You made it. Now here's how to actually let yourself rest before August sneaks up on you. "Tips for Teacher Recovery: Explore Five Summer Essentials to Rejuvenate After a Long School Year." Friday night, the last week of school, somewhere around 8:00 PM, I fell asleep on the couch. Woke up around 2:00 AM, dragged myself upstairs, and slept some more. I'm recording this on a Sunday afternoon, and I'm still a little sleepy, honestly. That's where we are. When the final child leaves your room, when you shut the door for the last time with the last box packed, there's this moment where it feels exciting and happy and as if a weight has lifted, and then within about twenty minutes the air goes right out of your balloon, and you have nothing left. No joke. It's not just the end of the year that catches up with you at that point; it's the entire accumulation of everything since August, and when the adrenaline finally stops, you stop with it. This is for that version of you, the one sitting on the other side of the school year wondering how to actually use this time to feel like a person again before the new school year sneaks up faster than Sunday night. Because avoiding teacher burnout starts with using the precious time that is completely ours, off the clock, to meet our needs outside the role of teacher. I've got five things, and yes, they all start with S. Hey, I'm an elementary teacher. Alliteration is just how my brain works. Episode 63 of the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast features tips from Erin Sponaugle to help teachers recharge over summer break. Listen now! Why the End of the Year Hits So Hard (Even When It Was a Good Year) Part of what makes the crash so jarring is that we've been running on a very specific kind of fuel, a mix of adrenaline, anticipation, end-of-year anxiety, and the sheer momentum of just finishing, and then it's gone all at once. The routine stops. The structure stops. The to-do list stops. And we're left standing in the quiet, going, now what? Summer is not just playtime for teachers, and I think we sometimes feel guilty about needing real recovery time, as if the break itself should be enough. But you might be doing graduate work, working a second job, or parenting your own children after having parented everyone else's children all year. I'm a childless teacher, so I know my perspective comes from a specific vantage point, and I want to factor that in for many of you, because summer often means trading one kind of full-time for another. Even with everything on your plate over the summer, these five things are worth building in wherever you can fit them, because the goal isn't to spend the whole break on the couch. The goal is to actually come back to yourself so that you can enjoy the good parts of the season and show up for the people in your life with something real left in you. Exploring the need for meaningful rest and rejuvenation for teachers this summer, beyond just scrolling on their phones, as highlighted by Next Chapter Press. Stillness: The First Thing Exhausted Teachers Need to Seek for Summer Recovery When the School Year Ends All school year long, you are in constant motion. Everything is timed, structured, and required to be somewhere by a certain point with certain people. There is very little stillness in a teacher's day, which means by June your body and your brain are so wired for motion that stopping actually takes intention. Stillness is the first thing I prioritize over the summer, and I want to be really clear about what I mean by that. Sitting and scrolling your phone is not stillness. I'm serious about this one. Social media, texting, watching things, even the low-key mindless kind, keeps your brain active in ways it doesn't get to recover from. Stillness means your hands and your mind both take a break, and you give yourself permission to just be somewhere without doing anything with it. I know some of you are thinking that sounds basically impossible with a toddler or a teenager in the house. But there are moments in most days where stillness is available, even if it's late at night when everyone's asleep, and even a few minutes of genuine stillness makes a difference in how you feel and how clearly you can think. It also helps you reconnect with who you are outside of being a teacher, which the school year doesn't leave much room for. Silence: What Your Brain Has Been Waiting For Since September I am an introvert, and I work in one of the noisiest environments on earth. Noise, all day long, every day, from August to June. I've become accustomed to sounds that would genuinely rattle someone hearing them for the first time, because when you've taught for twenty-three years, certain levels of noise just become the water you swim in. Quiet time is a huge part of my summer recovery, as it should be for many exhausted teachers. But that doesn't mean your brain isn't absorbing it all, because it is, and it accumulates. Seeking out silence over the summer, actually choosing quiet environments and sitting with them instead of filling them with noise right away, helps your brain resettle and your nervous system rewire. When your brain isn't constantly processing sounds, responding to things, and staying alert for the next thing that needs your attention, it can actually rest. So give yourself some quiet. Not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Even a few minutes each day without adding to the noise around you can make a difference in how you recover. "Guidance for Teachers: Strategies to Rejuvenate Over the Summer Before August Arrives" Solitude: Why Being Alone With Your Thoughts Is More Important Than It Sounds We are surrounded by people all day, every day, all year long, and even the people we love and enjoy being around require a level of output from us that adds to the depletion. Solitude, actual time alone to think without anyone else's input present, is something most teachers barely get during the school year. Here's why this matters more than it might seem: some of the most important decisions I've made about my teaching career I've made in the solitude of summer. I'm going to be intentionally vague here, because I'm still employed as a classroom teacher, but there have been moments where I needed to think clearly about what I wanted and what was right for my future without the noise of other people's opinions or the pressure of the school year in the background. Summer gave me that space, and it changed things. You can't always hear yourself clearly when the school year is going on and everyone around you has a take on what you should do. Solitude gives you back your own voice. And whatever you're sorting through, whether it's big career stuff or just figuring out what you actually need, you deserve the space to do that thinking on your own terms. Teacher relishing a relaxing beach day, embracing summer self-care with tips to recharge for the upcoming school year. Sleep: The Most Important Investment You Can Make This Summer By the end of the school year, your sleep probably hasn't been great for a while. The adrenaline of the final stretch keeps you wired in ways that interfere with deep, restful sleep, and for many teachers, the whole year involves running a little too depleted to give sleep the priority it actually needs. Sleep is how your body heals. Full stop. If you've been catching every illness that came through your building, if you've been running on less than you should, summer is the time to let your body reset its natural sleep patterns and actually recover. Summer is also a good time to look at what might help you sleep better, always with your doctor's guidance on anything beyond basic sleep habits. What I started last school year and have kept doing since is building a real shutdown time into my evenings. Lights down, screens downstairs, a consistent time to start winding down, and whatever I know helps my body relax and fall asleep, with anything supplement-related cleared by my doctor first. My sleep quality improved noticeably, and I wake up better equipped to handle the next day. Summer is a great time to figure out what your version of that looks like, so you can carry it into the next school year instead of starting from scratch in August. Sunshine: The Free Mood Booster You've Been Short On All Year This one might sound a little obvious, but stick with me, because I don't think it gets enough credit. A lot of teachers spend the school year in classrooms that have very little natural light, windows that don't open, and schedules that mean arriving before sunrise and leaving when the afternoon is already winding down. I genuinely cannot remember the last time I taught in a classroom where the windows actually opened to let in fresh air. True story. Sunshine matters because vitamin D matters, and because light genuinely affects your mood in ways that are measurable and real. The feel-good chemicals your body produces, the ones that help you feel optimistic and regulated and actually happy, get a boost from sunshine in a way that a lot of other things can't replicate. After a school year that probably had its share of things that impacted your mood in the other direction, sunshine is a legitimate part of your recovery plan. Use sun protection, obviously. I'm not suggesting you burn yourself in the name of wellness. But getting outside and soaking up some of the summer season you've been working toward all year is genuinely good for you, and it's in good supply right now, so take advantage of it. Essential Tips for Teachers: Recharge This Summer with These Five Must-Haves The Five S's: A Simple Summer Recovery Plan You'll Actually Use Stillness, because you've been in motion long enough. Silence, because your brain has been processing noise since August and it needs a break. Solitude, because you deserve time to be with your own thoughts and figure out what you actually want. Sleep, because your body heals when you let it, and this is the time to prioritize that. And sunshine, because you've earned it and it will genuinely help. You don't have to do all five perfectly every single day. Just keep them in mind as you move through the summer and look for places to fit them in, because the version of you that comes back to the classroom in the fall is built during these months. Take care of her. Teachaholic is on Amazon in Kindle and paperback, and the free Teachaholic Action Guide is available below. Find me on YouTube at Erin Sponaugle for the summer video series, and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming up. 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!

Too many tabs open, too much noise, and someone has called your name forty-seven times before lunch. Here's how to actually get through the last stretch. Strategies for Teachers to Manage Overstimulation and Ease Into Breaks Successfully I'm writing this fresh off of art show season, which means I have been running at maximum capacity for the past week, surrounded by clay projects and glitter and about six hundred kids' worth of energy, all while trying to keep approximately one thousand details from falling through the cracks simultaneously. I love it. It is also a lot. And right now, my brain has more tabs open than a teacher on a Sunday night trying to write sub plans. But here's the thing: that feeling isn't just an art teacher problem, and it isn't just an art show problem. It's an end-of-the-year-while-still-being-a-person problem, and I'm guessing your tabs are pretty full right now too. So let's talk about overstimulation, why it's hitting especially hard right now, and what to actually do about it before you spend the first two weeks of summer face-down on the couch wondering what happened to you. Episode 60 of the "Next Chapter for Teachers" podcast features Erin Sponaugle discussing strategies for educators to manage overstimulation in the classroom. Listen now to explore practical tips for maintaining balance. Why the End of the School Year Is Overstimulation Times Infinity Everything that's been a lot all year is now compounding all at once. The noise, the tasks, the drama, the stuff, the smells, the people, all of it, and all of it at the same time. If any of the following has been getting to you lately, you are not alone, and you are not being dramatic. The noise level in schools this time of year is something else entirely. Add field trips, end-of-year events, and kids who have collectively decided that indoor voices are optional, and you've got a sound environment that no one person was designed to absorb for seven hours a day. Then the tasks keep multiplying: every time you check one thing off the list, two more appear like they've been waiting in the hallway. The talking, both from students and from colleagues who are processing all the end-of-year gossip and next-year speculation, can put you right on the edge. The stuff is everywhere: clay projects, papers, glitter, supplies that have migrated from their homes and now just live on every surface. And the smells. The smells are a thing. And then there's this one that only a teacher will truly understand, and that's hearing your own name. The sheer volume of times your name gets called in an average day by the end of the year is somewhere between being a minor celebrity and having a recurring nightmare. It just never stops. Half celebrity, half bad dream. That's the end of May. Is it any wonder teachers need help for overstimulation? Coping Strategies for Teacher Overstimulation During End-of-Year Chaos: A Survival Guide Why Powering Through It Doesn't Actually Help a Teacher from Overstimulation Here's what most of us do with all of that stimulation: we absorb it, we manage it, we push through it, we tell ourselves we just have to make it to the last day. And technically that works. We do make it. But here's the cost. When you just keep absorbing the overstimulation without doing anything to address it, you hit the first day of summer, and you crash. Hard. And then the first week or two of your break gets spent trying to crawl back to baseline instead of actually resting and recharging. People like to say how nice it must be to have summers off, and sure, it is a reprieve, but a lot of us are spending the front end of it in recovery mode because we've been running on fumes for so long that the sudden stop knocks us flat. There's a better way to do this. Not a perfect way, not a completely stress-free way, but a better one. And it doesn't involve breathing exercises or grounding techniques, because you can Google those and they exist and they're fine. I want to talk about some things that are a little more personal and a little more practical. Find tranquility with essential tips for overstimulated teachers, helping you maintain peace in the classroom. You Don't Have to Go All Out to Make the End of Year Memorable Before we get to the framework, I want to say something that might ruffle some Pinterest boards: good end-of-year teaching does not require bling. It does not require over-the-top events or elaborate experiences or adding more sensory chaos to an already overwhelmed classroom. No joke. Memorable and meaningful are not