Turn off the Influencers and Find a Meeting

I am so sick of the teacher influencers on social media.

Like many of us, I downloaded TikTok for the first time during the pandemic and the algorithms quickly locked me in to similar videos. Rebecca Rogers was first with “real things”

Then Mr. Williams

and so many more…

Then I found burntoutteachers

And after a few of her videos I’d had enough.

Every single one of the teacher influencers started with reasonable intentions: exposing the challenges working in the educational system with a bit of humor and a bit of sarcasm. A bunch of these influencers now tour with Bored Teachers.

And you know what most of them share?

They have left the classroom.

And I don’t blame them! How could you possibly stay in the profession when you build an entire platform around the challenges and vitriol around education?

There’s a whole other issue here around sharing real and related stories about students on social media, but that’s not for today.

I ran across this article from EdSurge this week about how difficult it has been to get teachers involved in meaningful PD since the pandemic. I’ve seen the same challenges in a variety of organizations I am involved with, and I believe that this is a symptom of a much more insidious problem: we have lost our sense of community, giving and gratitude.

Before the internet warriors jump on me that I’m claiming teachers should be martyrs and I’m part of the problem, let me say it flatly: I’m not.

Pick any board of directors. Those positions, especially in the non-profit sector, are paid.

Pick any community based program. Most of the heavy lifting is done by volunteers.

And where does all of this unpaid labor come from? It comes from a lot of folks working corporate jobs who want to do more than they can from the confines of their 9-5. And you know what happens? That volunteer work enhances their professional work.

I started teaching on the cusp of what a lot of people refer to as the beginning of the end. It was 2009, we were just coming off of No Child Left Behind and entering Every Student Succeeds. The recession of 2008 was about to hit education hard, but just before that things were great. Organizations were active and teachers attended and presented at conferences.

I owe a great deal of my development as a teacher to all of the folks who said, “come with us” quickly followed by “come share”. Anywhere I went, teachers with 5-25 years of experience would introduce themselves, introduce me to someone else and then ask me if I planned to go to the next big thing. Just as we know relationships with our students make all the difference, relationships with other teachers also made the difference professionally.

When I moved away from Chicago I quickly missed this community deeply and sought it out vigorously. For myself this meant attending state and national meetings. Yes it required time and money, but I grew. That growth made me not only a better teacher, but it infused joy into my work.

If you’ve followed me for a while you know I’m involved with a partnership program with the University of Illinois. It’s a huge time investment, including two weeks in the summer. I imagine that many of the folks signed on because of the “status” of a university partnership tied in with the compensation. However, what every single person remarks is how incredible the program is and how much they are able to learn and grow. What I’ve noticed is that very few of the teachers in the program were teachers who were involved in other professional spheres until now, but now they get it. We have teachers who want to attend and present at PD opportunities and who want to learn more by becoming part of the larger community. But you can’t “drink the Kool-Aid” until you show up and give it a shot in the first place.

This is a second problem I am seeing. There are a lot of teachers who view the organizations and groups as places where the organization should be “doing” for them so they can “receive” from the organization. Yet these individuals have no desire to provide. This model doesn’t work. An organization built on volunteers cannot give without its members also giving in return. That’s where burn-out happens. We need to be happy to give as much as we receive. This was the other notable part of my early years teaching. After I’d dipped my toes into the community teachers were quick to tell me I should share. And so I did. The sense of “I have nothing to offer” is really overwhelming at first. However, when you begin to share you realize it’s an incredible positive feedback loop. You get to teach other teachers while also learning. Teachers come and tell you what you have to share is helpful!

Working in the education system is really hard. None of the influencers are wrong. But “the wolf you feed is the one that wins”. We have become so wrapped up in what we believe is self-care that we are starving ourselves from the joy that comes from investing care into our professional lives. Going to conferences or smaller gatherings IS self-care: it’s care that infuses this really hard job with joy and reignites why we love what we do.

In 6 days I will leave for New Orleans for the national American Association of Physics Teachers meeting. I’m involved because my AP Physics teacher would ask me year after year “are you going?” and year after year I would say “no” because it was too expensive. In 2018 I decided I needed to make the investment because I was isolated in my district. My network quickly grew and in 2021 I was nominated to serve on the board of directors. I have to give a great deal of time to the organization, but it is incredibly rewarding to be part of this work that so heavily impacts the teachers who are involved.