Two Ways to Manage Stress From the Classroom

I'm Brian Martin, a second grade teacher who find so much joy and fulfillment in what I do. Being in the classroom for almost 20 years, I know all about the time, effort and energy that you are continuously pouring into those you serve. That's why each week, I'm going to bring you an inspiring message to give you a little joy, and help fill your cup back up. Thank you for being here. And welcome to the teaching champions podcast. What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. Life is good, my friends. It was another solid week at school. And we're headed into that final week of October. And it's a big week, we have Halloween at the end of the week. And being at the primary level. We make it a fun time with costumes games, classroom parties, in that infamous Halloween parade. Now, things are a little different this year. But in the past, we would get dressed in our costumes, the students families would line the sidewalks. And every single Power Ranger Disney Princess storm trooper would strop past the families. And it was pretty awesome. The kids are so cute, and they get pumped up for this. However, let me tell you about a year that I will never forget. And this was a few years back pre pandemic. And my students, they're getting dressed in their costumes, and they're looking pretty stellar. There's princesses Power Rangers ninjas, we have Darth Vader, we have a goat in the parade starts up. Now. The physical education teachers in my school are phenomenal. And they set up a spooky gymnasium for the students, they turn off the lights to have fun music in the kids have to navigate themselves along a path that the gym teachers have made. And as my class is going into kindergarten classes coming up, and they're laughing and giggling, just having a great time. My class goes, the music's plan, there's flashing lights, and all of a sudden, one of my students starts crying. Then another and another in these cries turn to sobs. Now I've never witnessed a domino effect like this in my life. And I go over and I try to comfort them. But nothing is working. And we get out of the maze. And my class is just racked. Half of them are crying. I have Darth Vader bringing up the rear. And he comes out of the gymnasium in a full breakdown. My aide and I we are doing everything that we can to try and bring the students back. But it's just a monsoon of tears at this point. And it only gets worse. And you see, typically we would leave the gymnasium and head out onto the sidewalk and the parents would be outside. But not this year. It was pouring outside. So all the parents were inside and they were waiting for us down the hallway. Only about 20 feet away. And they're just staring at me in my class. And when you have something like a Halloween parade, you don't just have parents. There's Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles. It's just pat in my princesses, fairy skeletons, Power Ranger and my man, Darth Vader. They're just destroyed at this point. And there's another class right behind us trying to come out of the gym. So my class is bottlenecking everything up. And at this point, a good teacher would have regrouped their class. They probably would have let the class behind them go ahead and then took some time to calm everyone down. But I panicked. It was a deer in headlights moment. So I did the only thing that I could think of we charge to the ocean of families. So with a half smile, I lead the way waving to the parents. And I saw them. Hearing the Psalms of the young ones as they followed me, seeing the parents and the grandparents exchange looks of worries as their gaze went from me to the students to each other. And after going past, every single family in the school, we finally got back to the classroom. Now, my students would end up being Alright, we were able to play some games have some donuts and cider, and they were having a phenomenal time. It was a moment for me though, my friends, certain things we will never forget. Let's get into it. One of the goals of this podcast is to expose you to people that you may have never heard of before, and to take now as from others, walks of life, and really weave them into the world of education. Over the past year, I've been following a lot of mental conditioning coaches. And if you don't know what a mental conditioning coaches, it's someone that helps make your mind stronger. And they're becoming more and more common. Most professional sports teams have them. And one of my favorite mental conditioning coaches to listen to is Justin Sue, and he's the mental conditioning coach for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. And I'm going to share two lessons that I've learned from him lately. And hopefully, you can take one or two things away from this and apply it to the week ahead. The first lesson I want to share with you from Mr. Souza is about managing stress. I don't know if you need any help in this department. But speaking for myself, I will gladly take any tips on how to effectively manage stress. And the first lesson is all about finding those people who help us maintain perspective. Justin talks about a time when he was in high school, and he was a great pitcher for his baseball team. And he said he's in a big game, and he's struggling. Now his father was the coach and his father causes a timeout. And in baseball when the coach calls a timeout, typically he'll go to the pitcher's mound, the catcher and the other members of the infield will all meet up at the mound. And the coach may offer some motivation, some tips, they might strategize about what they want to do against the current batter. Justin said though, that his his father is walking out to the mouth. He waved off the catcher and the rest of the infield players and told them to stay back. He gets out to the mound, he looks at Justin. And he asked them where he wants to eat after the game. And Justin said he kind of looked at him as if to ask, Are you serious? and his dad said once again, what would you like to eat after the game? So Justin said, Burger King. And his dad said, What do you want to eat a burger king. So Justin goes a double Whopper with fries and a coke in his dad said now asked me what I want to eat. So Justin asked him and he said a whopper with cheese. And with that, his dad turned around and walked off the mound. And