How to Deal with Bad Feelings About Teaching This Year: A Self-Examination Protocol for Understanding (and Starting to Do Something About) Negative Teacher Emotions

Educators around the US this summer find themselves at the start of an alien August. Never before has this turning of the calendar included such tumultuous inner circumstances: fear, anger, division, bitterness, confusion, anxiousness, apathy… and, of course, some good bits too as we glimpse excitement and determination and enthusiasm and reunion. But it's the cocktail of maladies that I want to turn our attention to now, that it might not indefinitely exact a toll on our hearts and minds.

A quick disclaimer

This post is directed at colleagues who are planning to teach this year but are struggling with negative emotions about that. I speak with colleagues every day, near and far, who are having existential deliberations right now about leaves of absence, early retirements, career changes, and job hunts. I understand that every teacher's circumstances — at work, at home, in their health, in their beliefs — are different, and I know that we as a profession are far from a consensus on what the best paths forward are. If you're in a circumstance where it's way past handling negative emotions, this post isn't for you and my prayers and best wishes are with you because I know this is painful.

What I want to focus on today is what we can control if we're experiencing hard emotions but not existential deliberations. In other words, the inner work of teaching, the stuff that give us the will to teach — that's where we're heading. There's a lot of good news in this area; many of our predecessors have demonstrated that an inner calm, strength, and peace is possible even in the midst of circumstances far more trying than COVID-19. If Viktor Frankl found meaning in a concentration camp, surely we can find some as pandemic educators. In this article, I'll share a method for examining our negative emotions, and then I'll close with quick tips for doing something about them.

But first, a few principles — after all, great teachers are great understanders.

Principle 1: Emotions are involuntary.

I do not control whether or not a social media post makes me angry or a news article makes me frustrated or a new way of teaching makes me scared. Emotions are an aspect of our humanity, and they are good and powerful. I can do a ton to affect the conditions that prompt my emotions — I can delete my social media accounts, block news sites, refocus my attention on aspects of teaching that I understand — but I can't fix the emotion, nor should I try.

Principle 2: What we do with emotions can become voluntary, but it's hard and takes practice.

Despite the involuntary nature of the emotions I feel, I am still responsible for what I do with my emotions because my actions are under my control. This is incredibly important and is one of the chief reasons that I must do more in life than “follow my heart” or “trust myself.” I must instead seek to become a person capable of experiencing and enjoying positive emotions and observing and doing something about negative emotions.

(Remember: positive emotion is one of five elements that Seligman identified as typical of a flourishing life.)

Anyone who has parented a toddler knows, however, that controlling how we act in the face of strong emotions isn't natural — it takes strength and training.

Principle 3: What we want to do with our negative emotions right now, then, is A) understand their source(s) and B) act from this understanding.

A) We need to understand our negative teacher emotions about teaching this year and where they are coming from.

As we've established, we don't get to pick our emotions. If a parent of a former student posts on Facebook that teachers are jerks and we need to open up schools without masks, we don't control how that makes us feel.

BUT we do control whether or not we explore why that post made us feel a certain way. We can go four questions deep with the emotion:

• Why did I feel angry about this post?
• Why?
• How come?
• Why?

This questioning is a function that many therapists carry out, but you don't need a therapist to do this. You do need some silence and solitude, but that's what we'll get to in a minute.

B) We then need to act from this understanding.

We'll look more at specific ideas for this at the end of this post. For now, suffice it to say understanding does yield agency. We see this all throughout history in all kinds of circumstances.

Okay great. Now what do we do?

What follows is an exercise — first the conditions, then the steps — for getting a better sense of what's happening inside of us. After a session or two or three, the clarity we gain will equip us to apply proper remedies as we're able.

And listen, I know you don't have time for this. The default life these days is one short on time. But trust me: this exercise is worth shirking somewhere else. When we do not understand what is happening inside of us, we can only flail blindly at life. (Not good.)

Condition 1: Solitude.

To begin our self-examination protocol we will need to find a place where we can be alone 2-3 times over the next few days. What signifies such a place is subjective; Robert Coplan, a researcher cited in a recent NPR piece on solitude, shares that there's no agreed upon definition in the research for what solitude actually is.

The gist, he says, is whether you feel alone. That's what you need to find — a place (and time) where you feel alone.

These are the places where I have regularly sought solitude in the months since the COVID lockdowns first started:

• Five in the morning, at our kitchen table — this is solitude for me because I know that my children are at least an hour from awake, and even if my wife is awake and sitting nearby she is also in solitude so we are both alone.
• On a walk or jog along a trail behind our school's softball field — I rarely see people here, especially in the wooded places.

I almost wrote, “In my classroom after school with the lights off and the blinds open.” But then I realized that the presence of work to do, in August especially, has made this less of a place of solitude than it is at other times. The to-dos that fill my visual field in my classroom are a kind of company — and a kind of noise, which gets us to our second condition.

