The Present Teacher Podcast

10 Lessons From My First 6 Years of Teaching

• Helena Hains • Episode 100

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Are you a new or first-year teacher wondering what lessons you can learn from experienced teachers?


In this podcast episode, I share my top 10 lessons as a new teacher from my past 6 years of teaching experience. Everything from comparing myself to others, classroom management, work-life balance, lesson planning, and more!


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//  ABOUT


I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.


The Present Teacher Podcast is a resource for classroom management, classroom organization, time management, and teacher wellness. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.


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Helena:

Hello and welcome to the 100th episode of the Present Teacher. My name is Helena, the creator of the Present Teacher, and over the last three years I have been sharing online everything I know about anything from how to keep your students engaged, how to have strong classroom management, how you can prioritize yourself as a teacher and everything in between, and I really wanted to do something special for this 100th episode and really reflect on how far I've come. So today I want to talk about the 10 lessons I have learned from my first six years of teaching. This is going to be really good. So, with that being said, let's dive right in. Hey, teacher Bestie, my name is Helena and I'm the creator of the Present Teacher Podcast. I'm a first-year teacher coach and in this podcast you are going to learn everything from simple, actionable classroom management, socialist learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom. We're going to make it happen here.

Helena:

Now a little backstory If you are new around here. I started off as a kindergarten teacher. When I first started, I moved from Oregon to New Mexico with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, kyle, and I started teaching kindergarten in a small town in New Mexico with my then boyfriend, now husband, kyle, and I started teaching kindergarten in a small town in New Mexico for about three years and after those three years we went ahead and we moved to a town about an hour and a half away and I started teaching second grade. Now when I graduated with my master's degree from Eastern Oregon University, I was 21 at the time, and when I mean 21, I turned 21 in February and I graduated in June, so I was very much a baby, 21 year old, and I was really scared about starting this new chapter in my life. But very determined starting this new chapter in my life but very determined I got two years done of college, done in high school, and so it really was interesting for me to run into teaching, where I thought the hard work had been done when I first started teaching but, to be honest, done when I first started teaching. But, to be honest, that was far from the truth. In fact, when I first started teaching, I felt extremely overwhelmed. I was the first car in the parking lot, I was the last to leave and I was told by my peers that even when I was student teaching that I was very young and that I needed to be more serious and strict and that my students would walk all over me. I was told not to smile until December and I was told that I was way too friendly and I need to really serious up a bit if I wanted to be taken seriously as a teacher. Now, looking back at all of the amazing lessons I've learned along the way, it's been quite a ride and I feel like I'm a completely different person than when I first started teaching.

Helena:

When my first year started, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and I actually went on medication for my anxiety and depression during my master's program, but I found that the medication that they put me on wasn't really helping, so I just decided to go all natural. I did continue counseling when I moved into my first year of teaching, but I just remember feeling like I could never get ahead, like I was constantly underwater and, no matter what I did, I just couldn't come up for air. And I remember when my kindergartners graduated. I remember seeing their faces and I remember tearing up because I felt like I failed them. I felt like I was so busy trying to get everything done that I didn't actually get to teach. Now, don't get me wrong, I did teach them some things Admittedly not as much as I would have liked, but I felt like with teaching, there's so much under the water that people don't see. It's like a duck under water. Our to-do lists and the workload can be so large sometimes that it's hard to navigate, and I just wanted to be there for my kids and connect, and so I felt like I failed them because I could never get that year back, and it was in that point in my life where I decided you know what? I can't do this anymore. I either need to find a way to make teaching easier or I'm not going to do it at all, so that next year I dedicated an entire year to figure out how can I make this easier. And it started working. Not only did I start, you know, leaving work on time, but I had extra space now to create a community online and share what I've learned, and that's why I created the Present Teacher.

Helena:

The whole message behind the Present Teacher is I'm here to help you to learn and manage everything else, so you can show up in the moment and be mindfully in the moment with your kids, because I've been there where you've just reached emotional fatigue and you space out when you come home and you have nothing left to give to your family, let alone yourself, and I don't want that for you. And if it's possible for me, then it's possible for you too. I'm well, I think I'm awesome. I'm nothing special, and if I can do it, you can too. So, with that being said, here are the top 10 lessons I've learned around teaching and just life in general as a teacher during my first year, six years of teaching. So the first lesson that I learned is to trust yourself.

