The Real Reason Teachers Are Exhausted in August [Episode 276]

Heidi 0:00
This is episode 276 of Teacher Approved.

Heidi 0:06
You’re listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I’m Heidi.

Emily 0:13
And I’m Emily. We’re the creators behind Second Story Window, where we give research-based and teacher-approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.

Heidi 0:28
We’re so glad you’re tuning in today. Let’s get to the show.

Emily 0:36
Hey there! Thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we are talking about why back to school drains you in a way that no other season does, and it’s probably not for the reason you think. Plus, we have a teacher-approved tip for adding a little joy to a stressful time of year.

Heidi 0:53
But first, let’s start with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick win that you can try right away. Emily, what is our suggestion this week?

Emily 1:00
Okay, so this week, take a minute to consider your teacher bag. I feel like most teachers have bags, but if you haul back and forth with something besides a bag, think about that too, and then think about is this bag or whatever you’re using something that you chose on purpose, or did you just grab it because it was handy? And then, more importantly, is it working for you? Because if it’s not, we want you to think about what would make it a better fit for what you need.

Heidi 1:28
And if your bag is not working, decide if you need to buy something new, or more likely, if there’s something in that stash of bags in the back of your closet that could work even better.

Emily 1:38
Or maybe you don’t even want a bag at all, and you would rather have a bin or a tote that you can wheel around. I mean, I’ve talked on here before, I freaking love my Hulken bag, and if I had had this when I was in the classroom, it would have been so amazing for hauling to and from my car and my house. And now they do have a cheaper version from Costco. I will say the reviews are mixed. Some say that the wheels are not as good and they don’t hold up as well, but it’s affordable enough. It might be worth a try. And there’s just no right answer here, though. The key is just knowing what works best for you. So take a look at what you’re using, decide if it’s meeting your needs or if something else would be better.

Heidi 2:22
And if you like this idea or anything else we share here on the podcast, would you take a second and give us a five-star rating and a kind review?

Emily 2:30
So, have you ever noticed that during back to school you can work for eight hours in your classroom, but it feels like you were digging ditches for 16 hours? You are so tired, but somehow the rest of the year you can teach all day, answer emails, you know, work with your team, and you’re tired, but you can still function after. It’s not that kind of tired that you are in the back to school season.

Heidi 2:54
Yeah, I know that feeling well, and yes, the start of the year brings endless meetings, the room set up, and the work of planning for kids that you have never even met, and that all contributes to the exhaustion. But those things don’t fully explain it.

Emily 3:10
Yeah, right now it takes you out, but in a few months you can have a week that’s just as packed, and don’t feel like you come home and need to lie down on the floor.

Heidi 3:20
I’ve spent time on that floor. The couch is just too far away. So I would say that it’s more than just the workload creating that back to school exhaustion. For example, for me, the last week of October used to just knock me flat. It was the end of our first term, and so after all of the work that goes into teaching all day, I then had to manage conferences and report cards, and inevitably spend several evenings panic grading because I was never on top of that task. Even as overloaded as I was, that level of October tired could not touch the exhaustion of the first weeks of school. You know, at least I made it to the couch before I collapsed.

Emily 4:00
Okay, so it’s obviously not the workload. So what else is contributing to that back to school collapse? It turns out that the culprit is the lack of automaticity.

Heidi 4:13
Maybe you recognize that word from your literacy training. Automaticity means being able to do a task without having to think through every step. When we are teaching reading, we want students to have a large bank of sight words that they can read fluently. If they have to stop and figure out every word they come to, it really hinders their comprehension.

Emily 4:32
But automaticity applies to more than just reading. If you can brush your teeth without needing to stop and think through every step, then that’s automaticity in action. If you can drive a car without having to consciously remember which pedal is the gas and which is the brake, that’s automaticity too.

Heidi 4:50
And you’ve had experience with that teaching a new driver this year.

Emily 4:53
Yeah, she was having to think which was which for longer than I preferred.

Heidi 5:00
But besides helping us drive safely, automaticity has the benefit of freeing up our brains. When you don’t have to manage every minute step, you can focus on the big picture stuff.

Emily 5:11
Okay, so what does all of this have to do with the start of the year? Well, in the first few weeks of school, you are missing the automaticity. You don’t yet have internal automaticity, which tells you exactly what to do next.

Heidi 5:24
Plus, you’re missing the external automaticity, where the kids know the routine, because no one is in the flow of things yet. Every single minute of the day has to be planned, prepared, and explained by you.

Emily 5:39
Yeah, and that is a monumental task. You know, we love to talk about the balance of structure and spark. Structure is all the predictability that makes your room run, and spark is the novelty that keeps it interesting.

Heidi 5:52
Now, you might think that the back to school season is heavy on structure because you are spending so much time teaching policies and procedures, but you have to spend all that time on those tasks, not because of structure, but because of spark.

Emily 6:05
Right. Everything is 100% new in those first few days, which means the level of spark is off the charts. It’s as high as it will ever be. And what do we do when spark is high? We reset the balance by adding structure.

