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Hey there friend. Welcome to another episode of Artworks for Teachers. I’m your host, Susan Riley. And you know, today we’re gonna dive into a topic that I think is really important and something that is on a lot of educators’ minds, and I don’t wanna kind of tiptoe around it. I think this is something that we gotta be honest about.

I think a lot of people don’t address it because they’re afraid that if they do, it’s gonna result in more teachers quitting the profession. And I just, I don’t buy into that. I feel like if teachers are gonna quit the profession, they’re gonna do it. So you might as well talk about this. What is it? We’re gonna be talking about three common job fears that educators have.

We’re gonna bust through some of those myths and talk about the realities of what those fears actually are and how we can address them. And so the reason I wanted to do this is, We’re, as many of you know, if you’ve been listening for a while our certification enrollment period is open right now.

Our arts integration certification enrollment period. It’s open until February 15th and we’ve been receiving so many applications, which is phenomenal. If you haven’t gotten yours in, definitely go to arts integration.com/certification. And get your application in before the 15th. Shameless plug. I know.

But one of the questions on the application is what questions do you have about the program? And while many people actually put questions about the program, what we’re actually finding are questions about jobs, particularly around certification. Arts integration jobs, finding a new job, looking at other jobs that exist, and being nervous about the job that you currently have.

And so it was really surprising to me as I’m going through these applications, some of the questions that are popping up around careers and jobs, and I wanted to take a moment this week to address those things because I think it’s important. I do not hear a lot of people talking about. And I think it’s a shame because teachers have a lot of questions, so let’s just answer them.

Let’s address the root of the fears surrounding education jobs and I’m gonna do this from a couple of different perspectives. One from the teacher perspective, as I was a teacher for many, many years; Two from the administrator perspective because I was an administrator; and three from the employer’s standpoint because I am an employer.

And in the last year alone, I’ve had to hire and fire and deal with people who are quitting. All of the things, in a very short period of time. So as an employer, as a teacher, and as an administrator, I wanna talk about this experience. And let’s just get through the fear of it, because at the end of the day, a job is a job, my friends, even if it’s your calling.

That’s important to understand. A job is a job even if it’s your calling. So even if it’s your calling, it doesn’t mean that you have to stay in the job you’re currently in. Right? Many, many, many of us feel as though our calling in life is to be an educator, but that can look a lot of different ways.

Just because it looks one way for you now doesn’t mean it has to continue to look that way forever. And so today when we answer these, these top three fears, and by the way, there’s a lot of fears out there. These are just the three that I’m finding are the most common that are being asked of our organization right now.

And I wanted to address them, but certainly, there are many other fears that we can get into at another date. That side note aside I think that having these discussions and understanding. You can still be in your calling, but the job may look different, is something that we need to start to wrap our heads around.

Okay, so let’s dig in. Fear number one, if I don’t do X, I’ll lose my job. So in the insert X area, if I don’t do everything in the curriculum to the, the, the period at the end of the curriculum packet, I’ll lose my job. If I don’t agree to sit on every committee that my administrator asks me, I’ll lose my job. If I don’t do whatever it is that is like, if I don’t make my room look Pinterest-ready, I’ll lose my job.

All of these fears that we wrap into ourselves, I don’t know what yours is. Those are a couple of examples, but there are many, many, many other ones out there. If I don’t do whatever it is that you think your admin is looking for, I’ll lose my job. First of all, let’s start with the idea that all of the things that people want us to do, if we were to pile them on and look at that pile, there would be no way to get through it all.

Right. We have to start looking at boundaries. We’ve talked about this multiple times in this podcast already. The idea of boundaries in setting those boundaries for ourselves is critical because you do not get an award for burnout. You don’t get a badge for burnout. You get nothing. You get nothing for perfect.

And here’s the honest-to-goodness truth. Many educators are type a’s, not everyone, but many of them including myself, are the people who like looked for the gold stars when we were kids. You know, we wanted those a hundred percent of all the time. And we’re still acting that out as teachers in a job we don’t get an award for perfection in.

We don’t get a gold sticker. We don’t, we don’t get anything for burning ourselves out. And so boundaries are important and understanding what is the most important thing that you have to do in order to keep your job is also important. If your job is important to you, if you wanna stay in the job that you’re in and you’re nervous about doing something that could jeopardize that, then what we need to do, let’s be really clear:

you need to check your contract. What does your contract say? And usually that language is very clear, but also not as specific as you think it might be. Your contract may not spell out that you have to teach every unit in the curriculum packet exactly the way that it is. Okay, so when you’re thinking about this, I want you to go into your contract.

