Finding Your Voice as a Teacher: How TEDx Showed Me Why Speaking Up for Education Starts With Seeing Yourself as an Expert
You don't need a different title or a different degree. You just need to decide that what you know matters. Here's how I got there - and how you can get there, too.
It's live.
As in, my TEDx talk. It's about the teacher shortage, about what teachers actually need to do their jobs and still be whole people outside of the classroom. I'm genuinely proud of what I put out into the world, and you can watch the full talk below.
Having a voice as a teacher outside the classroom often feels as possible as a snow day in June. Feeling powerless can also contribute to teacher burnout. But teachers need the opportunity to share their ideas not just with the education community, but with those outside it who need to understand the challenges we face in the classroom.
Why Teachers Feel Like Bystanders in Their Own Profession
If you've been in the classroom for any length of time, you've probably felt this at some point: the sense that things are just happening to you. Decisions are being made above your head, changes are being rolled out whether you think they're a good idea or not, and your job is basically to absorb it all and keep going. No seat at the table, no real way to influence what happens to you or the kids in your room.
And even when you have something important to say, there are many reasons it stays inside.
Maybe you feel like it won't matter anyway. The people in control are going to do what they're going to do, and one teacher speaking up won't move anything. Maybe you're scared of the consequences, which is completely understandable when this is your livelihood and not just a job you can walk away from easily. Maybe you don't love the idea of public speaking, or being in the public eye, or having all eyes on you. Or maybe you just genuinely don't know where to start or what to say.
I get all of those things. Every single one. And I want to talk about them today, because I think teachers have been quiet for too long, and the profession is suffering for it.
Using Your Teacher Voice Doesn't Mean What You Think It Does - And It Doesn't Mean Speaking at TEDx
Using your voice as a teacher is not about being bombastic or dramatic. It's not about starting things, or airing dirty laundry, or being the loudest person in the room. It's not about spilling tea, name-calling, or any of the other things that make administrators nervous and don't actually move anything forward.
It's about being the professional voice of reason. Using what you know, from your actual daily experience in an actual classroom, to say the things that need to be said, in a way that's grounded and backed by facts and expressed with the kind of emotional regulation that makes people listen instead of tune out.
And I also want to say this clearly: you don't have to talk. Not everyone's version of speaking up looks like a speech, a podcast, or a public platform. Some people write. Some people show up consistently in ways that demonstrate exactly what they believe. Your actions will always speak alongside your words, and sometimes they speak louder. Half of it is just showing up, and how you show up matters.
Teaching is also a female-dominated profession, and as women, we are often expected to comply. To do the "right thing." To be the humble servant, keep quiet, and deal. And there's always that well-meaning comment: "Well, you knew what you were getting into." And to that I say, yes. We chose this. And since this is our career, we should absolutely be able to help shape it.
From Quiet Kid to TEDx Speaker: How I Got Here
I am not somebody you would have predicted for any of this.
In seventh grade, I was so quiet I'm fairly confident I went entire weeks without saying a word at school. I was struggling with panic attacks; I didn't have a lot of confidence, and greatness of any kind was genuinely not on anyone's radar for me, including my own. It's a wonder I become a teacher, much less someone speaking at a TEDx event.
And yet, I've gone from being a newbie teacher with the odds stacked against me, to West Virginia Teacher of the Year, to deep burnout, to a best-selling book, to a TEDx stage. I've ping-ponged all over the place, and every single time the trajectory shifted, it gave me a stronger and more grounded sense of what I actually have to say and why it matters. If you want to know more about where I started, it's in Teachaholic, and it's in the TEDx talk linked here.
The point is that none of this was scripted. I never could have predicted it. Which is actually the whole point of bringing it up.
How to Apply for a TEDx Talk as a Teacher (And What That Process Actually Looks Like)
Back in October 2025, I was scrolling online and stumbled across a TEDx talk, and I had this moment of: how do people actually get to do this? I genuinely didn't know the answer, so I started looking it up the way you do, and I found the map that shows upcoming TEDx events and how to apply.
