I have written about my snarky attitude towards the field of psychology here. I stand by it even as I draw your attention, dear readers, to a recent article published in the Journal of Educational Psychology as reported on the American Psychological Association’s website.

Once again, intrepid researchers have proven the obvious.

“Teachers’ emotions in the classroom play a critical role in how students learn,” the APA article begins.

Um.

I confess: This statement brings out the sour grapes in me. (If you haven’t noticed.) I studied teachers’ emotions and the effects on their knowing and acting in the classroom way back in the mid-1990s. I wrote up my findings in my dissertation, completed in 1998. (Title: Spontaneity in the Classroom: A Systems View of Teachers’ Knowing-in-Action) I tolerated ridicule from a professor on my dissertation committee (he was a famous psychologist who told me that I and others were “dragging him kicking and screaming” into the realm of emotions in teaching. He didn’t think they mattered).

I earned a MSW in 2008 so I could understand better how emotions work for teachers and everybody else. (Here’s the thesis I wrote for that program.) I’ve been blogging about emotions in teaching, what I have called Teaching through Emotions (here we are!), since 2012. I published a book about it in 2015. I have been running Teacher Support Groups and psycho-coaching teachers and administrators ever since.

Thirty years later, psychologists are publishing articles on the impact of teachers’ emotions on students’ learning.

Well, huzzah.

OK, done with the sour grapes! This is very important research! I have not read the article this news item on the APA’s website refers to — because I don’t want to — but I do think it’s important to underline some key findings:

• It’s better to be joyful than angry when you’re teaching.

• This is true no matter where in the world you teach.

• Teachers’ emotional well-being is important and should be supported in schools.

OK? So get on it, teachers. You need to be supported emotionally in and by your school. Not after school. Not on your own time. There must be places for you to go and people for you to talk to in school, during school, who can help you not just decompress when you need to but also, crucially, understand what your emotions are telling you. So you can learn from them and thereby transform them (and yourself) (and your classroom).

If you need evidence, don’t take my word for it. Take the APA’s.

(OK. Still sour grapes. I’ll probably take them to my grave.)

Leave a comment

Share

For those of you who remain, and even for those who are leaving, this rant is for you. If you’re staying in a system that makes burnout all too …

Read more

God knows I am no fundraiser. Actually, neither is my guest, Erin McQuade-Wright — at least, not anymore. Erin used to be a fundraiser for non-profits and even has a podcast called The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser (which shares psychodynamic wisdom on how to survive that difficult job). But now she’s a coach who helps people of all types live vital lives. (Her company is called Vitalist Coaching.) In this episode, Erin and I talk about our areas of overlap (hint: it’s a large region) and revel in our delight in talking about emotion work, healthy relationships, and the wisdom of psychodynamics.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We discuss

• Personality Types: Enneagrams and their usefulness in learning about ourselves

• Somatic Knowing: Brain vs. body knowledge and the half-life of an emotion

• Emotional Lives: How much emotion is allowed in a classroom? How can we manage big emotions? How can we turn difficult feelings into freedom and space to be real?

• Definition of Self-Care: How dealing with negative emotions helps us fill up so we can be present and resilient

• Nourishment Barriers: How are you resistant to joy and why is that bad for you?

• How Does Burnout Work for You? Are you singing the burnout song with a chorus of colleagues?

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? How are you managing your emotions at this point in the school year? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Or send me an email! betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

External links

Enneagram

HeartMath Institute

Vitalist Coaching

Share

Leave a comment

I’m just thinking about the value of silence. I can feel impelled to fill it with chatter and jokes when I’m with quiet people. Silence is a perfect void that I rush into because I imagine it means something bad, like someone is uncomfortable or doesn’t have anything to say or is bored. Or, perhaps most accurately, silence makes me uncomfortable or challenges me to have something to say or, worst of all, gives me space to be bored (which I’m really bad at).

Bottom line: For me, filling silences can be exhausting.

But Memorial Day suggests other interpretations of silence. They’re obvious, I know, but not always evident when I’m impulsively filling a void. They’re worth meditating on, I think:

Silence can mean

• someone is feeling

• someone is thinking

• someone is remembering

• someone is praying

• someone is waiting

• someone is taking up space for themselves

What do your silences mean? How easy is it for you to let silence fall? If you’re a teacher, do you program silence into your lessons? What are the benefits of ushering silence in and letting it be?