the same thing as loud and busy. Some of the most impactful end-of-year experiences are the quiet ones, the reflective conversations, the time you gave kids to just talk to each other, the letter you had them write to next year's class, the moment you slowed down instead of speeding up. Those things stick. And they don't require you to manufacture excitement you don't have in you right now. If you are overstimulated and tapped out, you are not going to create a magical high-energy end-of-year experience for your students. You're going to create a frazzled one. And a calm, grounded teacher who slows the room down will do more for those kids right now than a teacher who keeps turning up the volume because that's what it looks like everyone else is doing online. Your students will not be missing out. There will be plenty of field day, plenty of assemblies, plenty of events that ramp up the energy whether you add to it or not. Your job is not to keep the hype going. Your job is to keep yourself regulated enough to actually be present for the last few weeks. It's Okay to Say No to the Extras Right Now While we're here, let's talk about the voluntold situation at the end of the year, because it is very real. I have a YouTube video about being voluntold that's worth watching if this hits close to home. If you are being asked to contribute to extras right now and you genuinely do not have it in you, it is okay to say no. I'm not saying blow everybody off. I'm saying that if you are anxious, on the edge, or close to tears, that additional volunteer task is not yours to take on. The people around you are adults. They are responsible for their own feelings about it. And the only way things actually shift in education is when teachers start being honest about what they can and cannot keep doing. Say no when you need to. Mean it. And then let it go. "Essential Tips for Overstimulated Teachers: Navigating the Final Days of School Successfully" The Three S's for Managing Teacher Overstimulation Alright. Here's the actual framework, and yes, they all start with S, which was not planned, but I'm not mad about it. Silence. We do not work in quiet environments. Most of us haven't had a genuinely quiet moment at school in weeks, maybe months. When you are on sensory overload, silence is not optional; it's necessary. Even just a few minutes of actual quiet, in your car after school, in a room with the door closed, wherever you can find it, gives your nervous system a chance to start coming down from the noise. Stillness. Not scrolling through your phone. Not answering emails. Not planning anything or creating anything or thinking through your to-do list. Just being still. Doing nothing. I know that sounds impossible and maybe even a little alarming if you're deep in Teach-aholic mode, but sometimes doing absolutely nothing is the most restorative thing you can give your body. Boredom is underrated, especially right now. Sleep. I know. You've heard this before. But over the past year and a half, I have made sleep genuinely sacred, and it has made a meaningful difference in how I function the next day. Set a time to start winding down. Lower the lights, put down the phone, stop creating or planning for the evening. Make the bedroom somewhere you can actually disconnect from everything that has had your brain running all day. When I started doing this consistently, I slept more soundly and woke up better equipped to handle whatever the next day brought. And at this point in the year, that matters a lot. Finding Your Peace Pocket Here's one more concept I want to leave you with, because the three S's are great in theory, but you have to have somewhere to actually do them. Find your peace pocket. A peace pocket is a quiet place that is yours, away from the noise, where you can let your body and your brain actually decompress. It can be your car, which is honestly underrated as a cocoon of solitude. It can be your bedroom. It can be a closet if you've got a good one. It can be a she-shed if you have one, because honestly, those look incredible, and I am genuinely considering looking into it. Wherever it is, it needs to be somewhere you can shut everything out for a little while, somewhere with no tasks and no noise and no one calling your name. If you're a parent going home to your own kids after a day of other people's kids, finding that pocket might feel almost impossible. That's real, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But even fifteen minutes in your car before you walk in the door counts. Give yourself that transition time before the second shift starts. Teacher offers practical advice for avoiding burnout: A guide to smoothly transitioning into breaks for overstimulated educators. Slide Into Summer, Don't Crash Into It This is the last solo episode of the season, and I want to leave you with this thought, because I mean it. You do not have to spend the first two weeks of summer recovering from a crash landing. You can do things between now and the last day of school, small things, quiet things, consistent things, that help you actually arrive at summer instead of collapse into it. Silence, stillness, sleep. A peace pocket. The permission to bring the energy in your room down instead of up. Saying no when you genuinely need to. These are not big dramatic changes. They're the small, real, sustainable things that keep you from burning to a crisp before you even get to July. You can get through this. And more than that, you can finish the year as a whole person, not just a teacher-shaped shell that made it to the last day on caffeine and force of will. That version of you, the one who actually took care of herself a little bit along the way, is the one who shows up better for her students, her family, and herself all summer long. Go find your peace pocket. Get some sleep. You've got this. Teachaholic is on Amazon in Kindle and paperback for when you're ready to go deeper into what sustainable teaching actually looks like. 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!

One week of mugs and treats is nice. But it's not the thing that actually keeps you going. Let's talk about what does. Exploring the Importance of Continuous Validation for Teachers Beyond Appreciation Week. I'm writing this during Teacher Appreciation Week, which, if you think about it too hard, is a complicated time to celebrate. Because on one hand, yes, people are bringing in snacks, there are sales everywhere, and everyone is saying lovely things about teachers for approximately five to seven business days. On the other hand, testing season is in full swing, student behavior is getting increasingly creative as we inch toward the end of the year, and every stress that has been quietly accumulating since August is now making itself known very loudly. So it can feel a little contradictory to be accepting a "World's Best Teacher" mug on Monday while also holding it together with sheer force of will for the rest of the week. No judgment here. That's just where we are. But here's what I actually want to talk about today, because I think it matters a lot more than whether your school does the good snacks for appreciation week. Let's talk about what it means to feel truly valued as a teacher, and why what we're really looking for goes so much deeper than appreciation. New Episode Alert! Discover strategies for overcoming feelings of unappreciation as a teacher with Erin Sponaugle in episode #59 of the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast. Tune in now! The Problem With One Week of Being Celebrated Here's the reality of Teacher Appreciation Week that nobody says out loud: one week of goodies doesn't undo fifty-one weeks of everything else. It's nice. It genuinely is. But if the rest of the year has involved being asked to do more with less, having your professional judgment questioned, absorbing changes without being consulted, or just quietly grinding through the kind of exhaustion that doesn't go away with a long weekend, a gift card to a teacher supply store isn't going to reach whatever is depleted. We can't control other people, and we can't make anyone change how they treat teachers if they're not already inclined to. But I do think more people are starting to wake up to the fact that what's been going on in teaching isn't sustainable, and that how teachers feel actually matters to the quality of what happens in classrooms. The problem is that waking up and actually changing things are two very different timelines. What we can control is how we choose to receive it, respond to it, and ultimately how we decide to value ourselves in a profession that hasn't always returned the favor. Overworked and underappreciated: A teacher expresses frustration while surrounded by stacks of books and a complex chalkboard, highlighting the deeper needs beyond a simple thank you. Appreciation vs. Validation: What Teachers Actually Need When Feeling Unappreciated Here's my take: What most of us are actually looking for as teachers isn't appreciation. It's validation. And those are not the same thing. Appreciation is someone telling you thank you, bringing you a treat, acknowledging what you do. It's nice to receive, and it's meaningful when it comes from the right person at the right moment, especially a handwritten note, which is honestly my favorite and the thing that sticks with me the longest. But appreciation is external; it's surface-level, and it doesn't last. You feel it in the moment, and then you need it again. Validation goes deeper. Validation confirms that what you do matters. That your needs matter. That you are good at what you do and that your contribution is worthy and your purpose is real. Validation is what we're actually hungry for, and it's so hard to fill that need because most of us try to get it from external sources, when the only place it can be permanently sourced is within ourselves. Why Teachers Keep Looking Outside Themselves for Appreciation We look for external validation because we're human, and humans are wired for connection and for being seen. That's not a character flaw or a weakness. That's just how we're built. We want to know that the people around us see what we're doing and believe it matters. The trouble is that every hit of external validation, every good evaluation, every grateful parent email, every moment when someone says "I don't know how you do it," that hit fades. Then we look for the next one. And if we're in an environment where those hits are rare or inconsistent, which is a lot of schools on a lot of days, we can spend the whole year feeling like we're running on empty no matter how hard we work. What comes from the outside is also what can be taken away from the outside. If our sense of value as teachers is tied to how our students perform on tests or whether our evaluators noticed that thing we did, we've handed the steering wheel to variables we can't control. And as teachers, that is a deeply uncomfortable place to live. A teacher looking stressed at her desk highlights the disparity between Teacher Appreciation Week and the year-round needs of educators. What Inner Validation Actually Looks Like for Teachers A couple of years ago, I started asking myself a question that genuinely changed how I show up in my classroom: are the actions and attitudes toward me in education, whether directly or indirectly, worth changing my reaction to? Or do I just need to leave? That question has two parts, and they're both important. The second part comes up again in a minute, because sometimes the answer really is that it's time to go. But for me, at that point, the answer was that I wanted to change how I internalized things. I wanted to find a way to validate my own contributions, my own time, my own talents and purpose, in a way that didn't require anyone else's input to stay real. And here's what I've found: when you choose to validate your own contributions, it has a more lasting effect on how you feel and how you give to your classroom than any external recognition ever could. Not because you stop caring what others think, but because you stop needing it to feel okay. The difference in your daily experience when that shift happens is significant. It connects to self-care, to boundaries, to all the things we talk about in this space. We have to show ourselves that we appreciate what we do and what we need before we can really expect any of that to be reflected back to us in a meaningful way. That starts on the inside. Navigating Change: Exploring New Paths When Feeling Unappreciated as a Teacher. When Not Feeling Appreciated as a Teacher Means It's Time to Make a Change I want to be honest about the other side of this, because I think it's important and I don't want to gloss over it. Sometimes feeling unappreciated as a teacher is not a personal development opportunity. Sometimes it's information. It's your gut telling you that the environment you're in doesn't value what you bring, and no amount of inner work is going to make that environment the right place for you to spend your career. I will never make someone feel less for their decision to leave, whether that's leaving a grade level, a school, or teaching altogether. You are an adult, and what is best for your health and your happiness deserves to be respected, not questioned. And honestly, I think real systemic change in education might require more teachers to reach their limit and say out loud, this is not acceptable, before the people with the power to change things feel the urgency to do so. So ask yourself the question. Is this a situation where changing how I internalize things would make a meaningful difference? Or is it a situation that requires a different kind of change entirely? Both are valid answers. Neither makes you wrong. Transform your teaching journey with confidence: Embrace your skills and own your excellence! What Actually Lasts Longer Than the Appreciation Week Treats So here's where I am on all of it, as we make our way through a week that's genuinely trying to celebrate us, even if it doesn't always fully feel the way it's meant to. Mugs are nice. Treats are great. Handwritten notes, those are my absolute favorite, and if you get one this week, hold onto it. But nothing lasts longer or goes deeper than knowing and honoring your own worth. The appreciation that comes from the outside is on loan. It can be taken back; it can dry up, and on most Tuesdays in February it's nowhere to be found. But the validation that comes from the inside, from genuinely knowing that what you do matters and that you are worthy of doing it, that goes with you every single day. So if this week brings you a coffee cart and a kind word from a parent, take it and enjoy it. And then come back to the thing that's yours, the part nobody gets to hand you or take away: your own knowledge that what you give to your students and your school and this profession is real and worthy. If you're working through what it means to value yourself in this profession, I've got a self-care series going on YouTube that goes right along with this topic. Find it at Erin Sponaugle on YouTube. 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!