Helena:

Now, when I started teaching, like I said, a lot of teachers had an opinion or just bystanders had an opinion on how I was running my classroom, and this became very apparent for me when it came to classroom management, I felt like I was. You know, I started to hear the voices that said that I was way too fun and outgoing and my kids were going to take advantage of me. Fun and outgoing and my kids were going to take advantage of me. So I remember going online and trying all of these classroom management strategies that just didn't end up working. I tried everything from Blurt Beans, sticker stores, you know something? Bucks, school bucks, whatever they are tallies, sticker charts, all everything between and not and I even use clip charts because my whole school used it but it didn't feel great. And but I didn't trust myself then because I felt like I was so new that who am I to know what's best for me and my kids? And I'm here to tell you now.

Helena:

When I stopped looking back or listening to those people outside of myself and I started listening to me, that's when things started to change. I stopped listening to what all the experts say online that you're supposed to do. I stopped listening to the teacher next door and I started to ask myself what do I want to do? What do I think is best for my class? And the more I leaned into it, the more I found strategies that actually worked for me and they felt good and better. Yet they worked. After spending an entire year of trying everything, I had finally found out what worked for me.

Helena:

So, with that being said, I want to remind you to trust yourself. I know, especially during the first couple of years of teaching, it can feel really hard to trust yourself and to listen to yourself when there's so many things you're learning. But I promise you, if you lean into what feels good and the things you want to do, you're going to find things that work well for you. Something I like to tell the teachers I work with or coach, is that the only difference between you and an experienced teacher is they've had more time to figure out what works for them. I'm gonna say that again the only difference between you, an experienced, and an experienced teacher is that they've had more time to figure out what works for them.

Helena:

So stop listening to what everyone else says. Sure, use them as inspiration, but really start leaning into your own voice and your own desires, because your desires are safe guidance. Whatever you want to do, I like to think of those ideas, those aha, maybe this will work. Or I really want to try this. Those little thoughts that come up throughout the day. Those are what I like to call inspired action. They're those little nudges that the universe, or God or whatever you believe in, kind of shows us which path to go to get to the end goal that we're trying. So trust yourself. You know way more than you think you do, and it's so easy to drown out your voice, but you are the expert and you can try a million things that don't work well for you or well for you know they work well for someone else, but they won't work for you, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that you were different, and I think it just means that you're different and I think it's wonderful that you're different and you get to make something completely your own. Teaching is like one big experiment. You get to try things and create things that are your own and your own concoction and methods and strategies and frameworks to get to where you are, so where you wanna be. So just know that you can trust yourself. So repeat after me I trust myself, I love myself. My desires are safe guidance. I get better and better every day. I cannot fail. Failure is not an option. No matter what actions I take, failure cannot happen. I can't mess this up. I get to be the expert. I am the expert. I get to run the classroom. How I feel feels good to me.

Helena:

The second lesson I want to talk about today is that feeling like you are not enough and you can never get caught up or do enough. Now I know deep down, when it came to teaching, it was really easy for me to feel like I wasn't doing enough, like I had to have the Pinterest perfect classroom. I had to be really good at classroom management. Like that teacher next door, I had to be weeks in advance, like the other teachers, and the truth is, I was really doubting myself and I felt like I wasn't enough and I could never do enough. And this was probably one of the main reasons that, even though the main things were done during the school day, I continued to stay late and work so much is because I secretly didn't feel like I was enough. I felt like, no matter how hard I worked, I would never be enough as a teacher and I wasn't doing enough.

Helena:

I have these limiting self-beliefs of like who am I? I'm not smart enough, I'm not mature enough. I'm not, you know, positive enough to run a classroom. I'm not smart enough to run a classroom. Who am I? Why? Who trusted me with this?

Helena:

But the truth is, you are enough and you are doing enough. If you have this deep down desire to do teaching, then I believe that you were meant to be here and you are exactly where you need to be. And this was something, especially when I felt like a failure, that I need to hear and I know, as teachers, we don't hear it enough. It's easy to hear all these. You know critiques and lacking areas and I know how easy it is to be hard on yourself and to compare yourself to everybody else and where they are in their journey. But just know that you are enough and you are exactly where you are meant to be in your journey. Your journey is your journey and it's gonna be messy and fun and you're going to learn things along the way, but that's how you get to the perfect ending. That's where you get to figuring out the perfect strategies and methods for you. So just know that you are enough and you are doing enough.

Helena:

I know it's easy to feel like you aren't doing enough for your kids and that they're behind and you should be working harder, but you just don't know how. I want to remind you that you are enough, you are doing enough. Each day that you show up, you are doing enough. So repeat after me I am enough. I am an amazing teacher. My students are learning every day. My worth is not measured by how much work I get done today. I love myself. I am enough, I am doing enough. I am doing work every single day. Every single day it gets easier and easier. I am enough, I am enough, I am enough.