Leave a comment

Happy Memorial Day. May you sit in silence for a little bit before plunging back into noisy life tomorrow.

Share

In this rant, I lay out some symptoms of our world’s insanity and share ways to survive them. It can feel hopeless, but here’s what I believe: We can still cultivate wellness and goodness in our own relationships. In fact, we have …

Read more

Of course emotions are bad! They make you feel bad. And they make you a bad person. Only bad people feel emotions like anger, irritation, judgment, envy, hatred. Definitely hatred. “Hate” is a strong word. So hating is bad.

I think, but I’m not sure, that this attitude towards negative emotions is common. I mean, who wants to feel terrible? Who doesn’t do whatever they can to change their mood when they’re sad or frustrated or feeling helpless?

Well, me, for one. And anyone who is curious about the legitimate sources of those negative emotions.

For me, and for Teaching through Emotions generally, negative emotions are a gift. Because, like physical pain, they indicate that something is wrong. And they can be amazingly accurate. Attending to negative emotions with curiosity and a smidgen of psychodynamic perspective can lead you out of negativity and into life-changing understanding! And a plan of action that evaporates the negative feelings and strengthens relationships at the same time! Amazing!

Don’t get me wrong. There are many negative emotions I don’t want. When I’m stressed or anxious about something that scares me — the possibility that someone is irretrievably angry at me, that I’ve done something wrong that I can’t repair, that I’ll be abandoned or attacked or reviled for being me — these deep (what I call) Bedrock emotions are gripping and torturous. I don’t like having them. I want to escape them as fast as I can.

But still I know that they are symptoms. They are messengers. Often they carry information from my past, from experiences that taught me lessons I internalized into psychic Bedrock — experiences that are not relevant now because the original lessons are over and the present is different. When I’m engulfed by these kinds of (what I call) transferential emotions, I acknowledge them — “Oh, hi, Transference. There you are. Let’s see how you communicate with me today” — and wait for them to dissipate. Because they always do. But I hold myself tenderly while I live through them.

Most often my negative emotions alert me to repair work I need to do either on myself or with others. I ask my feelings, “What are you teaching me about myself and others? What is in my power to do to resolve the source of this emotional uprising?” And I try something. What I’ve learned from years of experience is that the relational experiment I try will result in one of two things: relief and resolution OR more data. That I can then fold into my next experiment.

I’ve written this whole long thing because I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that this knowledge and these practices — the knowledge and faith that negative emotions are a motherlode of valuable information and the practices that strengthen relationships — are not second nature to most people. That most people avoid these emotions at all costs — even if the costs include disconnection, objectification, deepened disaffection, loneliness. If you’re like, “Yeah! Damn straight! Why would they be second nature? Everyone avoids negative emotions!” then I hope you keep reading and listening to Teaching through Emotions. Because I believe the fate of our world depends on our ability to connect with each other humanely. Which means we have to deal with our negative feelings. Which means we have to at least acknowledge them, maybe label them, even sit with them, to see what they have to teach us.

I’d love to hear your perspective. What do you do with negative emotions?

Leave a comment

Share

As y’all probably know, I’m a big fan of caring in education. But, thanks to today’s guest, Rachel Branham, a veteran Teacher Support Group participant who’s now working in higher education, we get to consider the downsides of caring, too. What if you’re not a particularly “squishy” person? What if you don’t want to be “in the shit” with your students all the time? What does caring look like for you? How does a natural inclination to detach serve you and your students?

This is such a fun and stimulating conversation! Applicable to anyone who, well, cares. I hope you enjoy it!

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We discuss

• Caring vs. Controlling: Sliding along the continuum between “squishy” teaching and detachment.

• Alienation from Big Emotions: When students are joyous or chaotic, feeling outside of their world and not knowing what to do about it.

• Students’ (and Teachers’) Psychological Needs: Do all students need or want to be seen? How can teachers love students who are causing them pain?

• Setting Boundaries: When and how do you tamp down exuberance when students are “coloring outside the lines”? Where are those “magical lines” in the first place?