Is your classroom currently giving Jumanji meets Jurassic Park? Same. Here's why it happens every single year and what to do about it. Tips and strategies for teachers dealing with challenging student behavior at the end of the school year. Has your classroom been particularly attentive lately? Are your students turning in their best quality work, making thoughtful choices, and listening the first time you ask? If you just laughed out loud because saying no makes you want to burst into tears at this point, it's probably the end of the school year. Welcome to the final stretch, where the kids are wound up, the teachers are running on fumes, and your classroom, which you built with so much care over the past several months, is currently giving strong Jumanji energy. As an art teacher with 600-plus kids cycling through my room, mine is more like Jumanji meets Jurassic Park. (But if you don't have an art show to prep for on top of everything else, maybe yours is just Jurassic Park.) Either way, you're not imagining it, and you're definitely not alone. By the end of a day like this, you feel like a melted candle. Not a metaphor. An actual melted candle. And the thing nobody tells you is that it's not just about surviving the behaviors. It's about understanding why this happens every single year, because if you understand it, you can actually respond to it instead of just reacting to it. New episode alert! Tune in to the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast, Episode #58: "My Class is Driving Me Crazy!" Discover strategies with Erin to survive the end of the school year. Listen now! Why End-of-Year Student Behavior Gets So Crazy (And It's Not Just the Excitement) The easy explanation is that the kids are excited for summer break and that's making them wild. And sure, there's some truth in that. But here's my take on what's actually driving most end-of-year student behavior, and it's a little more complicated than pure excitement. Your students are losing something. You have spent this entire school year building a routine, a predictable environment, and a relationship with these kids that they have come to depend on, whether or not they've ever said so out loud or shown it in any recognizable way. And now they can feel all of that winding down. The shift is in the air, and kids pick up on it faster than we give them credit for. Some of them, more than you probably realize, aren't exactly thrilled about summer break, because summer break might mean less stability, less structure, and less of a guaranteed safe place to be every day. School, and specifically your classroom, might have been the most predictable part of their whole year. So when they start to feel that ending, all those emotions come to the surface, and they don't come out as, "I'm going to miss this and I'm feeling some grief about it." They come out as chaos. Defiance. Being totally off the walls for reasons nobody can quite explain. That is not an excuse for the behavior. It's just the reality of what's underneath it, and knowing that can shift how you respond when it's happening right in front of you. Understanding the Chaos: Why Students Unravel at the School Year’s End (It’s Not What You Think) Standardized Testing Is a Rubber Band, and Eventually It Has to Snap If your school does standardized testing this time of year, this one is for you (and I'll try to hold back my full feelings on what we put kids through with high-stakes testing because that's a whole other conversation). What I will say is this: the pressure kids feel during testing is real, and it's not just the academic pressure. It's the sitting still, the silence, the different schedule, the weight of being told this test shows what they know and what their teacher has taught them all year. Kids hold all of that in during testing. They comply, contain, and keep it together, and all that stored energy has to go somewhere. When testing ends, or even just when the school day ends after a testing session, that rubber band snaps. And that release sounds a lot like behaviors you could have done without. No joke. Teachers feel that pressure too, and kids absorb it from us even when we think we're holding it together. They feel the shift in energy when the test prep gets intense, and the normal classroom rhythm gets disrupted. All of it compounds, and all of it comes out eventually, usually in your room, usually right after you thought things were finally settling down for a few moments after extra recess. Recess, Field Day, and Fun Days: Why the Good Stuff Makes Behavior Worse Too Here's the part that really gets you in your feels, because it doesn't seem like it should be true. The fun things, the things the kids have been looking forward to, those make behavior harder too. You gotta be kidding me, right? And yet... When the weather finally turns, and kids get back outside after months of indoor recess, they are genuinely out of practice for how to behave when they're not inside a classroom. All that contained energy comes out at once the second they hit fresh air, and the results are not always pretty. Then add field day, fun days, end-of-year concerts, sports tournaments, awards assemblies. All of it is wonderful. All of it is also unstructured, overstimulating, and crammed into the very last blip of the school year. Kids who have had months of solid structure suddenly have a week full of everything that isn't their normal routine, and their brains, their bodies, and their behavior reflect exactly how much that is to process. You're trying to keep things from completely derailing, and meanwhile the calendar is throwing curveballs faster than you can catch them. If it's felt like not-so-controlled chaos lately, that is completely normal and not a reflection of how you've managed your classroom all year. Strategies for Effective End-of-Year Classroom Management: Tips for the Final Stretch. Maintain, Remain, Sustain: How to Get Through the Final Stretch With Your Sanity Mostly Intact Okay. We've established why this happens. Now let's talk about what to actually do with it, because understanding it doesn't make it easier on its own. Here's the framework I keep coming back to for getting through the end of the year: maintain, remain, sustain. Maintain: Routines, Expectations, and Consequences, Right Up to the End I know it's tempting to let things slide because it's almost over and honestly you're tired, and they're tired, and what does it even matter at this point? But here's what actually happens when you ease up on expectations too early: Things get exponentially harder to manage, and you've still got weeks to go. Keep the routines. Keep expecting kids to do the right thing and follow the classroom norms you've spent all year building. Keep holding to the consequences when they don't, because kids still need that structure, especially right now when so much else is shifting under their feet. This isn't about being rigid for its own sake. It's about giving them the predictability they need most, precisely when everything else is changing. Remain: The Calm That Your Classroom Still Needs From You This one is hard. When their emotions amp up, so do ours, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. But you are the most important constant in that room right now, and they are watching you more than they're letting on. Kids replicate what they see modeled. You have been a consistent, reliable presence for these students all year, probably more than you fully realize, and the same person they've needed all year is the same person they need right now. Remain calm, remain predictable, remain the same steady adult you've been since September. Sustain: Keep the Learning Going, Because They're Still Growing Once testing wraps up, there is a real temptation to coast. And look, I get it. But there is so much good teaching that can happen in those final weeks, the kind of teaching that doesn't have to live in a test prep format or a workbook. The experiences, the creative projects, the conversations, the things you've been wanting to do all year but couldn't quite fit in- now is the time. Not every piece of learning needs to come from a textbook or a device. Some of the most meaningful things that stick with kids happen in those last few weeks when the pressure is off, and there's finally a little room to breathe. You can teach something on the very last day of school (I know that sounds ambitious, but you can). Let their last memory of your classroom be that they were learning something worth knowing right up until the end. "Exploring How Early Classroom Countdowns Affect Student Behavior at Year's End." Two Things to Think Twice About Before You Do Them Classroom countdowns. I know this is a popular one, and I know some people love a good countdown, but here's my honest take. Not every kid in your room is excited to count down to the end. Some of them are counting down to an ending, not a beginning, and a visual reminder on the board every day of how close they are to losing this environment can quietly make the behaviors worse, not better. Calm and carry on goes a long way right now. Packing up your classroom too soon. I know it's a mountain of work, and I know the urge to start chipping away at it is real. But the moment you start dismantling the environment, they check out, and the behaviors you've been managing will become significantly more electrifying. Save the packing for as late as you can reasonably manage. Small chunks at the end of a day, or saved for the final week, are your best bet for keeping things as intact as possible until the end. Creative chaos reigns as young students engage in a playful art session, highlighting the challenges of maintaining focus at the end of the school year. They're Losing You. Remember That. Before I let you go, I want you to sit with this for just a moment, because I think it's the thing that can actually change how you feel about what you're walking into this week. These kids are losing you. They are losing the routine you created, the safety of the environment you built, and the most consistent adult relationship many of them have had this year. That is not a small thing, even when it doesn't look like what you'd expect grief to look like. Even when it looks like defiance and noise and questionable choices and behaviors that make your brain feel like it's rattling around in its cage upstairs. Maintain, remain, sustain. You've built something real for these kids this year, and the last few weeks are still part of that. More than you'll ever know, they will remember it. Now go drink some water, take a breath, and get ready to finish strong. If you're hitting the end of the year running on empty and you need more than a pep talk, Teachaholic is on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.

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. Empowering educators: Discovering the power within and embracing expertise through TEDx insights. 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. Episode 57 of Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast: "Teachers Speaking Up: Using Your Voice to Lead from the Classroom" featuring Erin Sponaugle. Listen now for insights on empowering educators to lead. 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. Empowering Educators: Discover How Speaking Up in the Classroom Enhances Your Teaching Voice. 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. Teacher triumphs over burnout to deliver an empowering TEDx talk on finding her voice and inspiring others. 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. A classroom teacher shares her journey and insights while presenting a TEDx Talk, exploring the unique experience of transitioning from the classroom to the big stage. 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. Empowering educators to embrace their expertise and take initiative without waiting for permission. 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!