What does your contract say. And be very, very clear. Don’t make any assumptions. Just write down, here’s exactly what it says that I have to do, right? I have to be at work 20 minutes before the first bell rings. I have to stay after work, 20 minutes after the last bell rings. I am, you know, I have to plan lessons.

I have to be prepared. All of these, Okay, so if you wanna make sure that you can keep your job, you gotta meet your contract expectations. So if you have a list of your contract expectations and you can check all of those things off, you’re good. You’re good, my friend. Another question you can answer yourself are, are you meeting expectations using whatever framework it is that your district uses?

Many districts use the Danielson framework for teacher expectations. So when your administrator comes to evaluate you, what framework is that administrator using? Are you meeting the expectations on that framework? And if you don’t know what that framework is, go tomorrow morning. First thing, get the, whatever it is, whatever framework it is that your administrator uses for your evaluation, ask for a copy.

You’re entitled to it. Just go ask for a copy of it so that you can look and see, am I doing these things? Put those fears to rest. Okay? If you do those first two things, I promise, you can’t lose your job because one, you’re meeting contract expectations, and two, you’re meeting the expectations of the evaluation that is used for your performance review.

Right? And so using those two things objectively, and that’s the key word here, looking at this objectively, if you’re meeting those two things, you’re not going to lose your job. So if your room is not Pinterest-ready, but it is functional, it is clean, your students can work well there, it is a safe environment.

Then you’re meeting expectations, my friend, and you can let all of the other stuff go so that you can focus on what’s important to you. Okay. That’s part one, part two, and this is just from the employer’s side. Okay, so the first part was really from my experience as a teacher and also my experience as an admin.

Here’s part two, which is my experience as an admin plus an employer. The reality of the situation is we are in a teacher’s shortage. We do not have enough teachers. So right now, your job security is pretty good. So long as you’re meeting those expectations and your contract obligations, right? We really can’t afford to lose you.

Also, it’s really hard to fire someone whether or not you have tenure. I’m not even gonna go into that conversation about tenure because I have a, a strong feeling about that. But which we can get into another day. But in terms of just the reality of the world that we live in right now. Okay. After Covid, after a pandemic, after remote teaching with a teacher shortage, the realities of where we are right now, it’s really difficult to fire anyone, both from, if the standpoint of if you are meeting your contract obligations and your evaluations objectively, I’m, I’m not gonna be able to let you go as an administrator.

And two, just as a human, as someone who has had to let people go, it is the absolute worst part of my job. I would rather get a root canal, which is saying something because I’m really scared of the dentist. I would rather get a root canal than have to have that conversation. It is not something I wanna do, and I’m gonna avoid it at all possible costs.

So if this is a fear that you have, if I don’t do all of the things, I’ll lose my job. I need you to look at this more objectively and understand you won’t set yourself some good boundaries. Make sure that you are doing some good teaching, right? Whatever that looks like for you, that you’re meeting those expectations, that you are meeting your contract obligations and that you are teaching as well as you possibly can.

Don’t worry about the rest of it. All right? That’s fear number, fear number two, if I do X, I won’t be seen as a team player. So if I try arts integration and nobody else in my building is using it, I’m not gonna be seen as a team player because right now they’re focused on something else. If I do something else that my, that I really want to do, right, that I really wanna try I might not be seen as a team player because nobody else is doing that either, right?

Whatever it is. If I do this one thing, then I won’t be seen as a team player. This is, this is a big one for many people, especially those who are looking to do something. Whether it’s arts integration or STEAM or PBL or using the new AI bots that are out there to reconsider how we’re looking at lesson plans, even something like that, right?

That is outside of the norm. We’re worried that we’re not gonna be seen as a team player and that we’re this outsider who does the funky stuff, right? First question I wanna ask you is what is best for you right now? Because much like putting the oxygen mask on yourself before your child on an airplane, what is best for you right now is gonna be something that benefits you.

And if you are in a place of burnout where you cannot stomach coming in and doing the same stuff over and over all the time, over and over again, if you are in that space, you need something different. You need something creative, something new, something that makes your job fun again. Whatever that is.

It could be arts integration, could be anything, right? If that is what’s best for you, I am telling you do it. Do it. You’re not gonna lose your job. If you’re not seen as a team player, it’ll come back around because here’s what happens when you do stuff for you. If you implement a new teaching method, if you are looking at productivity and reframing your productivity in terms of looking at how you address emails, how often you’re taking on parent calls, all of those other things, whatever it is, whatever’s gonna give you more peace, creativity, and joy in your classroom, again, do it.