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? How do you balance care with detachment? How do you find and navigate the “magical line” between them? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Or, if you’re a millennial and hate using the phone (like Rachel), send me an email! betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

External links

Radical Love: Rethinking care and professional love in the classroom

Pedagogy Basics: What educators can learn from early childhood teachers

Dream Keepers: Comic Edition

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

Share

Leave a comment

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Yesterday was Mothers’ Day. (Yes, Mothers’ plural. The original idea for the day, initiated by Julia Ward Howe, was to bring mothers together to protest war and assert their right to participate politically on the assumption that they would never want to send their sons away to kill other mothers’ sons. Not a bad assumption.)

You may be thinking, “Darn! I missed Teacher Appreciation Week” or “Rats! I forgot to get my amazing mom a great gift.”

Well, dear friends, I am here to help.

Every teacher and every mom deserves some TTE merch. Specifically, a T-shirt (super soft, extremely comfortable) or (and?) a sweet mug, both reminding everybody to be healthy and sane — that is, to stay in their effin’ Gardens.

To do your homework without needing reminders or threats. To ask for what you need instead of acting out. To respect differences. To care enough to help out, to cooperate, to look for the good reasons behind teachers’ and mothers’ (and others’) actions or asks. To get to know and accept yourself. To be curious and empathic without being co-opting and controlling. To be kind and compassionate to yourself and others.

TTE merch reminds people to do and be all these things and more!

Buy some merch now!

And please remember: Every day is Teacher Appreciation Day. Every day is Mothers’ Day. Stopping and thinking about people who are really easy to take for granted (not just teachers and mothers but neighbors, friends, co-workers, cashiers, baristas, construction workers, custodians) and, better yet, thanking them, makes for a Good Day.

Share

Leave a comment

Read more

How the hell does one write a post that adequately appreciates teachers? Sorry, but Teacher Appreciation Week is as dumb as Mother’s Day. Really? One day to appreciate mothers? One week to appreciate teachers?

Sheee-it.

Here’s my lame-ass attempt:

For humans, raising little humans is the most important job there is. That means parenting and teaching are the most fundamentally noble and necessary activities humans can engage in.

I put parents and teachers in the same category: They’re developmental partners. People who partner with young ones to support them in growing up, becoming themselves, changing for the better, cultivating the skills they need to be healthy and humane. (Note that “young ones” can be full-grown adults who are returning to school to learn something new.)

It is not easy to be a good developmental partner. Especially when you’re partnering with other people’s children. Which is what teachers do. They’re like parents but totally and absolutely unlike parents. They are charged with providing to children with whom they have absolutely no umbilical or relational connection all the elements that allow those children to grow up sane, smart, and strong.

Elements like

• a safe environment — even when some of those very children make the environment unsafe

• attention, including the ability to see each of their students clearly and accurately

• care, including active interest in each student’s wellbeing and concern when a student isn’t doing well

• curiosity, a leaning in to learn more about each student and each group of students: what they’re thinking, how they’re thinking, why they’re thinking that, and, very importantly, what it’s like to be them

• tolerance for, embrace of, the wildly different knowledge bases, experiences, backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, and needs of their students

• love of content and love of learning (and teaching) that content

• gratitude for the privilege of accompanying precious people on their sometimes rocky paths to becoming

• forbearance

• modeling of healthy relationships with humans, with ideas and texts, and with the challenges inherent in all relationships of all types

That’s a start. That’s at least part of the work teachers do, in my view. It’s the work I believe way too many parents take for granted, as way too many parents send unhappy, traumatized, abused, neglected, hungry, angry, and sometimes egregiously entitled children to schools to be managed and shaped by teachers when they themselves do not do that work at home. And many parents reserve the right to criticize or blame or attack the teachers when their own children act inappropriately or fail to take their educations seriously.

Which means part of a teacher’s job is to deal with anxious parents — and administrators! — as well. No fun. No fun at all.

So how to appreciate teachers? I guess noticing the impossible job we lay on them is a start. And then thanking them regularly for dealing with our children, who might very well be little shits in the bizarre child mob called a classroom. And supporting them, the teachers, in staying sane and strong in the face of masses of precious young people who use them ruthlessly in their normal — and sometimes off-the-charts disruptive — struggles to grow up.