There's a difference between a boundary and a non-negotiable. One is a habit. The other is a hard no. Here's how to tell the difference and what to do when the answer has to be no. Understanding Teacher Boundaries: Identifying Non-Negotiable Deal-Breakers and Solutions. This time of year, things start coming out about what next year is going to look like. New schedules, new assignments, new expectations. And for some teachers, mixed in with all of that information, there's a gut punch. Not a literal one, hopefully, but that moment where you find out something is changing, and your whole body reacts before your brain even has a chance to catch up. A transfer to a different school. A caseload shift you never saw coming. A grade level change that would rearrange everything you've built. Something that doesn't just affect your classroom, but affects your life outside of it, your family, your health, your ability to function as a human being. And you know, with complete certainty, that you are not willing to do it. That's a non-negotiable. And it's more important than most teachers realize. Let's get to it. Episode 56 of the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast features Erin Sponaugle discussing "Non-Negotiables: What You Won’t Tolerate as a Teacher." Listen now for insights and advice. Non-Negotiables vs. Boundaries: Why They're Not the Same Thing I want to make this distinction first because they can sound similar on the surface, but they're actually very different things, and mixing them up matters. Boundaries are the everyday choices you make so that you have clear lines between where your school life ends and the rest of your life begins. They're habits. They're how you protect your time, your energy, and your sanity on a daily basis. Going home at a reasonable hour. Not answering emails after a certain time. Saying no to the extra committee. Those are boundaries, and they're important. Non-negotiables are something else entirely. A non-negotiable is not about daily habits. It's about the things you are simply not willing to accept as part of your life, ever. The things that, if you had to sit with the reality of committing to them for a year or more, your answer would be an absolute and unequivocal no. Where a boundary is something you practice, a non-negotiable is something you protect. What Counts as a Teacher Non-Negotiable? A non-negotiable might show up as a grade level or position change you didn't ask for and can't imagine doing. It might be a transfer to a different school that would upend everything about your daily life. It might be a shift in caseload or responsibilities that you know in your gut would break you, not just inconvenience you, actually break you. It might be losing a classroom or being asked to move to a format that goes against everything you know about how you teach best. Whatever the specific situation, a non-negotiable is something that, if you had to take it on, you couldn't be the teacher you need to be. And you couldn't be the person outside the classroom that the people in your life need you to be either. Both of those things matter, and you're allowed to say so. Understanding the Distinction: A Deep Dive into Teacher Boundaries vs. Non-Negotiables and Their Importance. Why It's Okay to Have Deal-Breakers as a Teacher Here's the thing I really want you to hear, because I don't think teachers hear it enough: having non-negotiables is not selfish. I know it can feel that way. I know the internal narrative sounds something like, it's just one year, other people manage it, who am I to say no to this? But a non-negotiable isn't a preference or a complaint. It's something that, if you had to live with it, would cost you something real: your health, your family, your joy for the work, your ability to keep showing up. We get one life. We're not going to spend it stuck in situations that don't bring our families or us peace if we can help it. That's not a selfish statement. Real Examples of Teacher Non-Negotiables (And Why They're Valid) Let me make this concrete, because non-negotiables are easier to identify when you can see them clearly. Let's say you've taught third grade for years, and you're told that to stay at your school, you'll need to move to kindergarten. If you know in your heart that teaching kindergarten is not something you're willing to commit to, that's a non-negotiable. And I want to be very clear: that does not mean there's anything wrong with kindergarten teachers. I genuinely don't know how they do it. It's just that it's not right for everyone, and knowing that about yourself is not a character flaw. Here's a personal one from my own experience. My first two years of teaching, I commuted 45 to 50 minutes each way to school. And even though the salary was higher, the cost of that commute wasn't just financial. It was time. It was energy. It was arriving home later, leaving earlier, and having less of myself to give to the rest of my life. When I eventually took a position twelve minutes from my house, something shifted almost immediately. I was more relaxed, more focused in the classroom, and more present when I got home. After living that difference, a long commute became a non-negotiable for me. I'm not willing to trade that much of my day for a higher step on the salary scale. Someone else might feel completely differently about that, and that's the point: non-negotiables are personal. They're yours. Navigating Unwanted Changes: Advice for Teachers Facing Unexpected Position Shifts at School. When Your School Drops a Gut Punch: Facing a Non-Negotiable Mid-Career What makes this particularly hard is that these situations often arise when you are otherwise content. You've found your footing, you like your school, you like your colleagues, and then something shifts, and suddenly you're facing a hairpin turn you didn't see coming. And because you care about the place and the people, saying no to what's being asked of you feels even harder. But caring about your school doesn't mean you have to accept things that aren't right for you. Those two things can both be true at the same time. Your Options When You're Facing a Teaching Non-Negotiable Here's where I want to be practical, because knowing what a non-negotiable is doesn't mean you automatically know what to do about it. First, know that you have options, and that the current teacher shortage means there are more of them than you might think. If the situation you're facing for next year is truly something you're not willing to accept, positions exist. Leaving your school might feel like losing something significant, and honestly, it might be. But feeling stuck is a choice, not a fact, especially right now when teaching jobs are available. Second, if leaving isn't what you want, you can fight for what you need. And yes, I know how that sounds. I know that as women in particular, we are often conditioned to go with the flow, to take what we're given, to do what good girls do and say okay. I want to push back on that pretty directly: you are not a good girl. You're a good woman. And good women are allowed to say no, to make what they want known, and to work for it. About six years ago, I had to do exactly that. I'm intentionally keeping the details vague because I'm still employed in the same school, and some things are better left general. But I will tell you that I came face to face with a non-negotiable, and I fought for it, and it was uncomfortable and a little scary, and I wasn't used to advocating for myself in that way at the time. And I came out on the other side with what I needed to keep doing my job in the place I'd been for twenty-plus years. It wasn't easy. It was absolutely worth it. Empowering Women Educators: Embrace the Strength to Say No and Prioritize Self-Care Fighting for What You Need: How to Speak Up When the Answer Has to Be No If you're going to fight for something, go in knowing that you might not win. That's the honest version of this advice. But if it's important enough to you, if it's something you know you cannot accept, then putting it on the table and making your position known is worth doing even with that uncertainty. You don't have to be combative to be firm. You don't have to damage relationships to make your needs clear. But you do have to be willing to say the actual thing out loud, which is that this particular situation is not something you're willing to accept, and that you're prepared to act on that if nothing changes. Sometimes that conversation alone shifts things. Sometimes it doesn't. Either way, you've been honest about where you stand, and that matters for you regardless of the outcome. "Exploring Strategies to Avoid Teacher Burnout by Respecting Personal Boundaries and Deal Breakers." Why Honoring Your Non-Negotiables Prevents Teacher Burnout Here's the bottom line, and I think it's the most important thing in this whole post. When you accept things you know you shouldn't, when you go along with situations that genuinely don't work for your life, you slowly drain the reservoir of energy and commitment that your students need from you. You can't give your best when you're operating inside conditions that are actively wrong for you. Burnout doesn't just come from doing too much. It also comes from living too long inside situations that aren't right and doing nothing about it. Honoring your non-negotiables is not self-indulgence. It's self-preservation. And it's what keeps you in the classroom longer, more present, and more effective for the students who need you to actually show up. And there's one more thing. You might just surprise yourself with what you're made of when you stand up for what you know you need. That kind of confidence doesn't come from anywhere else. You can't build it from the outside. It comes from the moment you decide you're not willing to say okay to something that isn't okay, and you hold that line anyway. We're holding on by our fingernails to get to the end of the school year. Don't let anyone talk you into spending next year holding on by your fingernails for the wrong reasons. You deserve better than that, and so do your students. If you're navigating burnout and trying to figure out what you actually need from your teaching career, Teachaholic was written for exactly this. Grab your copy 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!

This is your last big break before the end-of-year sprint. Here's how to actually use it. Message to teachers: Embrace relaxation during spring break with a reminder to pause productivity and simply enjoy the moment. Spring break is on the calendar. Maybe you've already had it, maybe you're right in the middle of it, or maybe you've been counting down to it since January with the quiet desperation of someone who has been running on adrenaline and vending machine pretzels since February. Either way, you know the feeling I'm talking about. That particular brand of anticipation that builds up around this time of year because you are out-of-your-mind tired. But can teachers actually relax during spring break? Because if you're a teacher headed towards burnout, spring break feels like a finish line you can't wait to crash into before you actually break. Here's my take on it: spring break isn't quite like our other breaks. It doesn't always land on a holiday, so there's not always a built-in structure of family gatherings and traditions pulling your attention in a specific direction. Sometimes it's just... time. Open, unscheduled time. And if you're a teacher, that can feel surprisingly hard to navigate, for reasons that are worth talking about. Episode 55 of the "Next Chapter for Teachers" podcast features Erin Sponaugle discussing "Spring Break and the Pressure to be Productive." Tune in now for insightful tips on balancing rest and productivity. Listen at www.erinsponaugle.com. Why Spring Break Hits Different for Teachers This is the last significant break before the end-of-year chaos sets in, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you already know that. Once you go back, there are no more big reprieves. The calendar between now and the last day of school is a gauntlet of testing, end-of-year events, performance reviews, grade finalization, and the very specific kind of exhaustion that comes from running a full sprint when you've been going since August. Spring break is the last time you get to actually stop. That should feel like good news. And it does, right up until the moment when you're sitting in your quiet house on day two of break and your brain starts making a list. The Teacher Productivity Trap: Why Your Brain Won't Turn Off on Break Here's what I think is actually going on: All day, every day, the entire school environment is oriented around productivity. What are you getting done? What's next on the list? What needs to be accomplished before the bell? It's nonstop, and it's so deeply embedded in the rhythm of the school year that it becomes the rhythm of our whole existence. We start to internalize, without even fully realizing it, that what we get accomplished is a measure of our worth as teachers. How productive we are is how good we are. And that mindset doesn't clock out when we do. So we get to spring break, the one open stretch of time we've been holding on to all month, and instead of actually resting, we make a list. What can I knock out this week? What have I been putting off? What can I get done while I don't have to be somewhere for seven hours of the day? And suddenly break becomes another form of productivity, just redirected at our personal lives instead of our classrooms. Balancing Work and Rest: Tips for Teachers to Truly Enjoy Spring Break Without Falling into the Productivity Trap. How Testing Season Makes This Even Harder Standardized testing is looming, and the weight of that lands on teachers in a very specific way. How your students perform will be used, in various formats and to various degrees depending on where you are, to reflect on your effectiveness as a teacher. The results become the evidence, and the evidence is supposed to tell the story of your entire year. That pressure doesn't disappear during spring break. If anything, it follows you home and sets up camp right next to your to-do list. Will they be ready? Did we cover enough? What if the results don't reflect how hard we worked? Those questions don't have answers that will come to you while you're cleaning out a closet or reorganizing your pantry. But we keep moving, keep doing, keep filling the time, because moving feels like it should help and stillness feels like it's wasting something. The overemphasis on testing as a measure of teacher worth is a real problem, and I'll say that plainly. But since we can't solve that one this week, what we can do is recognize how much it's driving the restlessness and try not to let it steal the one break we've got. Tips for Teachers on Spring Break: Calming the Mind and Embracing Restful Downtime The Moving Carrot Problem: Why Teachers Are Always Chasing the Next Thing Think about a bunny going after a carrot. The bunny sees the carrot, wants the carrot, and moves toward the carrot. And then the carrot moves. So the bunny adjusts and moves toward it again. And then it moves again. That's kind of what productivity looks like for teachers, especially this time of year. We're always moving toward the next thing, the next lesson, the next benchmark, the next test, the next unit, the next school year. And we get in such a groove of chasing the carrot that when the carrot is temporarily removed, when we actually get a break, we don't know what to do with ourselves. So we find a new carrot. A clean house, a reorganized classroom, a pile of grading we could get ahead on, something. Anything to keep the chasing going. It feels productive. It's really just the absence of knowing how to stop. More Is Not Better: Breaking the Cycle Before You Go Back Here's what I want you to actually take from this, because it's the thing that I think teachers most need to hear and least often get told. Getting more done this week will not make you a better teacher when you go back. The quantity of what you accomplish during spring break is not going to determine the quality of your final stretch. More checking off of boxes, more crossing off of lists, more doing more than the teacher down the hall or the person on your feed who seems to have it all together- none of that is going to matter the way you think it's going to matter. What does matter is how rested you are. How regulated. How much you've allowed your nervous system to actually come down from the constant stimulation of the school year so that you can go back to your students with something real left in you. The quality of what you give in the final two months of school depends directly on how much you let yourself actually rest right now. It's not a competition. It never was. And breaks are one of the few chances we get to remember that. Tips to Enhance Teacher Productivity and Break Unproductive Cycles Before the School Year Begins. The Real Spring Break Challenge: Permission to Just Be Reflective So here's what I want to actually challenge you to do this week, alongside whatever appointments and errands and real-life things genuinely need your attention. Give yourself some time that doesn't have a product at the end of it. Time to think. Time to process how the year has gone, how you're feeling about it, what you need as a person to finish it well. That kind of reflective space is almost impossible to create during the school year, not because we don't want it but because the pace of the school day doesn't leave room for it. Break does. Use it for that. Not every hour of the week needs to be pointed at an outcome. Some of the most useful things you can do for yourself right now are things that won't show up on any list, letting your mind wander, sleeping without an alarm, being outside for a little while just because it's spring and things are growing and there's something genuinely restorative about that if you let yourself feel it. This is what renewal actually looks like. Teacher enjoying a peaceful spring break, highlighting the importance of rest over task lists to combat burnout. Spring Is An Invitation to Start Fresh Spring is a time when things renew, and I don't mean that in a woo-woo way, I mean it in a very literal and practical way. Things that were dormant start growing again. Things that were depleted start restoring. That's what this break can be for you, if you let it, which is the hard part. What you produce does not determine your worth. Not this week, not ever, but especially not this week. The teacher who comes back from spring break having spent some of it being genuinely still and reflective is going to be more present for her students than the one who powered through seven days of productivity and is already tired again before the week is out. You know which one you want to be. Let yourself get there. If the productivity trap is something you're wrestling with beyond spring break, Teachaholic was written to help you find your way back to a teaching career that's actually sustainable. Grab your copy 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!