Helena:

The third lesson I have is something that comes from being a slight perfectionist, and that is the better it gets, the better it gets. I'm going to say that again the better it gets, the better it gets. So at some point during my second year of teaching, there became this shift where I was no longer bringing my teacher bag home and I was no longer staying late. In fact, I was getting everything done, and I think I secretly felt guilty. I felt guilty that I found a way to make teaching easy, because I was told from the get-go that teaching had to be hard and it had to be difficult. And the truth of the matter is is that teaching gets to be fun, and I know online it's so easy to hear about how hard teaching can be, and even my story at the beginning. But the truth is you get to choose what teaching is like for you, and the easier it gets, the easier it gets. When you find things that work, you can continue to do it, and when you find things that don't work for you, you can then pivot to something else and honestly, like I said, the better it gets, the better it gets.

Helena:

When you are working, find yourself thinking it's too easy. It's really easy to self-sabotage yourself. It's easy to add stuff onto your to-do list that you don't even really have to do, and this is where I started to really lean into my classroom running activities. So this was something I came up with, especially a quick crossover from the business world to the teaching world, and these are the business world, are referred to as income producing activities, but essentially, what are the main things that you need to do to keep your classroom running? And what I found for me is that the main things I need to do to keep my classroom running are classroom management, lesson planning and prepping, data and grading, family communication or communication in general, and my own well-being. So when I found these areas that I needed to consistently keep up on week to week or month to month, I found that these were the main things I needed to do week to week or month to month. I found that these were the main things I needed to do.

Helena:

Otherwise, my classroom would completely fall apart. Everything else was extra and they were things that I were filling my to-do list with that didn't necessarily get me anywhere. So this could be things like, I don't know, creating a super cute themed classroom. Well, yes, as someone who had a Harry Potter classroom, I love having a cute classroom, but it's not something I necessarily need to have keep my classroom running. Instead, it's things that I get to do when there's extra time, extra motivation, extra creativity in my energy and stuff like that.

Helena:

So, with that being said, when I started to notice that my to-do list started to shift from these nice to do things to the classroom running activities, I found things became easier and I felt guilty. I felt like I was cheating, but along my teaching journey I found that there's three different kinds of teachers. There's the teacher A, who, honestly, all the whole team benefits when there's the teacher A on their team. They're the teachers that are on top of the deadlines, know when things are due and, you know, has everything color coded. As someone who had a teacher A in my classroom it's it's or on my team I really appreciate having a teacher A. Then there's teacher B. Now, definitely had some teacher Bs on my team. They have what I like to call organized chaos, meaning from the outside looking in, you don't quite know what's going on, but to them it makes perfect sense. I'm so glad it does for them. So those are the teacher B's, and then there's the teacher C's, and I like to think of the teacher C's as the teachers who like to figure out a way to make things easier. They like to make things more simple, and they might be referred to as lazy, but seriously they're just using the phrase that they're working smarter, not harder, and I discovered that along my journey. I'm definitely a teacher C, and if you can resonate with anything I said, you might be one too.

Helena:

So, with that being said, you don't need to feel guilty for making teaching easy. Teaching was meant to be easy. God, the universe, whatever you believe in, didn't put you into teaching so you could struggle and have a really hard life. They put you there. You were put here to enjoy your life and to make an impact and find an easier way to go about things, and I 100% believe that for you, because I 100% found that in me, and if I can do that, then you can too. So, with that being said, repeat after me the better it gets, the better it gets. Teaching gets to be fun. Teaching gets to be easy. I do not take on the energy of feeling negative or guilty for finding a way to make teaching easy. Teaching gets to be easy. Teaching gets to be fun. I'm working smarter, not harder. I make things easier every single day. Things are getting easier and easier. My life is getting filled with more joy every single day. My life gets to be full of love and fun. The better it gets, the better it gets. As my life in the classroom gets better, my life outside of teaching gets better. And as my life outside of teaching gets better, my life in the classroom gets better too.

Helena:

The fourth lesson I have for you goes a lot along with the lines of the last one I mentioned, and that is it's not cheating to be happy. I talked about being a teacher C and throughout my life, I realized that things that genuinely generally made were difficult for other people weren't necessarily difficult for me, but things that came easily for other people were harder for me, and it can feel like sometimes you're cheating because you see other people online or in your hallway or in your school really struggling with something and you can really start getting in your head of well, I feel guilty that it should be so easy for me. So then you'll naturally come up with ways to make it harder than it needs to be. So this is where that whole idea of it gets to be simple how can I make this easy? One question I often ask myself throughout my teaching career was how can I see things differently? How can I make this easier? And it's not cheating to find ways to be happy as long as you are doing it integrity with you.