So: Thank you, teachers. Thank you for bringing your best selves to our children every day and hanging in there with them despite the shit they throw at you. Thank you for believing in the value of your invaluable work. Thank you for seeing our kids’ goodness and wondering about their badness and loving them for all of it. Thank you for the suffering you endure at our students’ hands and for their sakes, and thank you for taking good care of yourselves so you don’t have to give up on us.

Share

If you’re a teacher who does or does not appreciate this lame attempt at appreciating you, leave a comment. What would make you feel truly appreciated?

Leave a comment

Filling the void is a way we can fit together. Kind of an interesting one, because void filling can feel like such an individual move. Like, “Hey! There’s a void. I think I’ll fill it.” But there’s much more to it.

Here’s an example from the classroom:

• Teacher asks a question.

• Student falls silent (or says he doesn’t know).

• Teacher becomes impatient (anxious about the silence? about the student’s not knowing? about internalized pressure to keep up the pace? or to make students know? or to just cover the content? about the suspicion that the student’s silence or not knowing means something bad about the teacher? What is it?)

• Teacher does the work for the student (by answering the question herself or doing the requested task).

• Student learns that playing the passive role invites the teacher to play the active role. (That’s the fit: the passive one locks into the active one, who ultimately does the work.)

Filling the void isn’t necessarily bad. Getting the work done can be a good thing. The filling-the-void dance becomes problematic when the way the work gets done is not good for one or both of the dancers involved.

In the case of the silent student, it’s quite likely that the passive role will not lead to learning. At least, not academic learning. Unless the silent student is really working to fit with the teacher’s question by thinking about it, looking for a way to connect with it — in which case it would be much better for the teacher to let the silence stretch out, to give the student time to think — simply hearing the teacher answer her own question probably won’t matter much to the student. It will just end the immediate ordeal. Or end whatever attempts he was making to answer the question. Either way, not good for the student.

Successfully playing the passive role, though, does lead to relational learning.

That is, if I can tolerate the anxiety between us longer than you can, you will do the work. If I pause long enough before taking the next step in our dance, you will take the step for me. If this happens over and over again, I’ve got me a fit. Effective. Comfortable. And lockstep. But it’s a dead-end dance.

So the filling-the-void dance can be a double-whammy: It teaches your partner to be passive (or incompetent or untalented or unthinking) and it prevents growth and learning.

A dead-end dance.

If you’re a void filler, watch your partners. How do they manifest passivity? When do you start feeling anxious or impatient or uncomfortable or impelled to take action? What are those feelings potentially about? What happens if you wait just a beat, or two, or twenty longer? What happens inside you? What happens outside you?

Leave a comment

Share

It’s a great conversation with Craig Randall of Trust-Based Observations. You can listen to it right now by going here.

Don’t miss it!

How can it be that teachers all over the country want to be observed? How can it be that observations of their teaching bring teachers joy?

Today I’m conversing with Craig Randall, founder of Trust-Based Observations and expert in the art of supporting teachers in improving their practice. We go “pretty dang deep,” as Craig put it. Which is good, because classroom observations are super important and are too rarely done well.

Until now!

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We discuss

• Building Trust: The wisdom of focusing on accumulating “trust marbles” before offering suggestions for improvement

• Strengths-Based Observations: The importance of battling the deficit mentality and emphasizing teachers’ strengths

• Coaching vs. Fixing: How to short-circuit the typical fix-them orientation

• The History of Teacher Observation: How we got here (hint: It’s partly A Nation at Risk’s fault!)

Leave a comment

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? Tell me a story of a disastrous observation! Or tell me about one that made you glow with confidence and happiness. Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

Share

External links

Trust-Based Observations (the book)

Trust-Based Observation (the website)

craig@trustbased.com

EMDR: Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

I spent years as a teacher educator for pre-service teachers. I taught education courses and/or supervised student teachers at Stanford University, Dominican University, St. Mary’s College, Connecticut College, and Bennington College. I left that occupation behind in 2005, when I switched from straight teacher education to cockeyed psychodynamic teacher support, which is what I do now with TTE.

But the memories of teacher preparation have been revived by my daughter, who is currently in a MAT program and has been doing her student teaching stints this year.

In conversations with my daughter, through the lens of psychodynamics, a couple issues have emerged for me.

One. The whole student teaching thing actually breaks two interesting laws of healthy relationships.

Two. Classroom observations are devilishly difficult to do well.