You are not a superhero. You are a person. And sometimes a person needs to take days off. A guide for teachers on how to take sick days guilt-free, featuring tips on what to prepare for substitutes. Let's get something out of the way right up front: I am not a fan of the whole superhero trope as far as teachers go. The idea that teachers are some kind of extraordinary species that runs on dedication and apple-shaped things and can push through anything is a setup for failure. And one of the places it does the most damage is right here, in the moment when you are clearly not okay, and you go in anyway because that's what superheroes do. You are a person. Life does not stop just because the school year starts. You get sick. You have appointments. Your kids have milestones you are not going to miss. There are things in life that cannot always happen after 4:00 PM, no matter how hard you try to make that work. And at some point, your brain is going to need a break from the noise and the disruption and the constant stimulation of a classroom full of kids, and that is not a character flaw. That is just being a human being who works in a very intense environment. This is your teacher's guide to taking sick days without the guilt. Let's get to it.' Tune in to the latest episode of "Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast" as we explore the topic of teachers taking time off with special guest Erin Sponaugle. #54 offers insights and personal stories—listen now! Why Teacher Guilt About Taking a Sick Day Is So Real (And Hits Harder for New Teachers) The guilt around taking time off as a teacher is specific and layered, and I want to name it before we do anything else, because pretending it isn't there doesn't make it go away. Part of it is about not wanting to be a burden. Not wanting to create a hardship for the colleagues who will have to cover, or for the students who will spend the day with someone who doesn't know where anything is or how the class works. That instinct to not inconvenience other people is honestly one of the things that makes teachers good at their jobs, but it also keeps us showing up when we shouldn't be there. If you're a newer teacher, this feeling gets amplified by wanting to make a good impression, wanting to prove that you can handle it, not wanting to be seen as someone who calls out. I was very much guilty of this early on in my career, and I can tell you from the other side that pushing through when your body or your brain is telling you to stop is not the impression anyone worth impressing is actually paying attention to. For those of us in specials or unified arts positions, there's another layer entirely. I feel this one personally and acutely. If I can't get a substitute and I have to call out, I'm not just leaving a classroom without a teacher. I'm leaving a classroom teacher without their planning period, because my class is their coverage. That does not feel good. It just doesn't. But the alternative, showing up when I'm not well, is not actually solving the problem. It's just relocating it. "Facing the Reality of Teacher Sick Day Guilt: Why Taking Time Off is Essential for Educators" Teachers Actually Take Less Time Off Than Other Professions. Seriously. Here's something that genuinely surprised me when I came across it: according to Business Insider, teachers take less time off than workers in other professions. Even when it seems like you're taking a lot of days, you're actually not, especially compared to what would be expected in most other fields. We tend to show up when we shouldn't. We push through illnesses that other people would stay home for, because other professions don't require you to leave a detailed plan of action for a room full of kids who are going to test whoever walks through that door within the first four minutes of class. The bar for "can I actually call out today" is significantly higher for teachers, and we have internalized that bar so deeply that most of us barely even consider taking a day off unless things get pretty bad. The guilt and the logistical friction are doing their jobs, just not in our favor. What Actually Happens When You Never Take a Day Off Let's be real about what pushing through costs, because I think we sometimes skip this part in favor of just white-knuckling it to the next break. If you're sick and you don't take off, you will not get better faster. You will get sicker, and your recovery will take longer. Going in when your body needs rest is just postponing the inevitable and making yourself more miserable in the meantime. And it's certainly not making you a better teacher for the kids who are in front of you while you're running on empty. The mental health piece is just as real. The stress that builds when you need a break, and you keep not taking one, doesn't just level off. You get more agitated, more depleted, closer to the edge of burnout, and eventually you end up in a place where taking one day off would have been a whole lot easier than the crash you're now trying to climb out of. The day off is sometimes the thing that keeps everything else from falling apart. "Feeling overwhelmed about taking time off? Discover how to create a seamless substitute plan that makes your absence stress-free with Erin Spouagle's guide." Why Planning for a Substitute Feels Harder Than Just Going In Sick Okay, here's my take on the very real and very exhausting phenomenon of substitute planning, because it deserves to be acknowledged for what it is. You have to make sure there's a plan that someone unfamiliar with your classroom can actually follow. You have to think through emergency information, which students have specific needs, who cannot be near who, what the schedule looks like, where everything is, and approximately seventeen other things that you do automatically every single day without thinking about them because they're just in your head. Then you have to write all of that down in a way that makes sense to a stranger. And you have to do all of this while you are already feeling sick or overwhelmed or in need of rest. No joke. It's almost worse than just going in. Almost. But not quite, because the alternative is still worse for you in the long run, and we both know it. How to Build a Go-To Sub Plan So Taking Time Off Doesn't Feel Impossible This is the part that can genuinely change how much friction you feel around taking a day off, because a lot of that friction is logistical. If the logistics are already handled, the decision gets easier. What I'm talking about is a baseline set of activities or lessons that live in your classroom at all times, completely ready to hand to whoever is covering your room. These are not your current unit; they're not something that requires deep content knowledge; they're just solid, structured activities that your students know how to do without a lot of direction. Things that feel like productive time without requiring someone to actually teach. Review activities, independent practice, drawing guides if you're an art teacher, a program on their devices they know how to navigate- whatever fits your classroom and your content. The goal is that when you need to call out, you can say "the plans are in the red binder on the corner of my desk," and that's it. That's the whole conversation. You've already done the hard part. Guide for Preparing a Substitute Teaching Binder: Essential Tips for Teachers to Ensure a Smooth Day Off. What to Keep in Your Substitute Binder (And Where to Keep It) Having a go-to plan is great. Having it organized in a way that an actual human being who has never been in your building before can find and use is even better. Think through what someone would genuinely need to step into your room and not immediately panic. A daily schedule with your duties listed out. Emergency information, including which students have health concerns, behavior plans, or other things that need to be on someone's radar. A class roster. Notes about which kids need to be kept apart, and which ones are your go-to helpers who know the routines and can quietly point a sub in the right direction. All of that should live together in one place, a binder, a crate, a drawer, whatever works in your space, and it should always be in the same spot. Leave a note near your desk pointing to it so anyone who walks in can find it in the first sixty seconds. That system doesn't just help the substitute. It helps you, because you know it's there, and you know your classroom isn't going to descend into chaos because someone couldn't find the emergency contact list. Coming Back to a Mess: The Fear That Keeps Teachers Going In Anyway Let's keep it real. No fear is greater than the unknown. Especially when you've been out sick. There is a specific kind of dread that comes with imagining what your classroom might look like after a day with a substitute you didn't choose and couldn't prepare. Things not put back where they belong, routines completely abandoned, some kid having discovered that this substitute is not going to react the same way you would and having made the very most of that window of opportunity. It will happen at some point. And here's the exchange you have to make peace with: you take the day, you let yourself recover or attend to whatever needs your attention, and you come back, and you put things back in order. That reset takes time, but you know how to do it, because you set this classroom up in the first place. And the version of you who comes back rested or recovered is going to be significantly better for your students than the version of you who dragged yourself in and got through the day on sheer determination and coffee. Kids learn better when you are your full self. That's just the truth of it. Teacher rests her head on her hand, surrounded by work materials, highlighting the importance of mental health days in helping educators recharge and maintain well-being. Attending to Yourself Is Part of the Job I'll be real with you, because that's the whole point of this space. I took a day off just this past week. Did I absolutely have to? Maybe not. We'd had a snow day earlier in the week, and technically I could have gone in. But there were things I needed to give myself some headspace for, some things I needed to step back from so I could come back as a better version of myself, for the people in my life and for the kids in my classroom. And I'm really glad I did it. I've also got TEDx WVU coming up in a matter of days now- not weeks, days- and I'm going to need to take some time to prepare for that too. Life is happening alongside the school year, not after it ends, and I think we forget sometimes that we're allowed to let it. Your value as a person and as a teacher exceeds your output in the classroom on any given day. Taking care of yourself is not a luxury that gets scheduled in somewhere after you've taken care of everything and everyone else. It's what makes everything and everyone else sustainable. Don't wait until you're running on nothing to figure that out. If teacher burnout is already a part of this conversation for you, grab your copy of Teachaholic 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!

When the job boards are starting to post for next year, your mind and your heart can start to wonder if a change is what you need to love teaching again. If you're already looking, this one's for you. "Guidance for Mid-Career Educators: Navigating the Challenges of Switching Teaching Positions" When you're more than halfway through the year, exhausted to your core, students deep in the second semester slump, a little thought can quietly show up in the back of your mind: What if next year looked different? Maybe it's been a rough year, or a rough couple of years, and you've reached the point where something clearly has to give. Maybe it's not even that dramatic, and you've just been curious about what else is out there: a different grade level, a different content area, a different kind of room entirely. Whatever is pulling at you, this is the time of year when it gets louder, because the job boards are starting to fill up with positions for the upcoming school year and suddenly that vague "what if" has actual listings attached to it. Let's talk about switching teaching positions in depth, because your future deserves more than a pep talk. Episode 52 of the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast: Erin Sponaugle shares insights on transitioning between grade levels or teaching positions. Listen now for expert advice. It's Okay to Want Something Different I want to say this before anything else, because teachers don't hear it enough: wanting a change does not mean you failed at what you were doing. It doesn't mean you're being disloyal, or dramatic, or that you should just push through for a few more years. We are not meant to stagnate. We are people, and people grow and change, and at different points in life they want and need different things. That's true for everyone except, apparently, for teachers, who often get the subtle message that choosing to stay in one classroom doing one thing forever is the noble path and anything else is abandonment. I want to push back on that pretty firmly. Staying and thriving is wonderful. But staying and slowly hollowing out is not something to be proud of, and it is not good for you or for your students. The Real Advantages of Staying in the Same Teaching Position Year After Year Here's the thing, though. There genuinely are good reasons to stay, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, because this isn't a post that's telling you to blow everything up. It's a post that's helping you think clearly so you can make the right call for yourself. When you stay in a grade level or content area for years, you become good at it. You know the content deeply, you know the age group, you've figured out what works and what doesn't, and that knowledge is valuable. There's a real comfort in walking into your classroom knowing exactly what you're doing and why. You can pull out materials you've refined over years, you can adapt them for whoever's in your room this year, and you can operate at a level of proficiency that takes a long time to build. We need teachers who have that depth, and it is genuinely an advantage. There's also the matter of recognition. When you're known in your school or district as the person who does a particular thing really well, that opens doors too, whether it's moving into a leadership role on a team, being tapped for committee work, or being seen as the go-to person in your content area. None of that is nothing. It's real, and it's worth factoring in. Considering a Change in Your Teaching Career? Discover Important Insights Before You Decide! The Cons of Staying Put: When Comfort Becomes a Rut But here's the flip side, and this is where it gets honest (or how I've honestly felt at times as a teacher). Boredom is real. Even when you love your content and your age group, doing the same thing year after year can eventually drain the enthusiasm that made you good at it in the first place. That's just being human. You can also get into a rut so deep that you can't see over the edges of it anymore, and that's when you start losing your edge and your joy. It creeps up. One day you're a teacher who loves what they do, and a few years later you're just getting through the week, and you're not even sure exactly when that shift happened. Then there's the typecast problem. You know how certain actors always get cast as the same kind of character? Same thing happens in schools. Maybe you always get the high-ability students, or maybe you always get the students with behavior challenges because everybody knows you can handle them. And yes, that's a compliment. It really is. But getting the same deck of cards every single year, never getting to expand or stretch or try something new, that wears on your joy in a way that's hard to explain until you're living it. And Last but not least, we have the recovering Teachaholic. If you're in the process of coming back from burnout and trying to build better boundaries around your time and energy, doing the same job in the same space with the same expectations piled on top can make that process a whole lot harder. Sometimes the environment itself has to change for the person inside it to change. Exploring Teacher Guilt: Understanding the Challenges of Being Stuck Due to Perceived Expertise. "But You're So Good at It." (And Other Things That Will Try to Keep You From Switching Teaching Positions) Ugh, this one. This is the one that gets you (and me). You start to mention, maybe tentatively, that you're thinking about something different, and suddenly the people around you have a lot of feelings about