Maintaining a Blog is Ambitious and I Won't Promise Perfect Results

Maintaining a blog, yikes, pray for me. I love being out in the community, but my day job comes first. I will do my best to stay on top of this. I will start with some helpful tidbits from my most recent research project. Here is one: My research suggests that a teacher’s ability to effectively respond to their students’ suffering and expressions of distress in the classroom is closely tied to their own stress and emotional regulation, influencing their perception of roles and responsibilities more than inherent talent. Does this seem obvious? It isn't. At a teach-in for inclusion and diversity yesterday, I was invited to be a keynote speaker. I elected to share the voices (the stories) of those who, due to inequities and trauma, are no longer in their workplaces to share their experiences. Many have been burnt out or pushed out. For instance, I shared my understanding of the story of a white woman and queer colleague, who around 2017, decided that she'd either have to end herself or her career at as an educator in a context that she believed was hostile to diversity. A choice had to be made. It was that serious. A profoundly bright and honest woman, she shared in her resignation letter, "In lieu of myself, I must shoot my career in the head." It may sound extreme, but it's a reality for many K-12 educators, especially those in urban settings. Did you know that approximately 70% of people will experience significant trauma by their 20th birthday? And that these traumas often compound over time, affecting our ability to learn and function? Trauma affects our abilities to chill out, to retain basic facts, to prioritize tasks, to focus, to calm down, to sort through responsibilities, and so much more. Basically, it affects our ability to learn. Teachers, who are often part of this 70%, struggle not only to inspire learning but also to cope with their own unresolved traumas. This means that supporting students, especially those dealing with trauma themselves, often takes a backseat to simply managing their own emotional well-being. In practical terms, this means that an underpaid and micromanaged teacher not only has a limited capacity to inspire learning due to bandwidth constraints but also because of unnamed struggles that they carry like baggage into their classrooms. When I conduct professional development around trauma in schools, I prioritize exploring these triggers and hidden injuries that drain teachers' energy. Because if we don't address their needs, how can we expect them to address the needs of their students?

Experience tells me that if we start there, then our professional development goals become just as much about attending to the needs of the teachers as the needs of the students. And no, I am not talking about trite self-care cliches. We need to grow together and heal together to be able to learn together and move forward. And we have to take this part seriously. Despite the urgency of these issues, they're often overlooked in both research and school environments. But if you're expecting me to regurgitate textbook clichés, think again. My goal is to create transformative experiences where learning is paired with healing. Because that's the only way real change can take root. This is why, in my written work, I emphasize that teachers aren't just feeling stressed because of their workload. They're also facing pressure to conform to unrealistic expectations about their jobs. They are stressed because no one is helping them figure out how to manage all the named and unnamed stressors they experience. And professional development can't afford to miss this.

So, to sum it up: Teachers aren't just stressed about their workload; they're also grappling with unrealistic expectations and unaddressed stressors. Ignoring these challenges only leads to more disillusionment and, ultimately, more teachers leaving the profession.

My mission, when I step into schools, is to bridge this gap and provide tangible solutions. How? Well, that's a conversation for another day. Stick around. We'll get there.

Have a great day, everyone!