Condition 2: Silence.

For us to examine our negative feelings around this year's teaching, we need not just solitude but also silence. I am not talking about audio silence as much as I am about silence from the world's noise. As we'll see, there will still be plenty of noise for us to deal with — the noise from within — and so silence is going to be critical.

For me, this is what silence means:

• No news
• No books
• No social media
• No music
• No speaking
• No smartphone or devices
• No tasks

As I said, we are seeking to escape the noise of the world so that we can inspect the noise within us. For this inspection we don't want the opinions of others — indeed, we will be inhibited if we have them. We don't want something to take our minds off the present — indeed, the present is the place that our minds must be.

In default life, our attention is often fragmented. For us to make room for internal clarity, we must mitigate these sources of fragmentation through the intelligent use of solitude and silence.

The Self-Examination Protocol

Step 1: Go to solitude with pen and paper.

Plan on being there for 20-30 minutes. Do what it takes beforehand to eliminate the likelihood of interruptions (e.g., wake up early, chuck your powered-down phone in a drawer, let your spouse know what's up, etc.).

Oh, and don't forget something to write with and on and the list of questions (in step 3 below).

Step 2: For the first 5-10 minutes, sit (or walk, or stand, or pace, or kneel) in silence.

Silence is enormously challenging at first. The mind, like a wild beast, can thrash about for some noise to fix on; when it finds no external noise, it will predictably go rooting for inside noise to clang on. What you're trying to do in this first 5-10 minutes of silence is separate yourself from the normal noise of the world and observe and (as you're able) move away from the noise inside yourself.

This latter part is a bit beyond the scope of our self-examination protocol, but here are some notes that might help, particularly if your belief system is staunchly naturalistic.

• As you catch your mind wandering, guide it back to non-judgmentally observing the moment — what's around you, what's in you.
• It can help to fix your mind on a phrase or a verse or an image, and when you catch your mind wandering elsewhere gently bring it back to that phrase or verse or image by saying it aloud or writing it down, picturing it anew.
• Focus on the movement of your body — your breathing, your steps if you're walking — and the non-human sounds around you — insects or birds or automobiles or heaters or air conditioners.

If you are a person of religious faith, search your tradition and you'll find many other techniques. In my own tradition of apprenticeship to Jesus, prayer and meditation on Hebrew poetry (e.g., Psalm 19 or 139) are immensely helpful.

But as I said, silencing the noise is well beyond our scope today. For us, the point of this step isn't mastery of the inner noise as much as it is the drawing of a bright line between the rest of our day and our coming self-examination.

Step 3: Examine your negative feelings.

Now, with pen and paper in hand, begin asking yourself these questions and writing down the answers you find.

• What am I feeling about teaching this year? Start by just naming what you feel. Here is a list of feelings vocabulary from Tom Drummond in case you find yourself struggling to name things. Don't go past five or so — you don't have all day! And pay particular attention to which are strongest.
• Go “four questions deep” into a few of your feelings, beginning with the strongest one. You can start with, “Why might I be feeling _____ about teaching this year?” So let's say one of your emotions is anxious — hey there, we're emotions buddies :). Here's how four questions deep could look for exploring the emotion of anxiousness:
  • Why do I feel anxious about this school year? Because there is a lot I don't control, and I don't know how to get started on planning, and I'm afraid of letting people down. (Anxiousness has lots of reasons, always. Write them all down.)
  • Why is it a problem that I don't control the school year? Um… well I guess I don't normally control much of the school year as it is. But this year it feels like that a lot more.
  • Why is this so bothersome? Because I want to do a good job.
  • What's the worst thing that could happen if you don't do a good job this year? People could think I'm a bad teacher. My students could struggle more later in life. Parents could speak ill about me.
  • (As you can see in this example, four questions deep often hardly gets you started. Go as deep as you want.)
• If you have time, do this with the rest of the feelings you listed. This isn't a productivity exercise, so don't treat your emotions list like something to charge through with gritted teeth. You are seeking understanding; this takes earnestness and cooperation, not coercion. If “four questions deep” feels stifling, just explore each emotion as thoroughly as you can, and write down what you find as you go. And take notes — just as you would in a college lecture hall. We're after understanding, and we want to externalize what we observe and find.

Step 4: Move toward closure by examining your purpose(s) for teaching.

Now it's time to bring the exercise to a close with some enduring questions. These are questions the teacher must always explore:

• Why am I a teacher? Let the answers come, as many as there are, as honest as you can. Write them down in a different section of your paper.
• Why do I work where I work? What about this setting do I most appreciate? What about this setting most frustrates me?

Step 5: End with gratitude.

Give thanks to whom you will for the opportunity to enter solitude and silence. After all, time in self-examination is a gift.

Step 6: Repeat Steps 1-5 the next day and, if desired, the day after.

Be sure to keep a record of your self-examinations. It is also a good idea to keep your record handy during the times in between your self-examinations, as you will find pieces of the puzzle coming to you at other points in your day. Record these mini-revelations as they come.

Step 7: Analyze your findings.

Once you've examined all of your negative emotions toward the coming school year OR you've completed three sessions over as many days, it's time to take a look at what you've found and see if there are any obvious next steps. It can be good to do this exercise with a trusted friend.

Use these prompts to guide your analysis:

• In hindsight, which of the emotions is the biggest, strongest one? Why do you think this is?
• What, if anything, surprised you?
• What patterns do you notice?
• What actions might you take?

Some quick next steps based on what you've learned

I'll close with some practical RECOMMENDATIONS for certain negative feelings you may have explored during the protocol — and please, return to the disclaimer that I started this post with if you've discovered that deeper decision-making is needed.

• If your biggest emotion is overwhelm or anxiety:
  • Stop reading new things about teaching and focus on the practical things that need to get done. It might help to ask things like, “If this were simple, what would it look like?” Also, ask your principal or your aunt or your neighbor to buy you These 6 Things because it's made for teachers who want and need to focus.
  • Focus on what you already know that works and build out Fall 2020 from there (e.g., in this article on how to build strong teacher-student relationships from a distance, we start with the idea that we already know plenty about building relationships and that converting this knowledge to remote learning isn't impossible).
  • Write somewhere prominent (e.g., on your hand in Sharpie): perfectionism behind, improvementism ahead. Or one step at a time. Slogans work when we load them with meaning.
• If your biggest emotion is fear about the virus and your school is doing in-person instruction:
  • Phone a friend or two who work in the health field and ask them how they manage the stress of being in a place where contact with COVID is likely. Take notes.
  • Phone a friend or two who work in the restaurant or retail industries and ask them how they manage the stress of being in places where they regularly encounter the public. Ask them for tips. Take notes.
  • Resolve to be the best user of COVID mitigation protocols that has ever existed, even if it means sacrificing a bit of your pedagogy to do so. Wear different clothing at work than you do in your car or at home. After each day of doing so, celebrate a day in which you served your students in the face of fear. Your courage may be unseen by most, but it (like all courage) is shaping you into something deeper than you once were.
• If your biggest emotions are anger or outrage:
  • Abstain from the news and social media. Delete these apps from your phone and have a celebration after you do so. Anger, fear, and outrage is the business model of many news outlets, and social media algorithms often favor material that foments anger, fear, or outrage.
    • But Dave, how can I be an informed voter this November if I don't keep up on the news? Spend a day reading the news on the week before the election. A day of torment is worth casting an informed vote. And a day is plenty for being more informed than many of your fellow citizens. Three months of daily torment is unnecessary and not worth it.
    • But Dave, won't I be a bad friend if I delete Facebook? This may come as a shock but when you click “Like” on someone's new baby photo or say “Happy birthday” when you get a birthday notification, you're not doing anything much for your relationships with human beings. Instead you're contributing a micro-dose of dopamine to your friend. If you really want to invest in your friendship, find their phone number and call them. Even if they don't pick up, leave a message and say, “Hey, I was just thinking of you, and I want you to know that I really appreciate ____________ about you. Okay. Bye.”*
• If your biggest emotion is bitterness that you have to teach because you need the money:
  • Look at your lifestyle and see where you can make reductions and simplifications so that you need less money to live on. Sell the car with the payment and buy something used. Sell the car and don't replace it, instead asking a friend who lives nearby if you can carpool (I've done this). Take the kid(s) out of an activity for a bit. End a subscription or two. Eat a simpler, more affordable diet (e.g., fewer tasty beers, less fancy coffee). With simplification comes the start of greater financial freedom (and greater margin in life), and with these come a starting point for freedom from such bitterness.

Dave, you're kind of a jerk, and some of these are pushy. I've got a better idea.

First, I'm sorry for sounding pushy — I'm just trying to be direct. My heart is for teachers. I believe that teaching is good and beautiful work, all the time, for all of human history. Most of the time it's not easy work, and it's often really frustrating work, and at many points in history it has been incredibly dangerous work, but it is inherently good work. I'm well acquainted with dark nights of the soul in teaching — heck, I even quit once — and I'd be a real jerk if I just said, “Well, you figure out how to deal with all this.”

And second, please, if you've got more ideas that might work more effectively, please share in the comments! I'm not the arbiter on the topic, just a sharer and (I hope) a helper.

Best to you. We got this.

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*I'm not saying social media is bad here (I mean I do think that it probably is more bad than it is good for most of us, but that's another post). What I'm saying is that if you find that social media is a root of persistent negative emotions, it is for sure bad and you should abstain from it, at least for a time.