Helena:

I fully believe that if you I don't know um, still someone's lesson plans and you know do some things that just don't fill in alignment with you to get to the finish line, you're just genuinely not going to feel happy about it. But if you find a system where you can reuse some of the lesson plans you've made in the past years and tweak them in a way that feels aligned with you, then that's not necessarily cheating. That's just working smarter, not harder. That's using your resources and using years of experience so you don't have to start from scratch every time. So, with that being said, it's not cheating to be happy. So, with that being said, repeat after me I get to be happy. I deserve happiness. I am worthy of success. I am worthy of happiness. I get to be happy in teaching. Teaching gets to be fun. Teaching gets to be easy. The better it gets, the better it gets. The fifth lesson I learned along my six years of teaching is your desires are safe guidance. I talked about this a little bit earlier.

Helena:

But going back to my classroom management example, when I, my first year of teaching, pretty much the whole school were using things called clip charts. Now, if you're not familiar with what clip charts are, essentially they're different colors. Everyone has a clothespin. They start at one color and then, as they make good choices throughout the day, they move up. As they make, you know, not the desired choices, throughout the day, they move down and they might have some consequences like missing recess, sideline conversation, missing free time, contact, home, etc.

Helena:

Now, while this may be popular, I absolutely hated this method. I hated it because I didn't. As a child, I was extremely shy. I hated walking in front of the whole class Ironic because I'm a teacher, I know I definitely had to get over that one but I hated walking in front of the class. I hate walking across classroom. I would get all sweaty and stuff like that, and so I felt like this kind of management system was really almost shaming kids. And don't get me wrong, if you use a class, you know a clip chart then, and if it feels great to you, then please, you know, keep using it. But it just didn't feel in alignment with who I was and the kind of teacher I wanted to be.

Helena:

So then I use the questions I talked about earlier. How can I see this differently? No-transcript. So that's when I ran into whole brain teaching and that's when I ran into the super improver wall. So the super improver wall is essentially a gamified sticker chart where everyone starts off on one color. As they make great choices throughout the day, you can give them a sticker Fun story. I gave my second graders scratch and sniff stickers and, oh my gosh, it was really cute watching them go up to the wall and scratch them and smell the wall. They're dorks, but I love them Anyways.

Helena:

So this felt really aligned to who I naturally was as a teacher. And, granted, I don't use that as my sole classroom management strategy by any means or plan or foundation. But I wanted to add, like frosting on top of the cake of something that was more positive as opposed to the clip charts. So I started to use that instead and I ended up having a way better experience with classroom management, so much so that I was asked to help train substitutes in my district and it just feels better when you listen to yourself.

Helena:

Just feels better when you listen to yourself and this goes back to that story of your desires are safe guidance Meaning. I believe that, again, the universe, god, whatever you believe gives you these little ideas throughout your day or your week and as you listen to what feels great to you, you can choose to take that action and it gets you closer to being that teacher that you are on your journey of becoming and when you, oftentimes when you make decisions from a place of scarcity of I'm just trying to figure anything that works, I'm going to listen to any voice. You might make choices that are not necessarily aligned with who you are as a person or as a teacher, and they won't often work and that's because they just are in out of alignment for you. So that's why I always recommend to the teachers I coach that your desires are safe guidance, meaning that your desires are God-given, universe-given, energy-given, whatever you believe in. So listen to them, listen to yourself and your own intuition.

Helena:

If you want to try something, try it. You can't fail, you can't mess it up. Worst comes to worst, it doesn't work and you try again tomorrow or you try something else that feels good. Teaching is just one great big experiment. Again, the only difference between you and an experienced teacher is they've had more time to experiment and find things that work for them. Now it's your time to try, and you know, be a scientist or be a painter and play with colors and just come up with something that's uniquely yours, that works well for you. So your desires are safe guidance.

Helena:

So repeat after me, it feels good to listen to myself. I listen to myself every single day. Things that I want to do are guidance from the universe or the world or God. Whatever you believe in. My desires are safe guidance. The better it gets, the better it gets. Teaching gets to be fun. It gets to feel fun. Teaching gets to be easy. It gets to feel easy, and I make decisions every single day that make it easier and more fun and make me more happy in general. All right, so. So the next lesson I have for you are that the experts started exactly where you are Now. To be honest, I'm thinking of creating an entire book about this, called actually I'm not going to give away the title, but if you are interested, I'm thinking of doing some kind of book club where I release a chapter to only the people that join the book club and you can give me feedback, but on you know how to automate your classroom and show up in a way that feels good to you. But essentially, the experts started exactly where you are meaning that teacher next door. While they may seem like they are ahead of the game and natural at it, the reality is many of them 90% of them started exactly where you are Meaning.