Justin said he watched his dad as he walked all the way back to the dugout. And then his dad turned around, smiled at him and shrugged. And he sent his son the message to relax. And Justin said, after this exchange, he went on and he played great for the rest of the game. He said that his dad taught him a very important lesson that day. He taught him the power of having someone in your corner, who is able to keep things in perspective, when you're stressed out. Mr. Su was says that we want to look at our own lives. Look at the people who are around us and ask ourselves, who are the people that are fountains of peace, of love of joy, those individuals who know how to say the right thing, when we're having a difficult day, those individuals that we can walk into their classroom, all fired up about something and they will sit there and they'll listen. They'll give the right advice. When we're stressed when we're struggling. We have blinders on and we can get consumed with the struggles that weren't. So we need others who will help us feel calm. Those who breathe a healthy perspective into us. The school day, it can be hard and whether it's academic issues. behavioral issues, issues with parents of some students, when problems hit, we can become emotionally consumed with them. And they can make you angry, they can make you negative, it can affect your mental health. So you need those individuals that when that time is rough, they're going to be there to smile at you, to help you relax, to help you take a step back, they're going to help you look at the issue from another angle, and help you gain that perspective. Mr. Sue says that these people help us turn down the volume of stress. He said, stress is always going to be there, we're human, it's going to be there for us. But no matter how well, we learn to manage it, if we get those people in our lives, then we can turn down that stress volume. A second teaching that I've recently picked up from Mr. Sue, is all about managing expectations and goals that we set. He says that if there's certain result based goal that you're trying to reach, there's a greater likelihood that you're going to experience stress and pressure, and you're going to feel anxiety to reach. And the more you tell yourself that you have to achieve that goal, the more pressure that you put on yourself. He says, to look at your goal. He doesn't say to lower the bar or change the goal necessarily, but just look at them. And think about how you might be able to adjust them. So let's unpack that for a second. What do we know about educators. They're high achievers, hard workers. They have high expectations. They have high goals. You know, each and every single one of us, we want our students to succeed. And when you invest so much energy and love into them, you better believe we want to have great scores and find success. But maybe in a time like we're in right now, it's important that we step back. And we look at how we measure success. Maybe instead of basing success purely on some result driven goals, we look more to base our success this year, on process driven goals. Having that goal that we're going to show up and laugh with our students. Having that goal that we're going to show up and connect with them, that we're going to show up and we're going to listen to them, be there for them, help guide them, to have that goal to meet them where they're at, and push them at a pace that's most appropriate for them. To have that goal, where we create an atmosphere where our students want to be at school, where they know the moment they enter the classroom, that they're seen, that they're heard, that they're valued, and that they're cared for. And if we can take care of those things, then maybe just maybe our students will flourish. And we in turn can stop being so critical of ourselves based off a test score. No, I definitely recommend that you check out Justin Summa is increase your impact podcast is one of my favorite ones out there. I'll leave his information in the show notes. And remember, if you're looking to manage your stress, try and identify those people in your life who help you keep a healthy perspective. And take time to look at your goals. And think do you need to adjust how you measure success. Put some emphasis on controlling the things that you can control. I'm real quick, I want to give a shout out to my crew at a road awesome ran by Dr. Daren pepper. A few weeks ago, he shared that another amazing educator signed on to write a book. And I love seeing that. And I encourage you, if you have an inkling that you might want to write a book to reach out to there. Each and every single one of us has a story. We have some insight, some blessings that you can share with the world. So I'll leave that information for the road awesome in the shownotes and reach out, contact Dan, and share your story. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you being part of the teaching champions community, we support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think this could add value to someone's day, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could share this. You know there's no financial gain from this podcast is all about just trying to add A little positivity to the world of education right now. So I'm grateful for any help that you could give me in trying to get this podcast out to others. And always remember, whether you're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada to Spain about rain, we're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. And my challenge for you this week, is to be a fountain of laughter, a fountain of joy, a fountain of perspective for others. We talked about finding your those people who will bring you laughter to you, who will listen to you, who will help you relax and find that healthy perspective for you. And there's a lot of stress right now, a lot of overwhelm a lot of exhaustion, and that can lead to a ton of negativity. And there's a lot of people that are struggling. So be that fountain for others today. And sometimes it just takes one person to make a huge impact and change the energy for everyone around them. be that person this week. Keep being amazing, my friends. And as we go on to this week, may you step into your strength, may you step into your shine, and let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody.