ART WORKS FOR TEACHERS PODCAST | EPISODE 118 | 23:16 MIN
Let Them: 3 Takeaways for Teachers
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Welcome back friend to another episode of Artworks for Teachers. I’m your host, Susan Reilly. And today I want to share with you a book that has been everywhere, I think, lately. I read it while we were on our team retreat. I know teachers are talking about it in the teachers lounge. know principals are using it for administrator and leader book studies. The book is called Let Them from Mel Robbins. And I want to give you three quick takeaways, especially for educators from this book. So the book was not written for teachers. It was written as just kind of a overall look at this theory of let them from Mel Robbins. And so there’s a lot of things in there that can apply to daily life. And I think that’s really beneficial. But sometimes I also think it’s helpful to distill or interpret how those things could be used as an educator. And so that’s what I want to do today with you. I also want to take this opportunity to share that the LetThem Theory was not created by Mel Robbins. So if you are under the perception, if you’ve read the book and you think that that Mel Robbins created this theory, she did not. The LetThem Theory actually is inspired and developed by Cassie Phillips. She wrote a poem several years ago called the Let Them Poem.
And so I want to honor her today and share with you the poem itself. I’m going to read it to you so that you can hear where this idea that Mel kind of shook out in her book, where it actually originated from. And I think it’s a beautiful poem and it’s also something that is worthy to stand on its own right. So here is the original poem called Just Let Them from Cassie Phillips. If they want to choose something over you, let them.
If they want to go weeks without talking to you, let them. If they are okay with never seeing you, let them. If they are okay with always putting themselves first, let them. If they are showing you who they are and not what you perceived them to be, let them. If they want to follow the crowd, let them. If they want to judge or misunderstand you, let them. If they act like they can live without you, let them.
If they want to walk out of your life and leave, hold the door open and let them. Let them lose you. You were never theirs because you were always your own. So let them. Let them show you who they truly are, not to tell you. Let them prove how worthy they are of your time. Let them earn your forgiveness. Let them call you to talk about ordinary things. Let them take you out on a Thursday.
Let them talk about anything and everything just because it’s you they are talking to. Let them have a safe place in you. Let them see the heart in you that did not harden. Let them love you. So that’s the original poem that this this theory that Mel Robbins kind of took and expanded into her book. That’s what it was based on. Thank you so much, Cassie Phillips, for that beautiful poem that can have so many different ways of thinking about it. I think
There are things in that poem that I 100 % agree with and there are things in there that I sometimes question. But at the end of the day, this idea of allowing people to be who they’re going to be and not trying to change that is central to the topic of the Let Them Theory. So as I said in the book, expands upon this.
and she talks about what does let them really mean. So here are the three main pieces that I want to share with you today, the takeaways that I think are important for educators. We’ll put some anecdotes in there too on regular life, but I think as teachers, there’s a lot that we can take from this that will help with a lot of the overwhelm, the burnout, the things that we’re seeing, the frustrations that we’re seeing in education right now. I think this has a lot of value.
So first up is the idea of let them, like let them hate your class. Let the kids come in who are gonna be, you know, just downright like, I don’t wanna be here. Let them hate your class. You can’t control that, right? Let them get upset. Let parents write you an angry email. Let them do that. That may be what they need to do today. Let the child who needs to blow off steam and does it in an inappropriate way, let them do it.
Right? It doesn’t mean that you have to excuse the behavior. And I think that’s where Mel really starts to dive in here. You’re not excusing the behavior. You’re not saying this cannot happen. You’re not saying like the boundaries don’t exist. Of course they exist. And that is why you should let them because you are going to establish boundaries that, okay, you’ve now made that choice. Here’s the consequence for that choice. I mean, I think it’s so interesting here is that this idea of letting people just be who they are, let them do whatever it is that they’re going to do and not wrap ourselves and our identity into their choices. I think this actually has a lot of parallels to the idea of forgiveness. Cassie talks about forgiveness in her poem and she talks about earning forgiveness and that is something that sometimes I struggle with because I don’t know that people can actually earn your forgiveness.