Helena:

I can't tell you how many guests I've had in my community who have shared that the things that they're sharing about online now, that they're passionate about, are actually things that they struggled with. I mean, you can even take my story, for example. I'm sharing online for new and first-year teachers how to automate their classroom and to make things easy, because I struggled with that and that's how I became a quote-unquote expert on it. I think of Gina from Teaching with Heart. She's a classroom management expert, but if you listen to her story, she's an expert because she really struggled her first couple years with classroom management, so she knows what it's like. She found a way to make it easier and she's sharing it her way with thousands of teachers online. I think of Brittany Blackwell, with thousands of teachers online. I think of Brittany Blackwell. I've had her on from Teaching Mind, body and Soul and she shares how she really struggled with that work-life balance as a special education teacher and now she's sharing everything about self-care and teacher wellness online.

Helena:

All that to say the experts you see in the, you know the hallway online they all started exactly where you are. So instead of I want to invite you to, instead of using these people as a way to diss yourself or compare and feel inadequate because you are not where they are yet, use that as inspiration. Remind yourself. They started exactly where I get to be. So they are inspiration on what's possible for me. They get to show me the way. They get to show me that, if it's possible for them, I can make it easier too. So remind yourself the experts started exactly where you are. So repeat after me the better it gets, the better it gets. The easier it gets, the easier it gets. Every single year, things get easier and easier for me. I get to turn the things that I struggle with the most into things that I become an expert in in the future. Every teacher that I see that I feel is farther than me. I choose to see them as inspiration of where I get to go.

Helena:

The next lesson I have for you we've touched on a little bit, but that is you know your classroom best, meaning as you go throughout your teaching career, as you see strategies online whether it's from me or someone I have in this community or someone else you follow, or whether that's you know that you're someone on your team or your admin they might give you strategies that just don't feel aligned to you, and that's okay. You know your classroom best. You know what's going to work for you best, and I like to walk the teachers I coach through this process of. I want you to get super clear what kind of teacher do you want to be? What are your values as a teacher? As I did this exercise, I found that my personal values are authenticity, compassion and inclusiveness. So or inclusivity. So, with that being said, I am positivity.

Helena:

So whenever I see a strategy online or I see a teacher doing something, I will notice that if it's extremely positive, I can take inspiration from that. It's just not aligned with my values, so I'm probably not going to incorporate it in my classroom and if I do, I'm not going to feel great about it, which means the performance and how I, you know, present it to my class is probably going to be off Meaning. It's kind of not going to work from the get-go Not saying it's always the case, but it's going to be harder for me to incorporate a strategy that I just don't feel aligned with and doesn't help me become the teacher I want to be, whereas, let's say, I have I see a strategy online that helps students be authentically them and love who they are and be proud of who they are and include each other in activities, then I'm going to be extremely motivated to incorporate that into my classroom because that's aligned with my values. So take some time to ask yourself what are my values as a teacher? And as you move throughout your day whether you're scrolling TikTok, social media or whatever it is, or you see a teacher next door try something. Check in with your values and see which one of those values that strategy aligns with. And if it doesn't align with any of them, how did it make you feel when you watch that strategy and thinking of implementing in your classroom? This has been a game changer when it comes to kind of quickening my progress as a teacher to find things that work for me is I really get clear on who I am, who I want to be, and I only invite strategies that are going to get me closer to being that teacher I want to be, as opposed to trying everything under the sun to then eventually find strategies that are aligned with my values. It's more intentional. It'll save you a lot of time. I swear this tip alone will probably help you save like two or three years. All right, strategy number eight, or you know, lesson number eight, that is, teaching gets to be fun and easy.

Helena:

Now, going back to the classroom management issues, or problems or journey I was on earlier that I mentioned, I was told by a lot of teachers that I was way too young and that I was too fun and engaging or too fun and my kids would walk all over me and I had to be more serious. Don't smile till December. Yada, yada, yada over me. And I had to be more serious. Don't smile till December, yada, yada, yada. And what I found is that the more that I tried to be someone I'm not, the harder teaching was for me, whereas when I leaned into being the fun, dorky, outgoing with my students anyways. With adults I'm terrified. Just kidding, I mean kind of Introvert here the easier teaching got to be, and so my classroom management.