that. "But you're so good at this. Why would you want to leave? We don't know what we'd do without you. You've really got it figured out here." And the guilt just pours right in, doesn't it? I know, because it happened to me, and I know how hard it is to hold your ground against it. Here's what I want to say to you as plainly as I can: you cannot let how other people feel about what you should be doing with your career determine what you actually choose to do with your career. You get one life, one teaching career. You do not owe anyone the version of yourself that is most convenient for them. What other people want from you is information, not your instruction manual. What to Consider Before Switching Grade Levels or Content Areas If you're seriously looking at a move, here are the things worth thinking through carefully, because a decision made purely out of exhaustion and a desire to escape tends to look different in September than it did in March. First, look at the full picture of any position you're considering, not just what it isn't, but what it actually is. If you're considering a different grade level, think about what changes and what doesn't. A different schedule, a different age group, a different set of colleagues, potentially a different school entirely. Those are all real factors, and they go both ways. Second, if you're interested in something you haven't done before, go observe it if you can. Actually being in a room where that thing is happening tells you so much more than you can gather from a job description or even an interview. I think there's real value in seeing, not just imagining. Be careful about asking other teachers if they like their position. Here's why. If I had gone up to an art teacher and asked, "Do you like teaching art?" and she'd been having a terrible year or was burning out, she could have talked me right out of something that turned out to be the best professional decision I ever made. Instead of asking whether someone likes their job, ask them what they like about it and what's harder than they expected. That gives you much more useful information than a yes or no that might be more about where they are on any given day than about the job itself. "Embracing Change: Reflections on Transitioning from a 5th Grade Teacher to an Art Educator" My Own Story: From Fifteen Years in Fifth Grade to Art Teacher I taught fifth grade for fifteen years. Before that, a year each of third and fourth grade. So seventeen years as a general education classroom teacher, and somewhere around year fifteen of fifth grade, I pretty much decided that I could not do this for the rest of my career. It wasn't that I didn't love my students or that I wasn't good at teaching anymore. But the increasing focus on standardized testing, the boredom, the drama-rama of almost-middle-schoolers- I knew in my bones that I could not sustain that for another fifteen to twenty years. Something had to change. Ironically, I actually considered going to the middle school. I went and interviewed, learned the schedule, toured the building, really thought it through. And I came away from that experience knowing that it wasn't right for me. It would have been more of the same, just in a different building. I'm really glad I did that process, because it kept me from making a move based on wanting to escape rather than wanting to move toward something. So I went back to the drawing board (literally). I was still in fifth grade, still feeling the pull to change, and then one afternoon I was sitting at my desk looking at the drawings my students had given me. One of my fifth graders had drawn this really detailed portrait of me, and I had it up on my wall because honestly it was impressive. And something just switched on in my head. I could be an art teacher. At that point I had already written and illustrated my first children's book, and something about it all clicking together- the art, the kids, the creative space lit me up in a way that I couldn't let go of. The only catch was that I wasn't certified to teach art. So I did my homework, figured out what I needed to do, and I passed the Praxis to get my art certification. That took effort and time. But I wanted it enough to do the work, because it meant enough to me. I also let my administrator know I was interested in an art position if one ever opened at our school. I didn't tell everybody, but I told the person who needed to know. And then I waited. The position took about two and a half to three years to open up. But when it did, I was ready. Exploring the Impact of Teacher Burnout and Career Transition: Insights into Changing Grade Levels. The Reality of Changing Teaching Positions: What Catches You Off Guard I want to be honest with you here, because I think the stuff that's hard to say is the stuff that's actually most useful. When you've done something for a long time and then you stop, there's a grief to it. A real one. For me, that was complicated by the fact that the pandemic hit at the end of my last year in fifth grade, and I never got a proper goodbye to my classroom, my students, or that chapter of my teaching life. Just Zoom, have a good summer, hope this is over soon. That stung. Even when the change is the right thing, the leaving has its own weight. You also lose sight of the shore. You let go of familiarity. You let go of all the things you knew how to do without thinking, and you start over from scratch. New curriculum, new systems, new colleagues, new everything. That is disorienting even when it's exciting. For me, taking on an art room for the first time meant figuring it out largely as I went. There were moments where I was very much making it up and hoping the kids couldn't tell (they mostly couldn't). And honestly, that whole experience of having to figure it out fast built a level of resilience and confidence in me that I didn't know I had. When you're forced to improvise and you pull it off, you find out what you're actually made of. Keep in Mind It's a Trade, Not a Rescue Here's the thing I want you to hold onto, because I think it's the most important practical piece of this whole conversation: making a change is a trade. Not an escape, not a rescue, not a magic fix for how depleted you're feeling right now. A trade. You will exchange the specific challenges of your current position for the specific challenges of the new one. Let me give you the real picture from the art side. Teaching art is physically more intense than teaching fifth grade. I am on my feet all day, every day. I see over 600 kids throughout the week instead of one class. I do more direct teaching, more reviewing, more talking, more prepping materials, more cleaning up materials, and by the end of the day the overstimulation of constant color and scissors and glue and noise is real, and I have to intentionally decompress when I get home or it catches up with me. Is it easier than fifth grade? No. It is different. And different is what I needed. I am in alignment now with who I am at this stage of my life in a way that I wasn't before. Teaching art fits my values about education, my passion for creativity, my belief that the so-called soft subjects actually do more for students than we give them credit for, and my personality as someone who functions well as the one-of-a-kind unicorn of the school. When I was teaching fifth grade, that was right for who I was then. Art is right for who I am now. Both things can be true. Exploring the Benefits and Challenges of Switching Grade Levels or Subjects: A Guide to Making Informed Decisions. What Happens on the Other Side You will get better at it faster than you think. You already have the classroom experience, the relationship skills, the professional instincts. You just have a new context to apply them to. And you may discover strengths you didn't know you had, because you never needed them before. Change is sometimes hard on your colleagues, especially the ones who depended on you or who are going to miss what you brought to your old team. That's real, and it matters, but time does usually heal it. And whatever upheaval happens on the inside- the fear and the chaos and the moments where you wonder if you did the right thing- that settles down, too, often faster than you'd expect. A year from now, you could be in an entirely different place, not just in a different room, but emotionally. And that's the goal. Don't downplay what you want. Don't let guilt from people who care about you or convenience for your school talk you out of your own growth. You don't know who is watching you make this decision and quietly filing away the courage it takes as evidence that they can do something similar. Your kids, your spouse, your colleagues- they're all watching. And your good decisions ripple further than you'll ever fully know. You owe yourself the chance to grow. Don't deny it. If teacher burnout is part of what's driving this conversation for you, Teachaholic was written exactly for this moment. Find it 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!

I’m not sure where you’re at in your summer break (if you are reading this during the summer), but for me, at the time of this posting, there is exactly one month left of summer break. Time flies. Maybe you’ve already started thinking about it, or planning for the new year. Maybe you’re like "shhhhh don’t say anything, I can’t hear you!" I’m not ready to start thinking about it in earnest either, and I’m not too jazzed by the Target and Walmart displays of school supplies already up either. I know a lot of people focus on what you need to start the school year and there are a lot of things, too many to put in one podcast. So what I’m going to focus on are the things you DON’T need for back to school as you begin setting up your classroom for back to school. Want to listen to this message instead of read? You can hear the audio version in my podcast or click the Mp3 below. Now I need to clarify some things. This is coming from the perspective of someone who has taught upper elementary for going on 23 years. Wow, this could be my final decade in the classroom. I feel like the giant eyed emoji saying that. So this is directed to my elementary, upper elementary readers. It’s also more for you who, perhaps are a newly hired teacher, and while you feel excited, perhaps you’re getting a little overwhelmed at all there is to do and acquire before the start of the year. Or, maybe you’re heading back into the classroom after being on an extended break in your career. Or…maybe you haven’t recuperated from last year yet and you’re feeling a little or a lot burnt out still from that. OR…perhaps you know going into this school year that it’s going to be a little more difficult due to circumstances out fo your control, not necessarily classroom related, but things going on in your personal life. I have been in all of those situations at the start of the year at some point, and it’s not a great feeling. I felt inadequate and dismayed that there was an ever growing list of things to do or get just to keep my head above water, not to mention try to keep up with everyone else. Before I begin my list of things you don’t need for back to school, I’ll tell you what matters most: that you teach the kids and help them realize their purpose in this world. Being a good teacher has nothing to do with all the hooey you’ve seen on Tik Tok and Instagram reels this summer while your mindlessly scrolling through your phone. (and…if that is a habit you need to break, check out episode 3 on Social Media and Teachers to see if what you are consuming online is making you WELL or SICK). Your students need you and what you have to share with them from your mind and your heart, not what caught your eye at the Target Dollar Spot. Also, being a teacher is an expense in itself. There are ultimately going to be things you’ll be purchasing for your classroom either what I call passion purchases or things out need - so not going for broke - literally - at the beginning of the year to set up your room is important in the long run. ...And one more thing - if any of the things I’m about to tell you is something that you love, something gets your serotonin going and pumps you up to go back to school, by all means, carry on. Get it girl (or boy). That’s great. This is for the people that feel they must fill their shopping cart with all the things because that one account you follow on social media told you to. So let’s go unshopping, or deinfluencing I like that word even better. What do you NOT need to set up your classroom to start the school year? #1: Teachers don’t need matchy-matchy color coordinated supplies or even a theme when setting up their classroom for back to school. I said what I said. Yes it’s very pretty. It’s even prettier with an Instagram filter. But you can have a functional, pleasing to the eye classroom without having shiplap bulletin board paper, or mint green everything, or all the groovy 70s goodness (these kids don’t even know what the 70s were; it's you that thinks the peace signs and VW buses are cute). Theme and colors won’t matter two weeks into the school year when you need to reteach how to line up and have a strategy for how you’re going to pre-assess all your students for their literacy inventory. I think the first thing practically that you can cross off your mental load is coming up with a theme or color scheme for the year. If you love that and have the time for it, carry on. But if it stresses you out and doesn’t light your fire, move on. #2 - Teachers don’t need to do the large calendars that have to be changed out and renumbered throughout the year in their classrooms. This kind of goes back to why you don’t need a theme. But let me explain further. I’m talking about those big, color coordinated calendars that have the months and the days you change out. They look nice. The idea of them is nice. You know what’s not nice? When you have to change them out. Every month. And then, come October, when disillusionment hits (see episode 4), that calendar is going to stay parked at September. For months. And then one day in the middle of January you’re going to look up during a math lesson at that giant albatross of a calendar you gave up on that’s still at September and feel like a failure. Why do we put a calendar up anyway? So you know the date. You know what is easier to maintain and takes up less space? Write the date on the board. Use a regular size, flip through calendar and hang it on the board or somewhere your students frequent like above the pencil sharpener or by the door so they can see important dates. Or…if you have access to technology, they very well may have a calendar already on their device. Or you can airdrop it to them. But torturing yourself with the giant, calendar baby that need changing, no, don’t do it to yourself. You don’t need it and neither do your kids. That also goes for any large display in your classroom that will need changed over time. Keep those at a minimum because you will have more than enough to occupy your time when the school year gets going. Set it to forget it. #3: Teachers don’t need classroom jobs to start the school year. Let’s get away from the physical things you don’t need although this does touch on classroom displays. And someone is not going to agree with me, but that’s good. We need different view points. But you’re listening to me and you’re about to hear mine. Yes, classroom jobs are a great way to have your students take responsibility and ownership over the classroom. They need to be accountable for cleaning up their space and using materials correctly. And…you can establish that and expect that from them without classroom jobs. That comes from you - the expectation, and the modeling of how they are all responsible and need to learn how to be mindful of their space and yours. You don’t need classroom jobs that have to be changed out or remembered on a daily basis. You don’t. If you have established a system for doing this in your room and you’ve got it on lock, that’s great. If you are feeling overwhelmed and like you’ve got to get classroom jobs set up while you’re putting together how you’re going to teach spelling each week - choose spelling! Jobs are one of the things you can eliminate. Now, what's an alternate is to have a helper of the week? Keep it simple. You pick one or two students and a back up/substitute, and those kids help you - errands to the office, passing out materials, sweeping at the end of the day - that’s it. No jobs to change out, no display to change up each week, and nobody argues over who did what job last because you don’t need that in your life. #4: Teachers don’t need to buy the giant student desk name tags for back to school. Let me explain so