The application process involves an outline of your talk, a video audition so the organizers can see how you present on camera, and answers to their questions about your topic. There are guidelines about what you can and can't cover, which is fine, honestly. The structure helps.
And yes, there is rejection involved. I want to be real about that. I applied to three TEDx events. I did not get the first two. I got the third, TEDxWVU, and I found out at the end of January that I'd been accepted.
From that point forward, things moved fast. I had to lock in my talk outline, practice and memorize the speech, create my slides, and meet all the deadlines the organizers needed. As teachers, hitting deadlines is kind of our thing, so that part wasn't the issue. The issue was doing all of that while also teaching full-time, which is exactly why teachers don't pursue things like this as often as they should. The emotional and physical energy teaching requires doesn't leave a lot in the tank for everything else.
But I kept going because if I didn't try, I knew I'd always wonder if I could have done it.
The theme for TEDxWVU was The Art of Resilience, which aligned so perfectly with everything I'd been talking about in my professional work that it felt like it was supposed to happen. Sometimes things just align, and you recognize it when they do.
What Happens When You Get on That Stage: The Real TEDx Experience
I'm going to tell you about rehearsal, because I think it's important that this part of the story exists.
I got up on that stage, the big red TEDx letters behind me, standing on the dot, which is a very specific and very significant part of the whole TEDx experience, and I stared out into the empty seats.
And I had a complete Control-Alt-Delete moment.
Everything I was going to say just vanished. Gone. I looked down at my speaker notes and had to remind myself, oh right, that's what I'm here to talk about.
That was rehearsal. The actual talk was a completely different experience. I was focused, calm, and locked in on what I wanted to say and why it mattered, and once I got past the OMG this is actually happening part, it was fine. Everything went the way I needed it to go. I might have looked a little serious on that stage, but I was in it, and I'm proud of what I put out into the world from that spot.
Most importantly, I was true to myself. I didn't try to be more than I am or say things to make people comfortable. I said what I believe needs to be said about teachers and the teaching profession, from the perspective of someone who has lived on both sides of burnout. You can watch the talk below.
The Question That Changed Everything About How I Show Up
About eighteen months before I recorded this episode, I went through a medical event that genuinely shifted how I think about what I want to contribute to this profession and to the world.
In the aftermath, I started asking myself a different set of questions. What do I want my legacy in education to be? What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail, if I knew it wasn't going to flop? And I started letting the answers to those questions guide what I did next, instead of talking myself out of things because they felt too big, too risky, or too unlike what a classroom teacher is supposed to do.
The TEDx talk came out of that shift. My YouTube channel came out of that shift. This whole season of the podcast came out of that shift. When your intentions are good and true and meant for something bigger than yourself, things happen that you never could have anticipated. I'm living proof of that, and I'm still genuinely surprised by it.
You Don't Need a Different Title to Have a Valid Opinion About Education
Here is the thing I most want you to walk away with today: You are already an expert. Not because someone gave you an award or a platform or a title, but because you are in a classroom every single day, watching what actually works and what doesn't, seeing firsthand what kids need and what they're not getting, and carrying that knowledge around with you constantly. Your experience is your expertise. Full stop.
The validation that comes from the people above you, from your administration, from the system, from the people making decisions, that may never come. It might not come from the people around you either. The validation that matters has to come from within you. You have to decide that what you know is worth saying, and then find your own way to say it.
That might look like a TEDx talk. It might look like a blog post, a comment at a staff meeting, a letter to your school board, or showing up every day in a way that models exactly what you believe education should be. All of it counts. All of it matters.
Be different. But more importantly, be the difference.
If you're still working through your own burnout story, Teachaholic is on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.
Looking for a way to save yourself from burnout without leaving the classroom? I've created a free guide with reflection questions, graphic organizers, and a quiz to help you get started on your journey. Download your free Teachaholic Action Guide to get started on your journey below!
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