Helena:

How I manage my classroom, yes, there's structure. I do well in a structured environment, meaning my kids transition from activity to activity, from whole group to independent work, from whole group to lining up, to washing their hands, to grabbing materials. All of that is done with transitions where I don't have to talk and they're not talking either, because I find I do best in a structured environment like that. However, I'm the teacher who, with my primary kids and even my fourth graders and fifth graders that were my second graders it's so crazy to say that I'm going to be fun with them. We're going to play crazy random brain breaks throughout the day. I'm going to make them laugh, I'm going to say jokes, I'm going to start dancing, I'm going to do the Cupid shuffle with them, because that's just who I am as a teacher, and the more you lean into who you are as a teacher and what works best for you, the better your classroom's gonna run. So teaching gets to be fun and easy.

Helena:

If you've ever heard someone tell you that you need to be a certain way to run a classroom. Please don't listen to them. You know your classroom best. You are your own, authentic, you know self and you should create an environment where you can be yourself, because the more you do that, the more your kids will. Teaching gets to be easy and teaching gets to be fun. Whatever that looks like to you, I'm living proof that, yes, you can have you know really good, strong classroom management foundation and still be fun and still do pajama parties and still do pajama parties and still do the Cupid shuffle dance and still play random brain breaks like evolution and ninja and all the other, and imposter and all the other things I've played with my kids. I mean, that's one of the most positive feedback I get is how fun and engaging I am and that's just because that's who I am as a person. So, with that being said, teaching gets to be fun and teaching gets to be easy. You get to choose how teaching gets to be you. So repeat after me Teaching gets to be fun. Teaching gets to be easy. The better it gets, the better it gets.

Helena:

I choose to be myself in my classroom. I choose to create an environment that I love. I choose to be to create an environment that reflects who I am as a person. I get to choose what does and does not work in my classroom. I get to choose how teaching gets to go for me. All right, we're coming up on number nine. The ninth lesson I've learned as a teacher is the more you love yourself, the more students will love themselves. I'm gonna say that one again, because this one, oh the more you love yourself, the more students will love yourself.

Helena:

I don't know if this is for every early 20 year old that starts teaching, but in this time you're kind of going from high school to college to being off on your own, and I really struggled with self-love my first couple of years. It was just where I was in my journey and, granted, I did, you know, I went to counseling and all that, and I did have mental health issues that I now resolved and I'm happy to say, you know, I'm depression and anxiety free. Now I've been off of you know medication for five years and it feels great. But it's really interesting this time of year because your kids teach you so much. I feel like my kids have taught me more than I've taught them. And don't get me wrong, my test scores in general are pretty good. So it's not like I'm not teaching my kids. I don't want to give you that impression. I'm definitely teaching them. But the more you love yourself, the more students will love themselves.

Helena:

I remember being told this advice so much. Like you know, take self-care is important, take time for yourself, you know it'll help your kids. And I didn't really get it until I got it, until I reached that rock bottom spot where I'm like things have to be different and I found the more that I loved myself and worked on myself and became the person I want to become and really dive deep into some of the stories I was telling myself the more my students started to love themselves and be the you know, be who they authentically were. So let me give you an example. Growing up, I hated yelling, like people could barely fluctuate their voice and I would just burst into tears because I absolutely could not stand yelling. I felt so guilty I would just cry and so. But you know, sometimes in my environment that was the norm, and so when I first started teaching, I would see mentor teachers and teachers next door raise their voice, and so I started doing it too, but I really didn't like it Again, going back to those desires and your values that didn't feel really good or aligned with me.

Helena:

So I started to fix it and I started to really work on loving myself and recognizing hey, I feel upset when my students do that. Why is that? And I started to really dive into that and I started to recognize what made me become dysregulated, what my triggers were. And then I started showing up for myself in these moments when kids would dysregulate you, because kids are awesome and they can find those buttons to push and they really find those buttons to push and they really make you work on yourself. I swear teaching is like a great segue into parenting. You just kind of get a head start. So, anyways, I started to recognize all these things throughout the day that would make me want to snap at my kids because I was dysregulated.