It’s going to benefit your students. You will be a happier, better teacher because of it. And then when you’re happier and you’re more joyful in your classroom, you students see that that energy level reciprocates. Okay, so it’s gonna be beneficial for your students. The other question that you’re gonna wanna ask is, what is best for my students?

If you’re considering using arts integration or a different approach, or something more creative with your students in your curriculum, and it’s not something everybody else does, that’s okay. Is it what’s best for your students who are sitting in front of you if they need that opportunity. Give it to them.

Cuz here’s what happens. Your results will speak for themselves. The more you do this, the more joy you bring into a classroom. The more creative experiences you bring for your students, the more novelty and enjoyment that you bring, your students are gonna rise. They’re gonna rise. They’re, there’s no other way to, to explain that because energy, it’s science.

Friends quantum physics, energy responds to like, right? It’s the tuning fork exercise where you bang on a tuning fork. The other tuning fork that you didn’t touch is gonna vibrate as well, because like energy attracts like energy quantum physics. So if you are bringing joy, you’re gonna see joy. If you are bringing your A game because you’re excited about whatever possibility you’re bringing in, your students are gonna start to bring in their A game.

And what happens when they bring their A game? Right. They start to do better because they wanna do better because they’re engaged, because they are clicking at a different level. So your results are going to speak for themselves when your results start talking. So do everybody else. That’s when the team comes to you,

All right, so that’s when team priorities start to shift. And I’m gonna give you a little secret that’s not really a secret. Admins don’t have all the answers. They’re charged by their bosses with increasing student achievement, whatever student achievement looks like in your district, and that is set by people outside of yourself.

So if student achievement is a score in reading or math or student achievement is higher levels of student engagement, lower classroom disruption rates. If student achievement is having social-emotional learning lessons embedded everywhere, whatever achievement is, right? Admins are charged with increasing student achievement.

Admins don’t always know how to. Right. We have good guesses. We have data that can inform us, and we have some ideas of research that we’ve looked at that may or may not work, and that’s how we kind of decide based on that information that I’ve got and the research that I’ve gotten, here’s the priority we’re gonna start with this year.

That’s usually how that goes. And when that conversation happens, you can be a part of that. If there’s something that you’ve been trying in your classroom and it’s working and the results are speaking for themselves, go have that conversation with your administrator. Invite them in to your classroom to see what’s working.

Invite them to plan with you. Invite them to look at your instructional lessons and see how that would, might. And then start to have a conversation with how can we start to use this in our school beyond just my classroom, right? Because the results start to speak for themselves, and that is when team players shift.

Right? That’s when priorities shift. Priorities are always going to shift because we’re always looking to make sure that we’re, that we’re doing the best thing we can for students, right? So when you are worried if I do this thing, I’m gonna be seen as an outcast, or I’m not gonna be seen as a team player.

You gotta know somebody’s gotta go first and it might as well be you if it’s something that you’re excited about, right? So give that a whirl. Fear number three, and this is big. If I lose my job or if I quit my job, then I’ll have to, and then you insert this downward spiral of bad things happening, right?

So if I lose my job, I’m going to end up homeless with no money, living in a box, petting my cat, trying to beg for food that anybody could give me, right? That is a worst-case scenario for some people. If I lose my job, I won’t have enough money to pay. And then I won’t be able to support my child who’s going to college, and then my child’s opportunities will be lost.

And then I’ve affected generations beyond myself. We have this awful tendency in our brains to take the very worst-case scenario and put it up in front and center of our minds when something unexpected or something not desirable happens. Right? So losing your job is not the worst thing in the world that would happen.

There are plenty of other things that could happen that are worse, but at the time it feels like the worst thing, right? And so what our brain does, because it’s designed to do this, it shows you the video of the absolute worst thing that could happen in your, in your behind your eyes, right? So this is what you see and that paralyzes you from doing anything different than what you’re doing.

All right. So I want you to take that in because that is from prehistoric times. That’s our amygdala doing its job. The amygdala is that little tiny spot at the back of your brain stem that is like that was the original part of your brain, but your brain has gotten much bigger since prehistoric times, right?

We have this prefrontal cortex that allows us to use logic to override that. Now here’s why I know this happens, and here’s how I know that we can override it. When I was in the classroom and I was burnt out, and I’ve told that story multiple times in different episodes, the last one I think was with Molly Lucarelli when I was in the classroom at the end of my period of time, where before I’d made the leap.

