Is Toxic Positivity Killing Teacher Morale on Your Campus?

Hey there, teacher tribe. Have you ever wanted to scream at someone who was so inauthentically positive, even when things on your campus were turning into a little dumpster fire? If you're an admin, or even head of your campus' Sunshine Committee yep, lots of schools have them then you don't want to miss today's episode. We're exploring the concept of toxic positivity in education and how your attempts to keep things positive and upbeat may in fact, be doing the exact opposite, causing irritation, resentment and negatively affecting campus morale. Yikes, it's a tricky subject and we're going to dive right in. Welcome to the Balance, your Teacher Life podcast, where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries and achieving better work-life balance. If you're passionate about education but tired of it consuming your whole life, you have found your home in the podcast universe. I'm your host, grace Stevens, and let's get going with today's show. Okay, so let's start off with the basics. What is toxic positivity and why am I talking about it? Because, let's face it, what I'm most famous for is my book Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers. Aren't I all about the positivity? Well, yes and no. What I'm about is authentic positivity, optimism focusing on what we can control, focusing on empowerment, feeling more empowered to make changes, to really recognize the fact that the day goes better. When you assume things will go well and assume people are giving their best intentions and their best efforts, right, I always say that assume the best intentions. Think really in terms of is it really true? Did that person really get out of bed this morning with the sole intent of annoying you? Probably not, okay. So I'm what we call realistic positivity. You know, I'm honest. I think I'm very honest with people that I am not always up and sunshiney. I was not born with that polyanogen. Um, in fact, the opposite is true, which is why I studied positive psychology and happy habits for so many years and really trained myself to refocus my brain on looking for the positive, because, left to its own devices, you know, I'm pretty, pretty negative, to be honest. Um, that's just the way my brain works and I've trained it to be otherwise. But there are plenty of days that I'm overwhelmed, stressed, or I like to say you know what, some days, that lemonade stand is just closed. Okay, I'm not above being in the fetal position under my desk crying any more than anybody else, but as a general rule, I focus on the positive. So toxic positivity is something else. It's like a forced positivity. It's kind of forced right. It's like on the surface, everything is good, everything is fun. We'll talk about the messaging that is kind of subtle, but I think this quote will help you understand, and it's by Dr Susan David, who's the author of a fantastic book, emotional Agility, and she says toxic positivity is forced false positivity. It may sound innocuous on the surface, but when you share something difficult with someone and they insist that you turn it into a positive, then what you're really saying is my comfort is more important than your reality. Okay, and so this is how it manifests on campuses, I find and not by evil design, but a lot of times, I think, honestly because administrators, people in charge, really don't have answers to all the problems and so they're trying to keep it upbeat. But when we send this messaging, what you're really doing is invalidating people. So what does the messaging look like? Because, just like the quote says, inoculus, it couldn't look so harmless. It's all that messaging that's like oh, we're a family, we're superheroes. You know we're not. We're not superheroes, we're human. Okay, oh, it's for the kids, or it could be worse. Or all those mugs or those t shirts. You know we got this and you know it is kind of harmful. It is really invalidating the way that people feel. Right, it is trying to pretend that there is nothing negative happening when, as we know, there are so many problems in education and they need to be addressed. Now, there's a totally difference, big difference, between you know a Debbie Downer who has, you know, a problem for every solution. Right, that anything you try and bring up and anything that you try and improve, they're already telling you it will never work. Right, we don't want those types of people on campus. Well, we have them. We would need to kind of minimize our exposure to them and protect our peace from them. I have a lot of strategies for that, but it's the toxically positive messaging that is also very demoralizing for some. Right, when you go to an admin with you know, real logical concerns and they're just like, oh, but you're the best, we can do this. Like, no, just show me how. Right, I think the epitome of this I'm going to get some hate for this, but you know I call it fake fun Like when things are really stressful, maybe around testing time, when lots of issues are surfacing and you know what happens. Oh, we call a spirit week A spirit week. Right, that's code for dress up days. Right, we're going to have crazy hair day. We're going to have pajama day. We're going to you know what, or what we already got is a bunch of kids who are, for a lot of them, dysregulated and need some stress. Dysregulated and need some structure in this craziness of what was the big thing last year and bring your school to anything but a backpack. Oh my gosh, people, kids being creative, yeah, but it's causing mayhem and chaos. I'm very stressful for the teachers, to be honest, and I feel that it's in the way of you know, when there's a real issue and you bring it to your admin and their answer is well, we can have a jeans pass, right? Oh, we have a themed staff meeting. It's all about, you know, a luau, but you know, other than the decorations, like you know, one's given you time to go away. You know what I'm saying. So it's really we don't want themed staff days as toxic positivity. We want, you know, real results, the things that admins can control. Giving us enough copies, right. How much stress is caused by running out of copies? Can I borrow your copy code? It's ridiculous. Right? More support staff so that we don't