Helena:

So I started showing up for myself and the great thing about primary is I did that in front of them, like if one of my things, for example, is I cannot handle when there's a bunch of kids in my bubble, especially when they put their hands on my face. Just thinking about it makes me go. Ah, it makes me feel extremely dysregulated. And so, with primary, as you can imagine, especially kinder, this can be really difficult. So what would happen is, let's say, my kids were super excited. They all came up at once and you know they started to swarm me. I would take a deep breath and say, okay, ms Haynes, is dysregulated right now. Take a deep breath and say, okay, ms Haynes, is this regulated right now? Can you please sit down so I can regulate my body, so I can show you how excited I am with you in a better state, and I would sit down and I would do heart to home breathing, I'd do rainbow breathing, I'd do my tapping, I would regulate my emotions in front of them. And do you? I'm going to cry. Do you want to know what happened?

Helena:

These kids took what I thought was extremely, extremely vulnerable, extremely hard for me to do, extremely like just, you don't do that. Like you, you suck it up or you snap. And I took, they took these moments where I had to show up for myself in these moments, otherwise I wasn't going to be the teacher I wanted to be. And they showed other kids in the classroom and on the playground to do it, and other classrooms to do it. Before I knew it, some of my kids were doing it on the playground and they'd show up for themselves and help them regulate their emotions. And it's I'm not saying it's all because of me, but because I showed up for myself.

Helena:

My students then learned how to show up for themselves. And kids are amazing. They learn so much by watching you, and that's when I realized how powerful modeling that can be. And so if you're modeling, being snappy and not showing up for yourself, does that then mean that your kids are learning that too by watching you? And so from that moment on, I really made sure, no matter how vulnerable and uncomfortable it feels, I showed up for myself because I want what's best for my kids. And it quickly made me realize the better I show up for myself, the better my kids are going to show up for themselves. So the more love you give yourself, the more students will love themselves. And again that was something I definitely you know love themselves. And again that was something I definitely you know rushed, brushed under the rug until I personally had that experience and just know that when you love yourself and as you start this journey of loving yourself and showing up for yourself, your kids will reflect that back to you.

Helena:

So, with that being said, repeat after me the better it gets, the better it gets. I deserve love. I am loved. My students are always watching. My students are always learning. Even when it feels like they aren't learning, they are. My students are learning every single day. My classroom is getting smoothly ran, or better ran, every single day. The better it gets, the better it gets, the easier it gets, the easier it gets. I deserve to love myself. I deserve to show up for myself. I love myself. I am worthy of being loved. All right, the last one, the last one. The last one, the last one. I haven't officially cried yet. I've teared up, but we're not quite there yet. Lesson number 10, the little wins add up. The little wins add up. This one's heavy for me. Okay.

Helena:

So, like I said, my first year I felt like I failed my kids because I felt like my kids hadn't learned anything. Granted, they did, but it didn't feel like I did. When I transitioned to second grade, I had a sweet, sweet, sweet student who struggled with reading. He came in knowing how to spell his name, that was about it. He had a couple sounds, but that was about it. And he came in in second grade and, you know, with COVID and everything, he was homeschooled, second grade and you know, with COVID and everything, he was homeschooled. And I pulled him back and we worked, and we worked and we worked and I felt like some days, oh, this kiddo, I just it's not working. And we worked, and we worked and we worked and, granted, you know, on his you know monthly progress monitoring, I saw that there was growth but it never felt like enough. I felt like I was failing as a teacher, that it wasn't adding up to where he should be. He was gonna fall and it was gonna be all my fault because I just couldn't get him to where I needed to be.

Helena:

Well, this last year I had the awesome opportunity of not teaching full-time and instead going in and out of classrooms and oftentimes the classrooms of my students who I taught previously. This kiddo now fourth well, fourth grade, fifth grade now this kiddo was severely below reading level and when he left my classroom he was still below. He wasn't as below, but he was pretty below. I was there. When he left my classroom, he was still below, he wasn't as below, but he was pretty below. I was there when he read his first book, when he read his first sentence, when he wrote his first sentence and it was so good to see Such a good feeling. But again I felt like it wasn't enough. I walked in on his fourth grade class this year and he was not in. So we have levels reading groups, um, or my school does, and he wasn't in the one that was seeing the reading interventionist group. He wasn't in the low, low performing or the mid tier. He was in the highest reading level group, highest reading level. After not knowing how to spell his name in second grade and he volunteered to read to the entire class a fifth grade level text. The same kid who struggled writing his name two years prior was now reading at a fifth grade level in fourth grade.

Helena:

And I'm not saying this story to be like, look what I did. It's those little wins add up and it's easy to feel like they don't. It's easy because you are in the classroom and it's easy to see up close. You know it's you're too close to it all, but if you step back, I mean it's amazing, the growth these kids make, amazing, amazing. And even those years where I was new and I didn't exactly know what I was doing, my kids still had growth, and I'll give you another story. And I'll give you another story.