This post is about Issue #1. The podcast episode that’s dropping in a couple days is about Issue #2.

Two laws of healthy relationships

The first law broken by the standard student teaching arrangement is Thou Shalt Not Breach Others’ Boundaries. The second law is Thou Shalt Not Triangulate.

Let me explain.

For those who don’t know or can’t remember (because you’ve blocked it out), student teaching involves getting assigned to (or finding) a veteran teacher who is willing to allow a student teacher into their classroom every day for a semester or so to observe, collaborate, and eventually take over teaching for a time.

Consider what this means for the veteran teacher, or the Cooperating Teacher (CT). In the fall, the CT is forging crucial relationships with their charges. This is when the classroom system coheres: when routines are established, norms are reinforced, chaos is abolished and order begins to (or is supposed to) reign. It’s when the teacher’s authority and mutual trust between teacher and students emerge naturally (one hopes). It’s when the membrane that defines each particular classroom organism is established. The classroom door closes: The outside world with all its distracting demands is shut out and the inside world begins to hum with its own personality and energy.

In the spring — unless it’s a whole new semester, in which case it’s like the fall all over again — classroom life has achieved an equilibrium. Possibly a tentative one. Possibly a volatile one. Possibly a highly satisfying one. In any case, the CT and the students have co-created a sense of each other and how they all work together. The classroom organism has a life of its own.

Now.

Enter a bright-eyed, enthusiastic, often young student teacher. Emphasis on the word “enter.” This student teacher walks into the CT’s classroom, blows a hole in the membrane, and introduces a whole new unpredictable element.

Definition of boundary breach.

And the CT’s job is to help this new element win the students’ hearts. Succeed at planning and implementing instruction. Develop a sense of authority independent of the CT’s. Learn the CT’s ropes but also flex their own creative muscles. Be the CT but also be themselves.

In short, the classroom now has three vertices: the CT, the students, and the student teacher. This is what I call Triangulation.

Triangles do not always foster the stablest of dynamics.

Let’s say the CT envies the student teacher’s rapport with the students. Or resents the student teacher’s confidence. Or fears the student teacher’s up-to-the-minute knowledge of educational theory or practices. Or feels anxious about their students’ academic progress or about the shredding of beautifully designed lessons at the hands of a novice teacher. Or hates giving up control. Or believes the student teacher is not respectful or submissive or subordinate enough to the CT’s experience and authority.

Or just feels invaded.

That’s where the triangulation comes in. The CT feels stressed about having a second adult in the room who is a budding teacher but also a rookie learner. The CT is constantly thinking about the pressure, which rests totally on her shoulders, to keep the students learning at an appropriate pace. But the CT cannot control the student teacher’s teaching. Which means the CT cannot control the learning outcomes. Which means the CT does shit, like interrupting the student teacher when they’re teaching, like criticizing anything the student teacher does that isn’t what the CT would do, like leaving the student teacher completely alone with the class, like taking over the class when the going gets tough (in the CT’s mind) to alleviate the CT’s anxiety — which creates anxiety in the student teacher.

Nice!

It is no wonder that student teachers can feel intimidated, uncertain, nervous, misunderstood, unseen, or condescended to by their CTs. It is no wonder that CTs can be overly critical or dismissive or controlling of their apprentices. The CT is ultimately responsible for their students’ learning but has to watch someone else teach them. Is this not a recipe for anxiety? Is anxiety not fuel for dysfunction?

When and where do CTs and student teachers learn how to manage the inevitable relational tensions inherent in this triangular relationship birthed in a major boundary breach? Ummm. Nowhere. They’re just expected to push through, figure stuff out as they go. Kinda like the way teachers of all stripes are expected to just deal when relational tensions arise with their students.

It’s fascinating — for me, anyway — to reconsider the standard student teaching arrangement as a weirdly unconscious setup that invites dysfunction and therefore can handicap student teachers’ learning.

Surely there’s a better way.

I would love to hear what you think. How was your student teaching stint? If it went smoothly, why? What were the conditions? If it went badly, what happened? What would have made the experience better for you?

Leave a comment

And, if you know a student teacher right this minute, please share this post. I’d love to hear from them!

Share

As always, thanks so much for reading.

I hate hate.

Just kidding! I love hate. Just like I love all emotions. Hatred is like love or excitement or joy or anger. It arises naturally for good reasons. And it means something. The question is what. I make some guesses in this rant.

