Trust Yourself, Teacher

The outrage machine is loud, but your classroom doesn’t have to be. We’re pulling the focus back to what you can control: the students in front of you, the relationships you build, and the professional judgment that makes learning human. If you’ve felt crushed by scripts, shifting benchmarks, and the demand to standardize every slide, this conversation is a reset—heart first, performance next.

We unpack the tension between uniform systems and diverse learners, exploring why “a year of growth” can’t mean the same thing for every child. From hallway observations to playground insights, we show how everyday moments reveal who needs connection, who needs safety, and who’s ready for challenge. You’ll hear practical ways to turn down the noise—pausing for regulation, designing from student voice, and redefining rigor as something that follows belonging. Connection isn’t fluff; it’s the runway for cognition and the reason academic gains stick.

Looking ahead, we set a spring theme around trust, simplicity, and energy, including STEM projects anchored in meaning and collaboration rather than just output. We also share a device-free digital citizenship lesson to help students reclaim attention, practice kind feedback, and carry online norms back into real life. If you’re ready to trade comparisons for compassion and scripts for discernment, come sit with us. Subscribe, share this with a teacher who needs a lift, and leave a review with one place you’ll trust yourself more this week.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

Free Device-Free Digital Citizenship Lesson

Artificial Intelligence (AI) ChatGPT Technology Vocabulary Word of the Day

Transcript

Trust Yourself, Not Perfection

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Teachers, it's time to trust yourself. Your kids need you. They need you, not perfect lessons. So there's a lot of noise right now telling teachers what they should be doing, but you know your kids. Trust your instincts and lead with connection. Today, on One Tired Teacher, that's what we're going to be talking about. Trusting ourselves, knowing that our kids need us, and that they don't need all the rest of the noise. Hope you stick around.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Welcome to One Tired Teacher. And even though she may need a nap, this teacher is ready to wake up and speak her truth about the trials and treasures of teaching. Here she is, wide awake. Wait, she's not asleep right now, is she? She is awake, right? Okay. From Trina Deborah Teaching and Learning, your host, Trina Debori.