Helena:

I had a student who had a really hard time with regulating his emotions Completely shut down, rip his paper, hide under the desks, like that was his norm the first day of third grade. After, you know, leaving my classroom he went up to his teacher and he told her throughout the day day if I get upset I'm going to step to the back of the room, I'm going to set a timer for a minute and I'm going to calm my body, but I'm going to come do my work right away. And he did that kiddo who had such a hard time regulating his emotions that we've worked on all year long, articulated to his teacher his needs and advocated for himself. And these are just stories from my classroom. I can't tell you.

Helena:

In the last year I went into some of these classrooms at my school where kids were struggling with skills and then I came back in October and they were completely different kids. They had learned so much. You are doing that, you are having these wins, and it's so easy to not see them now because you're in the classroom day to day. It's like when you don't notice that your kids grow or whatever Our students are learning every day, and those little wins add up. You are changing generations, you are making an impact, you are giving these skills to these kids that are going to make their lives easier, and the beauty about it is, depending what grade level your kids come in with these skills, you add to it and then the next teacher adds, the next teacher adds, and as we lay down these bricks of really strong foundations, in four years you're not gonna recognize these kids because of how far they've come and teaching.

Helena:

I love teaching. Teaching is one of the most rewarding careers. I love it and that's why I'm here with the President. Teacher, I wanna help you If you wanna stay in the classroom and you're struggling. I wanna help you get there Because it's possible for me. It's possible for you too, all right. So those were the 10 lessons from my six years of teaching, and if you would have gone back and told first year teacher me who wanted to quit during kindergarten graduation that I would be here six years later on, you know my platforms sharing about how much I've learned in six years and that I now have a community where I share resources to help teachers be the teachers they want to be, while living a life they love. I wouldn't believe you because I didn't think it was possible for me. So, with all that being said, I'm here to tell you if it's possible for me, it's possible for you too, and I'm here on the other side sharing what I've learned, hoping that it resonates with you. Just know I'm really proud of you and you've came a long way, and take some time today to reflect on how far you've come since you started your, your journey, your teacher journey, because I bet you, if it's anything like my experience, night and day, even if it doesn't feel like it in the moment. So, with all that being said, I really love this and thank you so much for being a part of this community.

Helena:

All of the emails, the DMs, the messages, all of it. It means so much to me and it keeps me going and it keeps me motivated and excited to share all of these. You know free content every week and I'm so grateful that I week's content comment or send me a DM to let me know Screenshot and send me a screenshot, or tag me on social media that you're tuning in, and then I would really love it if you could subscribe or leave a review. That's gonna help this content like this reach more teachers that could use this message and final thoughts is don't get that. You got this If you were. If you have a desire to teach, you are meant to do this and I promise you you're going to get to the other side and it's going to be so great. This upcoming year is going to be flipping amazing and I'm so excited to see your wins. I'm so excited to see how it goes for you. The better it gets, the better it gets. If you want to dive deeper, where can I send you more free content? So I have the ultimate first year teacher guide. I'll make sure to link that in the description and then, if you want to dive, take it a step further.

Helena:

I am, at the end of the month, going to be doing a membership it's called, or a community, it's called the Present Teacher Circle. So the idea of the circle is I'm going to walk you through all the different areas I talked about earlier that I learned that worked for me my classroom running activities to make things run smoothly, and on autopilot to automate my classroom so I could show up as the teacher I wanted to, so I could show up for my friends, have my weekends free, create a community online while I was teaching full-time. All of that I share inside, and what I love about this is it's 12 modules or it's going to be, if it's not released yet 12 different modules and they walk through all the different areas I talked about as far as lesson planning, prepping, grading, data, organization, communication, teacher wellness. All of that you can go in and learn about whatever you want to work on at that time. So maybe this month you really want to focus on classroom management. There's two modules on that so you can dive in, and so, if that's something you're interested in, I put pretty much all I know about creating a smoothly run classroom in one spot. I would love to have you join us. So, depending on when this comes out, you can either join the waitlist in the description below or feel free to join us inside. We would love to have you. I'm super excited about this because I get to show up with you and answer your questions monthly, and it's just really a place for me to really help you focus on those different systems to help you run your classroom. Help your classroom run smoothly.

Helena:

All right, I think this was probably the longest episode we've had so far, but, with that being said, I have to end as I always do. As always, remember we are stronger together. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you got something out of this and I will talk to you soon. Peach or Besty. Bye. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me if you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you're listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together. With all the love in the world, helena, aka the Present Teacher. See you next time, teacher bestie.

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Helena Hains-Daubenspeck

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