Check it out.

Share

What do you hate? What might your hate mean? Do tell!

Leave a comment

Read more

It’s a trope in education: A teacher says, “I don’t teach math (or English or history); I teach kids.”

What interests me is that we would ever consider the two as inseparable.

What I would say instead is “Teachers don’t teach content or kids; they foster a sustainable relationship between the two.”

If we drew three points in space — the content, the student(s), and the teacher — they wouldn’t mean much. They’d exist in isolation from each other. Rich, complex ships passing in the night. Or something.

It’s when we draw lines between these points that the picture starts to make sense.

What do the lines represent? Relationships.

• The relationship between you (the teacher) and the kids.

• The relationship between you (the teacher) and the content.

• The relationship between the kids and the content.

And wherever there are relationships, there are emotions.

I love thinking about teaching as a Triangle. It’s so dynamic! And it draws our attention to the lines between rather than the dots at the vertices. It invites questions like

• What do my students already know about this subject matter?

• What do they want to know?

• How do they feel about the subject matter?

• How competent do they feel in the face of the subject matter?

• What’s my relationship with this content I’m teaching?

• What are my relationships with each of these students like?

Answering these questions and building the answers into your lesson design feels, to me, like a great recipe for tautness.

Tautness: the state of being taut.

Like a string that, when plucked, vibrates with sound and overtones.

Like a runner right before the sound of the starter gun.

Like a reader who can’t help turning the pages to find out what’s going to happen next.

Answering these questions makes it more likely that your students can be taut while being taught.

There’s the unmissable and (I daresay) original axiom!

Design instruction that compels students to be taut while being taught.

What would your lessons look like if they maximized student passion? suspense? excitement? If your lessons welcomed students’ emotions about the subject matter, including hatred, contempt, resistance? If you entered every classroom utterly psyched to be there with your lesson plan and the students, certain that something interesting (even if unexpected) would happen as the lines in your Teaching Triangle began to hum?

If you already teach this way, how do you do it? Please share! I’m sure there are some teachers out there who are dragging right about now and students who are slumping and slack.

Leave a comment

My wish for you and your students: Get tau[gh]t!

Share

In my experience, most teachers — hell, most people — don’t want to admit they hate anyone. “Hate,” they say, “is a strong word.”

As if there’s a problem with strong words. (Like “love,” for example.)

But people do hate. And when they hate irresponsibly, when they refuse to process that feeling and assume it has more to do with the object of their hatred than with themselves, they can do grave damage.

In this episode, Joe and I talk with a wonderfully open, self-aware teacher, storyteller, and entrepreneur who also happens to be a good friend of mine, Hari Kumar. It’s a great story about hate, teaching, self-correction, and hope.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We discuss

Teacher Sarcasm: Why it might be a red flag for teacher burnout

Teaching Philosophy: Hari’s four pillars of teaching, a pedagogical framework

Cat Shit vs. Bullshit: Which one does a teacher want?

Embracing “Almostness”: What to do with not knowing and how it can transform your student relationships

Teaching Community: Thinking about the support systems teachers need

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? What do you hate? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

External links

bell hooks Teaching to Transgress

bell hooks Teaching Community

Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

Share

Leave a comment

When I feel used, I tend to get angry.

Which is a good thing. Because anger is a super-effective alarm. It is such a strong emotion that I can’t ignore it.

And so I wonder about it.

Usually anger alerts me to a boundary violation. An attempt by another person to take from me what I may not be willing to give. To use me.

Which means I need to consider whether and how.

Which first means I’d best retreat into my Garden and look around. From there I can consider whether I want to be used at all. Do I want to listen to this person talk endlessly about themselves right now? Yeah, OK. Do I want to be blamed for this person’s mistake? No. Do I want to accept this student’s late work? Yes. Do I want to stay in relationship with a narcissist? Well, since this one is my dad, yes.

Once I have decided whether to be used, I decide how I’m willing to proceed. Emphasis on willing.

• I’ll find interest in this needy, talkative person but give myself silent permission to bring the conversation to a close when I can no longer maintain a caring or curious stance.

• I’ll calmly and gracefully reject the blame. “I can tell you’re upset about this. I totally get it; it sucks to discover you’ve made a mistake. What are you going to do now?”

• I’ll accept the late work and impose agreed-upon consequences. If there are no agreed-upon consequences, I’ll discuss with my class what we’ll do about late work from now on.

• I’ll activate my compassion for my narcissistic dad and know my limits: that I will not be abused by narcissistic rage. That I will honor my own boundaries and speak my truth despite the inevitability of vicious retaliation, knowing the punishment has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the narcissist’s unbearable pain. That I will reserve the right to walk away for now or end the relationship for good. That I will not try to change the narcissist but rather will attempt to love and respect them by acknowledging how hard it is sometimes to be them. That I will refuse to conform to their reality, which ultimately isolates them, but instead will try to co-create a shared reality that is safe for both of us. Until all this is no longer possible.

The how is not pre-programmable. What matters, I believe, is making the decisions in your particular circumstances. Re-asserting your agency in your own life in the face of someone who would rather turn you into an object for their use. I call this Re-Subjectifying.

As humans, we get to do this over and over again: We get to decide whether we consent to be used and, if yes, to design the how to fit the circumstances. We are in charge of our contributions to our shared experiences.

Leave a comment

Share

Read more

Guys, I have been running Teacher Support Groups for 20 years. About a third of my life. Never has formal research been done on the particular approach I take to teacher support. Until now!!!!

What is a TSG? It is a small group of teachers that meets weekly for 1.25 hours to talk about their teaching experiences. It’s a Professional Learning Community but with a twist: Our focus is on emotions and relationships, the stuff that causes pain in teachers’ hearts and keeps them up at night. The stuff no one talks formally about. The stuff of teacher lounge complaints. The stuff that leads to burnout.

This article, titled

Addressing educator emotion through a psychodynamic coaching support group

is by Kristabel Stark (with me, Brian Jones, and Parker Goss as co-authors). Kristabel is an assistant professor in the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont in Burlington. She specializes in Special Education, and she has been interested in teacher emotion for years. She contacted me while she was still in her doctoral program, and we have been friends ever since.

Kristabel collected data from a total of 8 teachers who voluntarily formed TSGs with me in 2024 and 2025. She asked them questions about each support group meeting and surveyed them when the TSG “semester” of 8 weeks had ended. I had no access to the data, so the teachers could be honest (we hoped) about their experiences.

Here’s what Kristabel found:

• TSGs changed teachers’ emotional states. For the better. Teachers used words like re-centered, energized, lighter, more positive, encouraged, hopeful, reflective and enlightened to describe their feelings after the TSG meetings. They also reported that they understood their classroom experiences better and could empathize with their colleagues’ experiences, which sometimes led to more emotions like sadness — which often comes with empathy.

• TSGs increased emotional awareness and literacy. Teachers reported learning new terms and frames that helped them understand their teaching experiences. They also really benefited from being together. They validated each other’s emotions and discouraged negative self-judgment. As one participant put it, “We are often miserable but not alone.”

• TSGs helped refine strategies for emotionally intense interpersonal interactions. Teachers gained valuable perspective on student and adult behavior, learning to see it as data conveying important information about the student or adult. This insight translated, they said, into changes in their own behaviors that allowed them to interact more mindfully, strategically, and effectively with their relational partners.

• TSGs forged stronger collegial support networks. This is so important: Teachers felt connected to each other, more bonded. And the flip side: They felt less isolated and siloed. The validation they offered each other helped dispel self-doubt and second-guessing and strengthened their trust in their own instincts and decisions.

A great summative quote:

I feel strongly that this type of program should become standard practice for schools…I think integrating this type of practice into standard teaching practices would be remarkably beneficial.

Amen.

I want to end by thanking Kristabel, Brian Jones, and Parker Goss for their belief in the work of TTE and their excellent work on this article. It’s a really enjoyable read, which is not something I can say for most academic pieces!

I also want to thank the eight brave teachers who agreed to do this study. You know who you are. It was a pleasure to work with you.

Actually, running TSGs is always a pleasure for me. I always fall in love with the teachers who join, and I’m always — always always always — surprised and moved by their courage, vulnerability, and wisdom.

Oh! And by their stories of success! Because teachers’ discoveries in TSGs affect students for the better, too.

Want to join a TSG? Let me know.

Leave a comment

Share