you have a visual. There are these desk helper name tags if you will, that have everything but the kitchen sink on them.They’ve got the alphabet, number lines, fractions, be kind reminders…oh they are very pretty. And it sounds like a great idea - give your students this lovely desk helper -name tag to start off the year. Real talk time. First, I’ve seen things on these super name tags that I’d rather my kids not have access to in the event of a quiz or test. Not that it would matter, because, what goes on the desk? Books. iPad. Worksheets. They aren’t going to see the fancy pants name tag once you start teaching because… you will be teaching and you will be giving them things that have the resources on them anyway. Also more real talk. You can glue it, you can tape it, you can contact paper that name tag to the top of that desk. You can even get those fancy plastic sleeves you put the name tags in and stick them on there. And it will not matter…because that name tag WILL end up peeling off the desk at some point. Oh go ahead. Make some incentive and consequence if the kid peels it off. Either on purpose or just from wear and tear, that name tag is going to have seen better days by March (if not before). So what do you do so you can learn their names and the kids can find out where they sit? Go to the Dollar Tree and get a couple packs of simple name tags - probably for a fraction of the cost of the name tag-zillas. I liked to put their name tags on the front, not the top of the desk, so I could see and learn their names quickly (and so the kids couldn’t peel them off). You could also put their names on the sides if you start them out in groups, I wanted a few days to put them in groups but that’s for our classroom management episode. If they sit at tables and not desks, you can do name tents instead of sticking them on the desks, some of the ones I’ve seen at dollar tree have that option anyway. You can also just write their name on the desk or table with a Sharpie or Dry Erase marker. It will some off with hand sanitizer or a wiper over time so you’re not damaging anything. I know, clutch the pearls. Oh wait, we're teachers, we don't have pearls. Clutch the lanyards then. But you don’t need to invest the time and energy that is so very limited at the start of the school year into name tags. End rant. #5: You don’t need to get pillows and rugs and fancy squishy chairs for your classroom for back to school. Yes. I said what I said. Again. And Instagram told you differently. Instagram told you that those things make a classroom environment more inviting, friendly, calming. Instagram didn’t tell you how dirty those things are going to get - fast. It won’t take long, especially rugs. For time and sanitary purposes, you need to have things in your room that you can wipe down and disinfect quickly. You can’t do that with fabric surfaces. If someone throws up or has an itchy head…you know what I mean…that rug and those pillows are going to lose their appeal fast. I understand the need to make your space inviting and fun, but my workspace at home looks a lot different than my living room. Do I work in my living room sometimes - yes. But…I’m at home. Off duty. This is not going to be everyone’s popular opinion, but there is a difference between a classroom and a bedroom or other living space. There are ways to make your classroom space inviting without going all HGTV on it. Yeah, I’m afraid to say theme or coordinating colors, because I told you already you don’t need that for back to school, but the best way to have your classroom be inviting is have your students create it. Put their work and creations up. Have out books that may interest them or bring in pictures that are important to you or were important to you at their age. That builds connection and community more than the see through blow up chairs from five below that are going to get punctured by a speeding pencil point. So to review, 5 things you don’t need for back to school this year - especially if your body, soul, and wallet are operating on a shoestring budget: Matching supplies or a theme Giant Wall Calendars that have to be changed monthly - or bulletin boards that need to be changed period Classroom jobs - just do helpers of the week. The giant all knowing name tags desk toppers space suckers Pillows, rugs, furniture that takes up more space than you have All of that to say the most important thing that’s ready to go on the first day of school is you. Not your stuff. Having a plan for how you will teach behaviors and content will always supersede the little things that seen to take up a lot of space before the kids show up on the first day. You know what you DO need for back to school? A fast and effective way to create resources, meet your student needs, and get some assistance planning out your year. Give ChatGPT a try with this FREE Guide and sample prompts to get you started - you might even find yourself referring. to it all year long! Grab it below!

Silly season is officially upon us, and your supplies are feeling it. Here's how to get through the rest of the year with your materials and your sanity mostly intact. Understanding Classroom Challenges: Addressing Student Misuse of School Supplies. You know what nobody told you when you decided to become a teacher? That one day you'd watch a kid casually snap a brand new colored pencil in half, stare directly at you, and then shrug. And you'd have to decide in real time whether to address it or just keep teaching because you have fourteen more things to cover before the bell rings. Welcome to March. Where the kids are tired, you're tired, and your classroom supplies are clinging to life by a thread. Students misusing or destroying classroom supplies becomes a common occurrence the closer you crawl towards Spring Break. This is the time of year when materials that have been treated just fine since August suddenly start going through what I can only describe as an identity crisis. Things end up on the floor. Things end up in the trash. Things end up somewhere nobody can explain. And you've got the most intensive teaching of the year still ahead of you, so you need that stuff. Let's get to it. Episode 51 of the "Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast" with Erin Sponaugle discusses strategies for managing when students misuse or destroy classroom supplies. Tune in now! Three Reasons Classroom Supplies Go Sideways in March (And They're Not All the Kids' Fault) I like to sort supply problems into three categories, or buckets if you will, because not every situation calls for the same response. What looks like a kid being destructive is sometimes just a kid who doesn't know what to do with a crayon that's now the size of a Tic Tac. So let's be honest about what's actually happening before we react. When Classroom Materials Are Just Wearing Down Naturally The first bucket isn't really about behavior at all. Some of your supplies are just running on borrowed time because they've been used by actual children all year long, and that is exactly what they were supposed to do. Books whose spines are starting to flap. Crayons that are now so short they've become a choking hazard. Chalk pastels that crumble if you look at them too hard. These things happen, and kids genuinely don't always know what to do when a material they're used to using starts looking like it belongs in the recycle bin. So they either keep using it with the same amount of force as always, which doesn't end well, or they just toss it because it looks done. This is where you demo. Show them what to do with the nubby, stubby version of the supply in its twilight era. Show them how to pinch the tiny crayons between their fingers to still get color on the paper. As an art teacher, I have had to become a legitimate evangelist for the use of broken pastels and crayon pieces, and I'm here to tell you, broken crayons still color. They still work. You just have to show the kids that, because they won't assume it on their own. I also love the idea of a care squad in the classroom. A basket or box where anything that's starting to fall apart can be dropped anonymously, and a couple of designated helpers who know how to make simple repairs- tape, glue, whatever the situation calls for. Kids actually love being on the care squad, whether they're five or fifteen. Give them a job, and they'll do it, and you'll save a handful of things that were headed for the trash before they needed to be. And if you've got supplies that are in their final days no matter what, plan for it. I save certain projects for the end of the year specifically so we can go out in a blaze of glory with all those stubby little crayon pieces and half-used pastels. They get used up with purpose instead of just disintegrating in somebody's desk. Tips for Managing Classroom Supplies: Strategies to Prevent Destruction and Encourage Respectful Use. Silly Season: Managing Careless Use of Classroom Supplies in the Spring Okay. This is the big one, and if it hasn't fully arrived in your classroom yet, buckle up, because it's coming. Silly season. It's real, it's annual, and it typically peaks somewhere between late February and the moment spring break finally arrives. The kids have been told all year how to use things, where to put things, and how to take care of the materials in your room. And somewhere around now, all of that information has apparently been filed in a folder labeled "not currently relevant" somewhere in the back of their brains, right next to the location of the pencil pouch they haven't seen since January. Things start ending up on the floor. Unowned objects roll toward you while you're teaching and nobody claims them. Paper that was meant for a spelling test gets used to make fortune tellers. No joke. I once had to pull the notebook paper tray that I'd kept out all year for easy access specifically because it kept disappearing into origami projects. I put it on limited access, distributed it myself, and waited until the fortune teller fad ran its course. You do what you have to do. Here's my approach for silly season: assume they've forgotten everything, and reteach anyway. Yes, it's annoying. Yes, they'll give you the look that says, "We've already done this." You do it anyway, because losing ten minutes to a quick reset at the start of the week is a much better outcome than losing class time later because nobody has what they need. This is also the moment to take stock of what should be full access versus limited access in your classroom. Some things can stay out and be grabbed as needed, and some things have earned themselves a temporary relocation behind the teacher's desk until the energy settles. I promise that's not admitting defeat. That's reading the room and adjusting for the kids you actually have right now, not the kids you had in September. Accountability still matters in silly season. We're not going to let careless use of materials slide just because it's a busy time of year. Cleaning up after yourself, keeping track of your own supplies, putting things back where they belong- these are life skills, and a teacher's job description has always included more than the academic content. It's our job to teach them how to be in the world, too. Children can be engaged in a collaborative classroom activity, focusing on effective use of materials during the "silly season" leading up to Spring Break. What to Do When Students Are Intentionally Destroying Classroom Supplies The third bucket is the one nobody wants to be in, but here we are. There are kids who will intentionally damage things, and there are a lot of reasons behind that. Maybe they don't have a frame of reference for respecting other people's property. Maybe they're dealing with something heavy emotionally, and destroying something felt like a release. Maybe they saw a video on social media where someone did something destructive at school and got a thousand likes for it, because that was absolutely a thing for a while, and I am still irritated about it. Whatever the reason, there is no excuse for it, and we're not going to manufacture one. This is where consistent consequences, administrative involvement if needed, and parent communication become non-negotiable. You document it, you follow your school's policies, and you make it very clear in your classroom that this is not a place where that kind of thing is tolerated. Leave it better than you found it. That's the rule in my room, and it applies every single day. Two things that have saved me more times than I can count when it comes to tracking down who did what: seating charts and numbered supplies. If something is damaged at a table or a station, a seating chart tells you exactly who was there and when. And if kids are assigned a number that corresponds to their supplies or their spot, you can follow the trail. I've watched a student's face go absolutely blank when they realized I knew exactly who had used what. How did you know? Seating chart, friend. It's always the seating chart. And when it comes to social media trends that involve doing something destructive for views, this is worth a direct conversation with your class. What they see on a reel is someone trying to get attention from strangers on the internet. That is not real life, and it is not something that's going to happen in your classroom. Say it plainly. Say it without drama. And then hold the line on it. How to Handle Classroom Supplies Being Damaged: Tips for Teachers to Stay Calm What You're NOT Going to Do When Supplies Get Misused Just as important as the strategies is what you're choosing not to do, because this time of year has a way of pulling you into reactions that don't actually help anything. You're not going to yell. I know. I know it's tempting when you watch someone grind a crayon into the carpet for absolutely no reason. But your voice is a tool you need to get through the rest of this school year, and burning it out over a misused supply isn't worth it. Some kids do these things specifically to get a rise out of you. Some kids get yelled at at home, and they're desensitized to it. Neither situation benefits from you raising your voice. Stay even. Say your piece firmly and at a normal volume. You're not going to keep replacing things that get damaged or used up carelessly. I mean this one. If you replace everything that gets broken or runs out from misuse, you're setting a precedent that there are no real consequences for how things get treated. Sometimes kids need to go without the thing they misused for a little while. Sometimes that's the most effective lesson you can give, because it's direct and they feel it immediately. This is also self-respect. You don't replace things that get broken in your classroom. That's a boundary, and you're allowed to have it. You're not going to let it mess with your focus or your morale. Coming in to find that something you spent your own money on is now destroyed is genuinely upsetting, and I'm not going to tell you it shouldn't be. But how students treat supplies doesn't reflect your effectiveness as a teacher. It reflects where they are right now and what they still need to learn. So collect that information, adjust accordingly, reteach what needs to be retaught, and you keep going. I once had green chalk pastel streaked from a chair all the way out into the hallway. Not going to name names, not going to describe the conversation that followed, but I will say the classroom was clean by the end of the day and we moved on. You will, too. Teachers manage classroom chaos as students misuse supplies ahead of spring break. Explore strategies to maintain order and focus during this challenging time. The Rhythm of the Ocean Here's what I keep coming back to when the supplies are a mess and silly season is in full effect: this is the rhythm of the ocean. It ebbs and flows every single year, and it always looks a little rough in March. We teach the kids we have in front of us, not the class we had last year or the one we're hoping to get next year. We adjust for who's actually in the room; we hold the expectations firmly but without losing our peace over it, and we keep teaching. The care squad fixes what can be fixed. The limited access drawer holds what needs to be held. The nubby crayons still color. And you're going to get through this stretch intact, supplies and all. If the home stretch of the school year is wearing you down in ways that go beyond the crayon situation, Teachaholic was written for exactly this moment. Grab your copy on Amazon in Kindle and paperback, and download the free Teachaholic Action Guide here. 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. Download your free Teachaholic Action Guide to get started on your journey below!