Tuning Out The Noise

Standardization Vs Human Needs

Judgment, Growth, And Moving Targets

Heart Over Performance

Know Your Kids Deeply

March Themes And STEM Through Connection

Free Digital Citizenship Lesson

Closing Reminder To Lead With Heart

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey. So today we're talking about all the things that often feel like outside noise. All the comparison, the criticism. It feels so heavy, especially right now in where we are in our country with what is going on in our environment and the constant anger and rage and frustration that we're that we're seeing online, you know, we're hearing about it. It's it's a lot. And I think it's time that we turn off some of the news and some of the social media and some of the comments from who knows who, and we really truly focus on what matters, and that is what is in front of us. What do we have control over? Sometimes we don't feel like we have a lot of control over anything, or we, you know, we're constantly criticized or compared. That's so difficult. The lat in the last month in February, I talked a little bit about evaluations and being under like a microscope and feeling like having it be really hard to have someone watching you while you while you're working. And I often think about like where in the system we've like we've taken such a giant misstep. And one of the things that always feels contradictory to me is when we talk about standardizing everything. We want everything to be standardized so that we have this supposedly efficient system. However, it's not always efficient, and also that doesn't take into effect the importance of differentiation and valuing each other's differences and valuing each person as a human being, despite any other things about a person. We are ultimately human beings. And when we want everything to be exactly the same way, but then we set up a system where we're going to compare you and criticize you, it it doesn't feel it doesn't feel collaborative. It feels like scarcity, it feels like angst, it feels hard, it feels like pressure, and that and that makes teaching really difficult. And it also makes everything feel hopeless or impossible. And that's why it's really important for us to hold on to what we know is true and what we know is good and focus on the job at hand, which is educating the children in front of us. It isn't just educating them though, it's also loving them, accepting them, providing a safe environment for them, and helping them feel like they are capable of contributing to the world. And we need them. We need them to contribute to the world. We desperately need them to contribute in a way that feels compassionate and empathetic and kind and generous and loving. And you know, we don't want to do to them what has been done to us. We don't need to put them in a situation where we're constantly comparing them to one another. Um, and and I mean in things like you know, data charts or as far as like grades or information or groups or things that make them feel less than than somebody else. That is those are messages we want to be really careful about. And also when we're making decisions about things that we're doing or things that we're teaching in our classroom, it's really important for teachers to remember that our judgment matters more than ever. Because there are things that are said about teachers that are not true. They're either not true or they're true of a very, very small number of people, and they get blown into these things that re like look like they represent all of us, and that's that's really hard. So your judgment, it makes a difference. And when somebody wants you to use a specific curriculum, a specific set of materials to do something and you know, sp like the you have to use the exact same slides, and everyone must be teaching on the same slides and all these things. But then they turn around and criticize you when kids are not meeting expectations or are not growing at an appropriate level or an appropriate amount, like it's and then they then they change the benchmark. It's like you you want to show a year's worth of growth, and then they come back and say, no, we're gonna do a year and a half worth of growth. And and those expectations sometimes are insane because a year's worth of growth, what does that look like? What does that actually mean? And is it the same for every single child? A year's worth of growth is different than everyone has to be on this at this point at the same time because we all are starting at different places. So those are things that we have to keep in mind. And your judgment and your ability to determine what is working for your kids and what isn't, it matters, it is the thing that can make all the difference, and that's something that we have to definitely hold on to. So, what am I trying to say in this episode? I'm trying to say that we, I think, in order to feel like we are doing the job that most of us set out to do, which was to make a difference in the lives of children, or to, you know, educate the future or contribute to the world. Most of us have like an altruistic reason for teaching. Most of us didn't pick this profession because we were like, oh yay, we got a lot, we get lots of blocks of time off. Um, that is definitely can be a perk, although most of us know that there's a lot of work that's still going on during that time. Or the job can be so hard and heavy that we need that time to mentally like pick ourselves back up and continue on. Um don't even get me started on that. Anyway, we we know that we wanted to do it for a specific, you know, purpose, for something more. It was something beyond ourselves. And I think we have to remember that we want to choose heart over performance every time. We want to choose heart over performance. We want to put the needs of kids first. Because, you know, it if all of all the learning that we've done, we know that kids, the kids can't function or can't work or can't learn. Their brain is not even capable of taking in information when their basic needs are not being met, and when they are feeling lost or hopeless or scared or upset or sick or hungry. Like we we know it's important to always have a heart there and and kind of put performance as a secondary aspect. And I know that can be really hard, especially when when you're being judged, when you're being judged and evaluated. But I I guess I am asking, what is the worst thing that can happen if you put a child first? What is the worst thing that happens? You you know, you get a poor evaluation, you are non-renewed. What what does that tell you inside of your heart though? You that you know you did the right thing for kids? Like doesn't that feel more in line than I didn't do what was right for kids, but I kept my job? I mean, you know, we want to keep our jobs, especially when we need our jobs and when our family needs our jobs. We also have a family to protect and care for and love and can you know contribute to. But we also have children that are in our care that we want to love and contribute to. So I guess this episode really is more about reminding yourself that you can trust yourself, you know what kids need. And if you don't, step back a little bit and listen. Listen to the conversations you're having. This is a really powerful place to when you're on the playground. This was always one of my favorite places to be with kids because I I got to see them with their, with their kind of with their guard down and with, you know, how they interacted with other students, how well they played or if they didn't play, whether they joined or were isolated, whether they, you know, were easy to get along with or difficult. You know, it those are places to notice things about kids and to learn about what's going on with them. And when we know them on a deeper level, we're able to reach them in a more meaningful way. It it really is hard over performance. So if nothing else, I want you to remember remember this that you already know what your kids need. Trust yourself because they need you to trust yourself. If they are gonna trust us, you have to trust yourself first. All right, so the month of March is going to be all about this kind of theme of trusting yourself and knowing that you have the ability to do what you know is right in your classroom. And it's also about simplicity and energy because we're stepping into spring, and it's a reminder that your judgment matters more than ever, and that human connection is still the work. We're gonna talk a little bit about STEM. We're gonna talk about STEM through the idea of connection and meaning. And we're gonna talk, we're gonna have some real talk on some some episodes, and we're gonna we're we're gonna talk specifically about things that we can do in our classroom that help like bring more energy and connection to our spaces. And so that's really what the month of March is all about. I hope that you will join me in this exciting springtime, and of course, my timer goes off in this in this springtime. Now, my my freebie for the month of March is a device-free digital citizenship lesson. I think it's a really important time to to like kind of review citizenship, and digital citizenship can easily transfer into like in-person citizenship. And I have a lesson that talks a lot about um kids and how they think and about their attention and their kindness and their real connection, and it allows kids to think about whether that's happening in the moment in person or like what kind of environments they are on in or in online. So it's more of a focus on like putting our devices down, which is going to be a conversation we also have this month. And so if you're interested in that, if it fits, if it works for you, then you can grab that at, let's see, Trina Deborah Teaching and Learning.com forward slash digital dash citizenship. So it's all Trina Deborah Teaching and Learning.com forward slash digital dash citizenship. That will get you to the free digital citizens citizenship lesson, which is device free. All right. So as March gets louder and the world feels heavier, remember this the work you're doing with the small humans in front of you matters more than you know. Connection counts, the kindness counts. One meaningful moment counts. You're allowed to trust yourself. Slow down and teach with your heart. I'll talk to you next week. Until next time, sweet dreams and sleep tight.