Forgiveness, I think, is something that you do for yourself, that you provide the forgiveness, which is just releasing someone from a debt or that they owe you. They have wronged you in some way. They have hurt you in some way. They have done something that was not appropriate. Being able to forgive them is not excusing the behavior. It’s simply releasing them from the debt or the the kind of checklist of, well, you did this and you did this and holding that, that just eats away at us, right? That just makes everything so much worse. And so the act of forgiveness is simply letting that go, letting them make their own choices. So in terms of arts integration in STEAM or project-based learning, the things that we really focus at here at the Institute, one of the things that we hear a lot from teachers who are frustrated is that I can’t get buy-in. I can’t get people to want to do this with me because they have all of these misperceptions, right? Like that it’s going to take too much time or that it’s going to take time away from core curriculum and I can’t get them to buy in. How do I get them to see and join me in this, right? And I think the idea of let them not buy in is really powerful because they’re making that choice doesn’t mean they can’t make a different choice later. So you can model what arts integration really looks like and what it takes and the results that it gets, right? You can model what good project-based learning and STEAM and all of that engaging hands-on learning that we know after decades of research works. You can show that, you can do that in your own classroom. You can do that with your students. And as your students have success, let them watch, let them see the results, and then let them have the opportunity to make a different choice or not, right? The idea of let them is that you don’t have control of other people. You have no control over their actions. When it comes to classroom management and behavior, this is a really key point to understand. Oftentimes the mistakes that I see when I’m walking into schools that I’m watching teachers who are struggling with classroom management is that they are trying to control the whole scenario. They’re trying to control how long students sit still. They’re trying to control every aspect of the classroom management. The problem with that is that we’re not dealing with robots. We’re dealing with humans. And all humans have choices that they get to make. And so when we struggle with classroom management, it’s sometimes, not always, but sometimes because we’re trying to control not only the outcome, but everything that gets us to that outcome with all of our students. And instead, the idea is let them make the choice. Give them the options, right? Share with them, here are the options that are available. But then the choice on whether or not they’re going to follow that is up to them. And so don’t take that personally, right? That’s another piece of this whole layered component of let them is that so often when when students aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing in our classrooms, or we feel like they didn’t do well on a test, that somehow it’s a reflection of us as a poor educator, and it’s not, absolutely not. By allowing them to do whatever it is they’re going to do, you are releasing yourself from the burden of control and having to be perfect at everything, because frankly, we’re not, right?
And so, it’s a powerful concept of letting people just be who they are and make their own choices. I see this a lot in my friends group. I see it a lot in our team dynamics. I see it literally everywhere that there are humans interacting, family dinners. Anytime that there is conflict, often it’s because we are trying to control or to trying to control is a strong word, right? But it’s really what we’re doing. We’re trying to get people to do what we expect them to do, right? I was reminded not too long ago that oftentimes the core of conflict is the distance from our expectation to reality. And that sometimes, many times, these two things do not line up and there is a gap. And conflict is what happens in the gap.
And so our expectations are over here and reality is over here. And the idea of the let them theory that Mel Robbins is expanding upon, I guess, from Cassie Phillips poem is that this distance can be closed if you let the reality be the reality. Let it not match your expectation and just say, okay, accept that for what it is. And then move to number two. Number two is another powerful piece and I think this is the one that many people are not talking about right now. It’s the idea of let me. So you move from let them do whatever it is that they’re going to do. So when somebody upsets you, right, or that there is a situation where conflict arises, take a breath and say, let them, let them make this choice. I don’t agree with it. I don’t think it’s a good choice. I don’t think that this is going to work out well, but let them make it, right? Then you move into let me. So now you look at what are the things that I can control in this scenario? One, I can control establishing boundaries. So I can control what the consequences might be, maybe in that situation. In life, probably not, but in your classroom, you absolutely can control the consequences for specific actions, right?
So if you have a student who comes in and he acts out and he’s like, or he’s totally not engaged and you know, this happens a lot in high school classes that you tell them to do something and they either look at you and put their head down or they flip you off or you know, they’re completely disrespectful. Let that behavior happen and do not take it personally. But then know what the consequences are for that and let yourself implement that without any kind of emotional connection from that, Remember, you’re not taking the behavior personally. You’re just implementing the established consequences for that choice that somebody else made, right? So that is where classroom management comes in, right? You control what you can control. You can control your own emotion around a situation, right? So you can control how you feel or whether or not you take something personally.