have to cover every duty right, like there are things that people can do okay. So what we want to avoid is this messaging that is invalidating people's Feelings. That is what toxic positivity I mean. The epitome of that is, you know when? When they have the signs, positive vibes only. I mean that's not cool. Yeah, I'm a positive person, but even I have a bad day, and so I think one of the the misconceptions, the miss messaging, is that Feelings are, you know, binary. Either you are Happy to be a teacher or you're not. Either your teacher quit talk or your teacher staying right. Like feelings, emotions can coexist and there needs to be more recognition and understanding of that right. It is possible to love teaching and know in your soul that it's your purpose but at the same time, be exhausted and frustrated and burning out right. You could love students and be so committed to their success but also be so frustrated right now at the degree of dysregulation with students, of lack of accountability, of apathy. Those things can be driving you crazy and wearing you out. It doesn't mean that you're not positive. Feelings can coexist, okay. So here's what I want to say, that just be aware. I'm inviting you to reflect on your practice. Do people want to be positive? Of course, but don't shut down people who Are really trying, realistically, you know, to do their best and it may not always come off as positive. You cannot have a policy that doesn't allow people To have a bad day. It's just just, it's just not realistic. So I'm gonna give you an Example of something that just came up recently and I found it like man Positively gone, bad, and you may be aware of it. So this is what it is. It is the whole concept of the Marigold story. Do you know this story? It's this whole concept of a letter to new teachers. I do believe that it was originally Posted on cult of pedagogy and Gonzalez", you know, fabulous website, fabulous Podcast, awesome resources for teachers. It was a great article and it was kind of like a little old, like you know. Here's a letter to new teachers. You know, find your marigold and the whole idea was that when farmers are planting crops, you know they put marigolds with Different crops because it helps them grow it and riches the ground and any crop is gonna do better when it has marigolds next to it. And, conversely, be very careful where you put walnut trees, because walnut trees can be poisonous to a lot of crops. So that was her idea and it was kind of like I said it wasn't a terribly long article and I have no Absolutely 100%, like no argument with that. I mean, it's what. I coach people. I coach people all the time, whether they are teachers new teachers, old teachers, veteran teachers, new to a district or whether in fact they're students. I worked in a school where I taught first grade and those kids went all the way through eighth grade at that school and it was a very small school and some of those tutors as kids I do seven or eight years. Like I knew these kids really well and when they were all going to high school, when I was writing in their Yearbooks when it was, you know, eighth grade, graduation promotion, like I always tell them the same thing mind who you hang with, right, it's the exact same idea. Like some people are gonna bring you up and some people are gonna bring you down, right. So mind who you, who you hang with. I coach people teachers, admins all the time how to protect your piece from. I don't call a Marigolds and walnuts, I call them battery chargers and battery drainers, like we know who they are, the people who, when you spend time with them, you feel better, and that could be whether or not they're complaining, right, legitimately. Some might teach a besties man, we go for it sometimes, but we always for better afterwards, right, that's very different from somebody who drains your batteries who when you see them come in you just want to dodge them, right. So it's not the idea that I have an objection to, it is an objection to how I've been seeing it used recently. Okay, so I do have to mention that in her article, the mention of having compassion for people, like there's a lot of labeling, right that she does the kid hating Kate, the retirement Dan, the my time mark Margaret, like she's putting teachers into these categories, which you know I never find labeling particularly Helpful, although you know I was kind of chuckling. Like we all know who those people are. But this idea of having compassion for these people comes in really late in the article. It's like the penultimate paragraph, so kind of thrown in there like an afterthought. Like you know, have a little compassion for them. But you know, mind who you hang with. So that's her article, her story. It's been circulating around for a decade now. People turn in little books, motivational videos, awesome. However, I participate in an admin Group, even though I'm not an admin people sharing ideas and different things, and somebody had asked About how they were rolling out this whole idea of find your marigold to new teachers and I gotta tell you, wow, oh well, we're making all the teachers and paper crepe crepe paper Marigolds or some people buying real marigolds, and one admin was making marigold cupcakes and and then one admins she was making all her stuff where yellow or orange t-shirts the first day of professional development To show the new teachers that everybody on that campus was a marigold. So that's toxic positivity right there and that's just plain BS. Not everybody on a campus is a Marigold or wants to be a marigold, and Neither should they want or have to be. It's not in their job description. You know I, the world, needs what I call stay in your lane teachers. Teachers who Just come do their job the best of their ability. They care for kids. They are well prepared, the kids are happy to be in their class, their kids grow. They set appropriate boundaries. They stay in their lane. They don't volunteer for a whole ton of stuff and they leave work at a reasonable hour, they stay in your lane. Teachers, and we need to get over this kind of mythology. We need to stop glorifying overwork like a badge of honor and shaming people who don't worship at the altar of zero boundaries and overworking to the point of burnout, right, people