I, I mean, I was on the edge of burnout, but at the time I was also pregnant with my daughter. I had just gotten married. I had like a year before I had a townhouse that we needed to pay for, my husband was working in construction and so his salary was definitely not gonna cover everything. So we couldn’t go down to a one-salary and I was worried that if I lost our, my job or if I left my job and it didn’t work out, then I was gonna end up bankrupt and on the street. Right? And so these thoughts start swirling into my head all of the, and you know, here I am bringing a child into the world and I don’t have a job and all of those other things, right?

So I stayed, I stayed probably a year longer than I should have. Cuz I wasn’t my best self that last year. And then when I decided to move, I had, at that point I had started this organization that we know now as the institute. It had started as a blog. I was consulting part-time, just, you know, here or there with various schools that had asked me to come in.

And so I could have made the leap to go into full consulting and made that a full-time job. And I, Instead, I took a job at central office and became an administrator there because I wanted to make sure that I had a safety net. Totally fine. And in fact, if that’s the next career step for you, I encourage it because it taught me so many other lessons.

Right? But there was a point in time where, again, that was not what I was meant to do. And I, I’m gonna circle back to what I said at the very beginning of this episode. Your job may not be your calling. You have a calling, but it doesn’t mean you have to stay in the job you’re in. My calling is as an educator-teacher at the end of the day.

Right. But that looks very different now than what it looked like then. Right. Because at the end of the day, they were jobs. To me, what I’m doing now is part of my calling, but I get to do it on a different level. And I hadn’t, I wasn’t there yet mentally, cuz again, I needed that safety net. But after a while, that safety net was, was starting to like shake a little bit cuz I couldn’t stand the politics in central office.

And it was really frustrating with the red tape. And I had still started to build this consulting, you know, business that was kept going and I added an online class to our, our repertoire and that was taking off. And finally, I remember having a conversation with my husband on Valentine’s Day in 2013.

And it, I said to him, I was like, Kevin, I’m gonna bet on me. I’m gonna bet on me because I can’t see how what I’m doing now is going to impact and help kids and teachers, all the people that I wanna help with. The red tape that I’m sitting with right now, I just, I can’t see it, but I can see that if I bet on me and if I make the.

The worst that could happen, the worst that could happen is that I’m gonna go back and get another teaching job. That’s the worst that could happen for me, and that’s okay. I’m okay with that if that’s what happens, but I gotta try. And so that is how I know that your prefrontal cortex can override your amygdala because when I did that, I actually registered a business certificate in the state of Maryland on Valentine’s Day, of 2013.

and have moved into this position and the rest is history. You know? Now we employ 20 people and we have this amazing staff and we work around the world and it’s, it’s amazing. And I never would’ve envisioned this other than to know you can bet on yourself. That’s huge for you. So when or if you lose a job or you quit a position, no.

First of all, you are a capable, educated person with many skills, not just classroom skills or administrators’ skills. You have a lot of skills that the workforce could use right now, right? You are very capable, you are educated. You can find something and it won’t take very long. Two. There’s lots of job opportunities outside of your school, and I want you to start to envision what those might be.

Get on LinkedIn, go on social media. Look at other places that your friends or colleagues or others are working so that you can see the other possibilities that exist. Your brain can’t envision something for you that it doesn’t know exists yet, so go find all the other ways that you could operate in the world, right?

Number three, and I’m gonna say this again, you can bet on you. You have to be able to bet on yourself because you are the one that’s gonna be able to do all of this. Nobody else is gonna be able to fix whatever it is. You can do it, so bet on yourself. And then number four, in my, my fourth tip here, at the end of the day, it’s about the value that you.

So this is really important, and this comes from my, my seat as an employer. Okay? Outline how you bring value to an organization. If it’s your school, because you wanna stay there, great. If you wanna shift to a different job or a different opportunity, look at the organization that you’re considering and think about how could I bring value to them? What is it that they need most? Do they need me to save time? Do they need me to save them money? Do they, what do they need out of me in this job? What value can I bring to that job? Make sure it aligns with what they need and you’ll get the job. The best applicants who come to me are those who have, who understand their own value, and they can tell me, listen, I know that in this job position, you’re looking to save time.

You’re looking to save money, you’re looking to create action. You’re looking to do this, that, or the other thing, and this is how I plan to do that. And then they outline it. That’s perfect. That’s great, right? That’s exactly what I want as an employer. So if that is where you are, if you have this fear that you know, all these bad things will happen if you lose your job, you need to shift your mindset.