It's the time of year when everyone is tired, including the kids. Here's how to handle back talk without handing over the keys to the bus. Handling students who back talk: strategies for maintaining classroom respect and keeping a positive attitude. It's March Madness. And I don't mean the basketball kind. I mean the specific kind of madness that rolls through schools every single year right around this stretch of the calendar, where it's a different kid every day of the week who's having a problem, the energy in the building is running hotter than the rising temperatures, and back talk starts coming at you faster than you can redirect it. The thing is, it's not personal, even when it feels completely personal. It's just the nature of this particular beast, and it's happening in classrooms all over the country right now, not just yours. But knowing it's predictable doesn't make it any less gutting when it happens, especially when you're already scraping the bottom of your tank trying to hold on until spring break. Knowing how to handle it when students back talk will save you additional stress and allow you to keep teaching. So let's get to it, because you deserve more than vague encouragement right now. You deserve actual things to say and do when a kid looks you in the eye and decides that today is the day to push every one of your buttons. Episode 50 of the "Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast" explores handling student disrespect, featuring insights from Erin Sponaugle. Listen now! Why Student Disrespect Spikes This Time of Year (And Why It's Not About You) Before we talk about what to do, let's talk about why this is happening, because understanding it actually makes it easier to not take it home with you. First of all, everybody is tired. Your students, their parents, your coworkers, you. The third quarter of the school year tends to be when the heaviest content is taught, and the most work is piled on, which means kids who are already struggling to keep up are hitting a wall right about now. When someone is overloaded and their executive function is running on fumes, things come out of their mouths that probably shouldn't. We're not that different, honestly. We just have a few more decades of practice managing it. Back talk also happens because, for some kids, it's what works at home. If speaking a certain way gets attention, elicits a reaction, or gets resources directed at them, then their brains have wired that connection, and they'll bring it right into your classroom when something doesn't go their way. They're not trying to ruin your day. They're doing the thing that has historically gotten them what they need: connection and a response. It's the wrong way to go about it, but it makes sense when you look at it that way. And sometimes, if we're being really honest, it has nothing to do with you or your classroom at all. Something happened at home. Something happened on the bus. Something happened with a friend or sibling, and they've been carrying it all morning. You happened to be the one standing there when it all came out. You're not the source of their angst as much as you're just the nearest outlet. None of that makes the behavior okay. It just makes it make sense. Guidance for Educators: Managing Student Disrespect with Calm Strategies The First Step to Handle Students Back Talk? Don't Give Them the Keys to the Car Here's the frame I keep coming back to when things get heated in the classroom: don't give them the keys to the car. Or, to be more school-vibes, the bus. Think about it this way. There are two kinds of energy operating in your classroom at any given moment, yours and theirs. Sometimes those bubbles of energy bump into each other, and when they do, you want that moment to connect, not to pop both bubbles at once. The kids who talk back and are disrespectful are usually looking for a reaction. They're used to getting one. They are expecting fireworks, and if you give them fireworks, they've just taken the wheel. You wouldn't hand your car keys to someone who doesn't know how to drive yet. So don't hand them your emotional keys either, because they don't know how to handle those yet, and your whole class is watching what you're going to do. Meet the crazy with the calm. Every single time. What to Actually Say When a Student Is Disrespectful in the Classroom Okay. A kid said something they shouldn't have. Or rolled their eyes. Or huffed, or muttered something under their breath, or threw something down. Here's what we're doing, and what we're not doing. We are not yelling. We are not matching their energy or meeting them in whatever chaos they've brought into the room. We are not launching into a lengthy correction that gives them the audience they were looking for. The rest of your class is watching, and they're already a little wound up about it (and waiting for a show). The last thing they need is to see the lesson get derailed by one student's moment. What we're doing instead is staying even, staying firm, and saying less than they expect. Here are some things that work really well, and I'll tell you my personal favorite in a second. You can say, "That's unacceptable. We don't do that here." That's my go-to, and I mean it every time. You can say, "I'll talk to you later," with a pause, direct eye contact, and nothing else. No explanation of what "later" means, no preview of what's coming. Just those five words and then you move on. If things have escalated to the point where you need to call the office, you say, "Excuse me, I need to call the office," and you do it. Calmly. Like it's the most normal thing in the world. And if you're not ready to speak yet because what they said really rattled your cage, there's always the Care Bear stare. I know, I'm dating myself as an Oregon Trail millennial who grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons, but it works. You just look at them. You get quiet. You wait. They were expecting an eruption, and instead they got silence, and silence is genuinely disorienting when you're braced for a fight. The rest of the class will settle down too, because now nobody knows what's coming, and the energy shifts. No words required. You've just unleashed your inner Grumpy Bear (or whichever Care Bear is your fave). Then you keep teaching. You proceed, and the show goes on. Tools and Strategies for Managing Student Back Talk: A Teacher's Guide to Classroom Success Why "Keep Teaching" Is Actually Part of the Strategy I want to be direct about this because I think it's something teachers don't always hear: getting back to the lesson isn't avoiding the issue. It IS the strategy. Kids who back talk or act out are often looking for exactly what happens when a class gets derailed. Everyone goes off track, the lesson stops, they become the center of attention. When you take a breath, say your firm three words, and go right back to teaching without skipping a beat, you are showing every student in that room that one person's behavior doesn't get to decide what the rest of the class does today. That is a powerful thing for them to see. You're also modeling regulation. How you respond to a hard moment is teaching them how to respond to hard moments. So if you stay calm, you stay on task, and you stay in charge, they're watching that, too. The One-on-One Conversation After an Incident Where Students Back Talk Once the student is no longer the center of attention and things have settled down, that's when you have the real conversation. If anything about the situation made you feel unsafe, bring an administrator or a colleague with you. I can't say this clearly enough: teacher safety matters, and you should never feel like you have to navigate a heated situation alone. When you sit down with them, here's the framework I've used for years, and it doesn't have to take long: Identify the behavior without loading it with emotion. Not "that was really hurtful and disrespectful." Just: "You said (insert comment) when I was teaching." Or "You rolled your eyes when I gave you that direction." State what you observed, the information you collected, and leave your feelings out of the delivery for now. Then say, "That's unacceptable. We don't do that here." Same thing you said in the moment. This is you building consistency. If they try to justify it, don't get pulled into a back-and-forth. You can just repeat: "You said (insert comment). That's unacceptable." That's it. Then, if the behavior was a little out of character for this kid, ask: "Is there something going on?" And mean it. Because sometimes there is, and you are a trusted adult, and giving them a moment to tell you what's happening is part of the job. They may try to use it as an out, and you can see that coming, but sometimes they'll actually tell you something real, and that matters. Whatever they share, your response is, "Thank you for telling me that. Here's the thing: how you responded was still unacceptable." Then comes the teaching moment. "When you feel that way, here's what you can do instead." Give them something concrete, whether it's asking for a minute, taking a breath, or telling you quietly that they're struggling. Let them know what the better choice looks like. And then the consequence. Whatever your school's policies require, follow through. Every time. Consistency is what makes this work. End it with, "This needs to never happen again." And then you let them go. Understanding Student Disrespect: Insights and Strategies for Teachers to Manage Challenges Without Experiencing Burnout. The Truth About Apologies (And Why I Don't Force Them) Here's my take on this one, and I know it might raise some eyebrows. I don't make kids give me a faux apology. I don't want a "sorry" that means nothing because they felt like they had to say it to close the loop and get out of trouble. That teaches them absolutely nothing except how to perform remorse on demand. What I want, if they're going to apologize, is for them to actually mean it. And if they're not ready to mean it in that moment, I'm not going to force it out of them. Sometimes the apology comes the next day. Sometimes it comes a week later. And sometimes the apology I get is that they never do it again in my classroom, and honestly, that's the best one. The next time they walk in, we've moved on. I'm not rehashing it, I'm not holding it over them, and I'm not making it the centerpiece of our relationship for the rest of the school year. We have things to do. Treat them as if you've already moved on, and give them the chance to prove they will, too. When to Call Parents (And When to Give Kids a Chance First) I'll be honest about how I handle this, especially with my fifth graders who are about to head into middle school. Not every single back-talk incident needs to go straight to a parent phone call. If it's a one-time thing, something that genuinely seems out of character, and the student responds well to the one-on-one conversation and adjusts their behavior, I'll sometimes handle it within the classroom and give them the chance to correct it themselves. Part of preparing kids for what comes next is giving them the opportunity to self-correct and take responsibility without always needing an outside adult to step in. Now, if it's a pattern, if it's escalating, or if it crosses a line that absolutely requires administrative involvement, you absolutely do that. You document, you make the calls, you follow the procedures. But for the one-off moments, there's something to be said for letting a kid feel the weight of what happened, handle the conversation with you, and then get to choose differently going forward. Managing Classroom Behavior: Effective Strategies for Handling Student Back Talk. The Part That Actually Matters You are going to encounter back talk this time of year, if you haven't been dealing with it all school year. It's going to happen on a day when you are already running on empty, and it's going to sting because you care about these kids and you're giving a lot to your job. But you don't have to get on the crazy train with them, and you don't have to let it drain what's left of your joy. You've got your firm statements, your Care Bear stare, your one-on-one framework, and the ability to keep teaching through it instead of letting one kid's hard moment become everybody's hard day. Stay calm. Keep going. And remember that how you show up in those moments is teaching them something too, something that matters a whole lot more than whatever was on the lesson plan for that afternoon. You've got this. And there's something better on the other side of spring break. If you're running close to burnout and need more than a pep talk to get through the rest of the year, 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!