something that you're going to streamline or let go
for now, maybe it's switching from elaborate bulletin board
displays to simple functional ones. Or maybe it's giving
yourself permission to use the same math warm up routine for
two weeks instead of planning something new every day.
Emily: This might be something you'll do every day all year,
but if you're struggling, focus on something to help you through
just the next few weeks. The goal is to free up energy during
this transition time so you can focus on what matters most. You
can always add complexity back later, when you're feeling more
grounded.
Heidi: And the third part of our energy trio is to choose one
energy transformer. This is a simple ritual that helps you
soften transitions throughout your day. This could be a mantra
you repeat when you unlock your classroom door in the morning,
or playing a specific song while you tidy up your desk at the end
of the day.
Emily: That car sitting that we talked about earlier is a
perfect example of an energy transformer. Think about a
transition that's draining for you and create a buffer zone
that helps you shift from one demand to the next with a little
more grace.
Heidi: Write these down where you'll see them, because when
you're having a tough day, it's really easy to forget that you
Emily: And here's the beautiful part, once you start paying
have these tools available. Having them visible reminds you
that you have choices about how you spend and restore your energy.
attention to what actually gives you energy versus what drains
it, you'll get better at making those kinds of choices naturally
throughout your day.
Heidi: So here's your challenge. Take a few minutes this week to
identify your energy trio—one thing that fills your tank, one
thing you're going to simplify, and one ritual that helps you
transition more smoothly. Your October self will definitely
thank you.
Alright, 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 book Atmosphere by Taylor
Jenkins Reid. So I really knew very little going into this book
other than that it was set in the early 1980s space program.
But if anybody, if you haven't heard anything about this, maybe
just go into it that way, of just just knowing sort of the
setting. And it really did blow me away, like I had heard really
good things about it, but I wasn't sure what I was gonna
think. But oh yeah, I loved it so much. And of course, it's
getting tons of buzz. So I will just add my voice to say that
everyone should add it to their TBR if they haven't.
Heidi: She writes such unique settings, and they're all so
varied.
Emily: Yes, and I feel like I have no interest in tennis, and
I loved Carrie Soto is back, and I maybe have a little more
interest in space, but even still, I don't know that it's
like something I'm super into, but I was completely engrossed
in the whole thing. And there's so much more to the story than
just the fact that the main characters are astronauts.
Well, I'll have to add it to my list. What are you giving us
credit to this week, Heidi?
Heidi: Well, I'm also giving extra credit to a book. This is
the Ornithologist Field Guide to love by India Holton.
Emily: Ooh.
Heidi: It sounds like a dry, dusty textbook, but it is not,
it is very funny. So it's set in, like, 1880s I think London,
1870s, 1880s, something like that. And it follows two rivals
to lovers, academics Devin and Beth, who are trying to win the
birder of the year competition. It's normal Victorian London,
except they have magical birds, so it's just kind of a weird
little touch. And so the world of birding in this London is
cutthroat, to say the least. So they're having all these hijinks
of people out to sabotage them. And of course, they have to go
on the road to find this one special bird. And they get to a
small town and there's only one room left at the inn.
Emily: I love that trope.
Heidi: And guess what happens.
Emily: Do they have to share a bed?
Heidi: Oh no, there are seven beds.
Emily: Oh!
Heidi: So if you think that's funny, you would like this book.
Emily: I think I'm gonna like it.
Heidi: It just takes all the little tropes and turns them on
their head. It's very funny. There was a line where she says,
like her mind let out a thought she didn't know it was holding.
So it takes all of the normal things and just puts a funny
little spin on it. It was very funny.
Emily: Our romance readers will get those references.
Heidi: Well, that is it for today's episode. Try out our
strategies for the October reset, and don't forget our
teacher approved tip for recharging your energy.
Emily: We are cheering you on as you transition from planting
season to tending season. And if you enjoyed this episode, please
consider giving us a five star rating and review.
Heidi: 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.