When you see that kid who is being really apathetic or disrespectful, it’s really easy. And trust me, I was there a thousand percent almost every single day when a kid would be disrespectful to me or apathetic, it set my blood boiling, right? I was like, they cannot get away with that. And it was this like retribution almost feeling that I wanted to implement. And therefore I would put consequences in place that were very harsh and maybe sometimes not actually aligned with the behavior itself. And this is where breaks of trust, breaks of any kind of relationship that you work to build with that student start to fall apart, right? Been there, done that. Absolutely a huge mistake I used to make with classroom management. I still do this sometimes in my own personal relationships, right, somebody will say something to me and it will spark such anger in me that I immediately want to respond. And so something that I’ve learned is over time is that I have control over my response. I don’t have control over what they just did. What somebody just did was their choice. Let them make it. But I have control how I respond to that. And so let me take control of what’s mine to control. Let me also do what’s best for me, right? And this is gonna lead into number three, which I think was really helpful from the book. But before I get there, let me expand on that a little bit. Let me do and be what’s good and best for me. So in the classroom, that might look like I know what’s best for me is to not take grading home because I need that boundary. So I’m gonna set up systems for myself so that I can get grading done at school and not take that work home with me and not be working until 11 o’clock at night. I’m gonna establish a boundary there because that’s what’s best for me. We’ve had many guests on our podcast who work as both teachers and authors and they go and speak and I ask them every time, how do you do all of that? And every single response is that I don’t do it all and I established boundaries of what I will or will not do. Dave Stewart Jr. was a great example of this. Back several podcasts ago, we’ll put a link to it in the show notes. He shared specifically, he doesn’t take on any after school committees. He doesn’t volunteer for any other things outside of his regular job. And he used to feel like that made him a B-level teacher.
Now he knows that’s what allows him the space to do everything else that he wants to do. It allows him to be the best person that he was meant to be as an educator. And so this idea of let me do and be what’s best for me is really important. especially as you’re getting back into yet another year, right? And we’ve said, it’s halfway through the year for many of us for the school year at this time. But as you’re jumping into that and you’re reevaluating, okay, I wanna…
I want to have more peace in my life in 2025, right? I want to have more time with my family. then what’s best for you? That’s great. What do you need to do in order to make that happen? Control what you can control. So let me be me. And part of that is knowing your truth. And this is takeaway number three. So when you know what’s best for you, when you know yourself, you know what’s best for you as an educator and as a person,
You know that for you, you get joy and excitement by watching your students make those aha connections when they’re creating and you love bringing creativity in your classroom. And that is what lights you up as an educator. When somebody criticizes you for that, like, I can’t believe you’re taking time out of your classroom, out of your curriculum to play arts and crafts, right? When they criticize you, but you know that’s what is best for you and best for your students and that is your truth? Like the criticism hits different, right? You can accept the criticism and say, well, thanks, but this is what works for me. And criticism is always hard to receive and we are always going to get it, whether it’s from a supervisor, whether it’s from a student, whether it’s from a parent, and it’s always going to sting, right? That initial reaction is, ouch, but.
If you know your truth, which there is, I love Vince Vaughn movies, I love the movie, Couples Retreat. And there is a moment in there when somebody is giving him criticism about his experience in the water as a shark attack victim, which he really wasn’t. He looks straight at him and said, I know my truth. And it’s funny. So every time I say know your truth, that’s what I’m thinking of.
And maybe we can put a little snapshot of that in here in the video portion of this so that you can kind of see what I’m talking about. I know my truth. But that’s, while it can be funny, it is true. When you know the truth for yourself, you can make better decisions. You can make decisions that matter for you as a teacher and for your students. You do what’s best for you and therefore you know the truth about what works in your classroom with your unique teaching style and your unique classroom management style. When somebody criticizes something that you’re doing or something that is happening in your classroom, you can be more objective at looking at at criticism in terms of, is this something that I want to change? If it’s not, full stop, right? But if it’s something that you could consider changing because maybe that’s a good idea and I could implement and it’s not going to deviate me from my core values and from what I truly believe is helpful, then you can take the criticism and actually work through it, right? And get it and be better for it. But instead of immediately reacting to the criticism as it’s always bad, when you know your truth, it’s the criticism becomes something that is less painful and more useful. So those are the three big takeaways that I took from Mel’s book, Let Them, and from the poem that originated by Cassie Phillips. I would love if you’ve read the book or if you have your own thoughts on this and if there are things that you would expand. What are some other takeaways that you took from this as an educator? What are some things that you still have questions about? We’re gonna share this across all of our podcast channels as always, but also we’re also on YouTube and we’re also on social media. When we post over there, on Instagram, on Facebook, you know, make a comment, share what is your perspective on this and what other takeaways did you have? I think there’s so much value in this concept and you know, everybody’s talking about it. So let’s talk about it together. Let’s get better together. I think that’s the whole point of doing things like this. So I hope that was helpful for you today. Thank you so much for tuning in and I can’t wait to see you next week on another episode of Artworks for Teachers.
Interview with Dave Stuart Jr.