who are gonna push and push themselves, damaging their mental and emotional health, their relationships. Like this is an epidemic in teaching right now and pretty soon there won't be any types of teachers, no matter what you want to label them as. They're gonna be the absent teacher, because we know that teachers leaving is a huge problem. And so the last thing, some teacher who is shy or introverted or, quite frankly, just wants to do their job to the best of their ability and go home why are we making them wear orange t-shirts? Why are we forcing them to be a marigold? Like, not every teacher is a marigold every day, like I said, plenty of days in my life where, like, the lemonade stand is closed, and so I really feel I was really surprised when I saw that and I didn't really I just didn't even know how to address it. I didn't know how to gently ask somebody to reflect on that or say, wow, how do your teachers feel about that. I know how I would have felt about it and I am a marigold I'd like to think I am, I would. It just didn't sit well with me. I mean, and if this is your teachers, a PD their first day back at school, like you have already alienated and frustrated and irritated some teachers. Right, I seen that with my own book when campuses buy a large number from me directly and I'm thrilled about it. And I said, what do you plan to do with the book? And they say, okay, well, we're going to give it to all the teachers this year. Okay, and we're going to have a book study. And I always tell them, you know, make it optional, don't make it mandatory, like you're gonna have some. I feel like people who are gravitating towards my message will find me, will enjoy it, will share it, but you can't force it on somebody. You know there was a co worker once. I'm or I worked. All I was doing in the morning I'm going to tell you was I was happily by the coffee machine. You know there was no line. I'd come in early to make my copies. It was in the staff room where a coffee machine was always a. In fact, it was a coffee machine. I have brought in a curing that I donated to the school. She was making her coffee. All I was doing was humming and making my copies and she seemed very irritated and told me that I was offensively cheerful. I wasn't telling her to be cheerful, I wasn't saying why so sad, right, I wasn't getting in her business, I was just living my best life making my copies and I was fancibly cheerful. So somebody like that you're going to hand that? Tell them to our an orange t shirt. I give them my book positive mindset habits for teachers. They're going to say what now, on top of everything else, I need to be positive. Like they're going to take it real personal. So just be mindful. This is the whole point of this episode. I'm inviting you to reflect on your practice, right when what you're thinking is really positive. Handing out Marx t shirts we got this, you know. Hashtag teacher tired. Like, why are we glorifying this? Like, let people be who they are. You know, everybody has an obligation to be open minded and to be open to change and to positively participate in giving ideas and solutions. I like to empower people to feel that they have the power to have opinions, to take back some time of control of their energy and their time, show up as their best selves. But that's very different from not allowing people to have negative emotions, and that is what toxic positivity is really just not allowing, tolerating or recognizing, just completely turn in a blind eye because you're uncomfortable, because you don't know how to handle it, you're just going to pretend like the worst thing is oh, it could be worse. It could be worse. It's the horrible thing to say to somebody and we say it to children to watch out that you don't say that to students to write when a student's having a bad day, I feel like we give students a lot of grace. You know they fill out their little feelings, reflection what you feeling, why you feel that way. We know better than to invalidate a child's feelings and tell them you shouldn't feel that way. That's ridiculous. To tell somebody they shouldn't feel that way. They do feel that way, right, that's the way they feel. So we know better than to do it to students. Please do not do it to adults. So that's all I have to say on that. I just want to invite you again to reflect on your practice and you know, if you have a leadership committee, which most schools have, make it a true leadership committee. A true leadership committee isn't just giving them a T-shirt that says they're on the leadership committee, it's actually implementing and supporting the ideas that teachers bring forward. Right, I'm going to tell you, I was on a wellness committee for three years, a district wellness committee, and it had participants from all the schools. It had the school nurse, the district nurse, psychologists, it had everything. And I'm going to tell you, in three years and part of that time was during COVID and our wellness committee was never once discussed teacher mental health. I mean, that's just ridiculous. That tells me that you're having, you know, a wellness committee because you want to tell people you have a wellness committee, not because you're truly committed to wellness, right, and so don't say do the same thing with your leadership committee, right? Do the people on your leadership committee really feel like leaders, empowered, that you listen to their suggestions and implement them and support their ideas, or that you're just checking it off your list? Okay, cause that would fall under the topic of toxic positivity. All right, so that's what we got for you today, not just the biggest buzzword coming through, it's real. Make sure it isn't happening at a campus near you and, ironically, don't go at me telling me that I'm positive, that I'm toxicly positive when I tell people at the end of every episode to make your own sunshine. Yes, that could be seen as toxicly positive, but it's actually a call out to a really important poem about how teachers make the weather in the classroom, and for me it's a call to action, of empowerment. You can control the weather in the classroom. You are in charge of the vibe in your classroom and in your own little kingdom. When you close the door, you can make magic.