Change that into what value can I bring to somebody else so that I can make my the next step for. Right? So those are the three big fears, and I hope that through our frontal cortex today, prefrontal cortex, that we have outlined some logical ways to bust through those myths. The last thing I wanna leave us with is this idea of shifting our mindset because, and this is why all of this conversation is important to our certification applicants, as well as to anybody who is looking to make some sort of a career change, right?

In terms of your mindset, it is the biggest asset you have when it comes to job situations. Biggest asset that you have beyond anything else that you bring, your mindset is the most important. So the first thing you gotta do is look for possibilities instead of obstacles. I’ll give you an example. Many times when we have certification applicants, they wanna know are, are there jobs for this?

What if my, my school district doesn’t have an arts integration specialist job available. You could look at that as an obstacle. Like in order for me to get an arts integration specialist job, I would need to move and I don’t wanna move and then go into the downward spiral, or you can look at it as a possibility.

Oh, my school doesn’t have an arts integration specialist position yet. So if I go through this program and I pull together this portfolio, I could use that as a way to advocate, to open a position. And because I would be certificate, certified, I would be the one who would be most qualified to do that job.

See, you can shift your mindset and here’s the deal. We’ve had dozens of people who have gone through our program do that exact thing. And actually get the job in their district. Make it because of what they went through, right? Because they did that simple mindset shift. And so, and it applies to everything, right?

If you wanna go, if you wanna leave your classroom, but you wanna move into maybe an administrator job look for possibilities. Like, ugh, I gotta apply to the pool and there’s so many politics in the pool and this, that, and the other thing. Or you could look at other possibilities like you. The, the district right next door to me, they have an administrator shortage and that might be a better way to go and I wouldn’t have to necessarily be in the same district and deal with the same stuff that I’ve been dealing with. That’s a great possibility. Again, when you find obstacles, try to shift your mindset to look for the possibility within that obstacle. Two, I want you to reframe your value proposition.

So oftentimes when we look at what, what can I bring or what value do I bring to this job, you’re looking at the skills, right? Like, I am an excellent in organization. I excel at creating exciting, fun lessons for students. I can’t, I’m a model teacher. I’ve done student, I’ve worked with student teachers many times in the past.

These are all skills that you bring, right? Instead, I want you to reframe your value proposition from skills you to the table from Pure Skills. Two, how can my skills in this area benefit this other organization? Okay, so that you’re looking at how can they transfer? I want you to reframe that because that’s what an employer’s gonna look for.

Okay? And then number three, remember to make one decision at a time for your highest good. This is what great artists do when great artists, they’re not making like 20 decisions in a row on where to go to finish the their piece. Most artists begin with an idea, a thought, and then they make one decision each time and see where it takes them.

Right. And that is where the magic comes in. That’s, I always tell my staff, we need to leave a little room for, and that’s what I mean, that there’s just a little space where you’re making one decision at a time that feels the best for you, and then the next decision appears. The next opportunity appears.

What happens is that our brains get stuck in creating like five decisions in a row. Well, first I’m gonna do this, and then this might happen, or this might happen. So if this happens, then I’m gonna do this, and if this happens, then I’m gonna do that. and you start going down the rabbit hole, right? Instead, try to train yourself one decision at a time for your highest good.

See what happens. Another decision will present itself that you have to make you make that next decision when it comes along, okay? Because that allows you to open up for a little bit of magic. All right, so I hope this episode has been helpful for anyone of you that are out there looking for a job, looking for a new opportunity, or even if you’re just considering the little nugget in the back of your mind, something different for yourself in the future.

I hope that this episode has been helpful for you. Remember, certification applications close on February 15th. That is a Tuesday. No, I’m sorry, that’s a Wednesday. So it’s the Wednesday after Valentine’s Day, so make sure that you get your certification application in. We’d love to be able to help you on your next career journey, whatever.

Like for you now, if you’re not ready for arts integration certification, if it’s not on your radar yet, but you are looking for a new job opportunity, I hope that today was helpful for you as you continue on your journey. We are always here to help. Next week, next week, I am bringing on Elena Aguilar.

She is a wonderful educator, very, very popular in our, our teacher coaching communities and in administrative communities, and she’s written several books. And we talk about what it’s like to coach teachers as well as lead really engaging, relevant PD. So I’m excited for that episode and I will see you next week with that.

Until then, next week until that time, stay creative and well my friend.