Heidi 6:21
And unfortunately, in the first few weeks, you are the structure. There are no rules, expectations, or habits to hold the day together. It’s just you.

Emily 6:32
Well, just you, and then the herd of confused kids that’s waiting for you to shepherd them through every second of the next six hours, anything that happens in those first days happens because you are personally making it happen.

Heidi 6:47
And that is why you go home and collapse. We often talk about the toll and imbalance of structure and spark takes on the kids, but it also takes a toll on teachers. Correcting an imbalance takes a lot of effort from you.

Emily 7:00
Unfortunately, you’re going to have to build a lot of structure from the start of the school year. There’s just no way around that. But if we can’t escape this problem, then we need a way through it.

Heidi 7:11
And that means making sure that you are not the sole source of structure for an entire classroom. You need to borrow some external structure to get you through the first weeks, but unfortunately, this is another thing you’re going to have to build.

Emily 7:24
But the good news is that this is all stuff you can do ahead of time, maybe even from the comfort of your couch, so that lifts the burden a little bit. You do all the thinking before the big day, so you can concentrate on what’s unfolding in front of you when you’re actually there in the classroom.

Heidi 7:41
This is actually a principle used in a lot of high-performance fields. Pilots use pre-flight checklists. Event planners use run-of-show documents. Restaurants use opening and closing routines. None of these professionals rely on memory during their busiest, highest stakes moments.

Emily 7:58
And all this comes down to one idea: don’t carry it in your head if you don’t have to. So the goal at the start of the year is to get as much information as possible out of your brain and into some kind of system.

Heidi 8:11
If you’re not sure where to start, you are in luck because that is exactly what we’re talking about today. We’ve got six systems that can help you create some external structure, so it’s not all on your shoulders, and we’re starting with an oldie but a goodie. Write a first day script. Tell us about this, Emily.

Emily 8:29
Well, if you’ve been with us for a while here on the podcast, or if you joined us for Teacher Summer Talks and you joined in on the first day plan challenge, then you’ve heard all of this before, but it’s worth a revisit. The idea is that you need to write out everything that has to happen in order, in as much detail as possible for that first day. So everything is ready to reference when you need it.

Heidi 8:53
This is an idea from Harry Wong’s First Days of School book, and it is a game changer. It’s basically like writing subplans for yourself, really the more detail you use, the better. My first day script was usually eight pages.

Emily 9:09
And that probably sounds like overkill until you start listing out every detail you have to remember for the first day, and then you’re like, “Oh, okay, maybe I need 10 pages. There’s so many things.”

Heidi 9:20
Yeah, you really don’t realize how much goes into a school day until you start listing it all out. You know, because your students don’t know the morning routine yet, you need a detailed outline for your welcome activity. You need a reminder to stop for a class bathroom break because the bladders are still on summer break. You need to plan what time to start teaching lunch procedures so you’re not having to rush through the 25 steps it takes to get everyone fed.

Emily 9:44
And then you also need to think of backup activities for all of the planned activities in case things end really quickly. We did a whole episode on how to build a detailed script back in episode 77, so go grab that for the full walkthrough of creating your first day plan.

Heidi 10:01
I’m kind of liking the idea of calling it a run of show instead of a script. I think that paints a clearer picture of what it does. Teachers sometimes hear script and think it’s locking them into a rigid plan, but it’s really doing the opposite.

Emily 10:15
Right. A script, or I guess we can call it a run of show, lets you offload the details, like remembering which pedal is the brake, so that you can focus on the important stuff, like being present and connecting with your new students.

Heidi 10:30
Yeah, it’s really hard to build that connection with a kid who’s, you know, pouring their heart out about their pet dog, but all you’re doing is thinking through everything you need to remember for dismissal. So do yourself a favor and just write down the details.

Emily 10:44
And think how happy you’ll be next year when you go to plan the first day, and you already have a detailed list of everything you did the year before. You just need to maybe update a few things, and you’re all ready to go.

Heidi 10:55
I actually planned my whole first week in this kind of detail. It was such a relief to be able to consult my list anytime I needed a reminder. It really made the whole first week a lot smoother.

Emily 11:07
And I am so guilty of thinking when I when I’m about to teach something of like, I don’t need the play by play. I know what I’m going to do. I’m flexible. I’ll wing it, and it will be fine. And it’s never fine. I always end up in some awkward moment of like, oh shoot, I didn’t think through that. You know, like, just don’t set yourself up for that, especially at the beginning of the year, because you’re out of practice. The kids, everything’s new to the kids. Do yourself a favor and just get that external structure on your clipboard with those daily scripts for as many days as you think it would be helpful at the start of the school year.

Emily 11:41
Our next suggestion will not come as a surprise, but that is to plan your procedures in advance. You knew that we were going to mention that at some point in this episode.

Heidi 11:51
Yeah, it’s inescapable with us. Your goal at the start of the year is to know the exact steps you need students to follow, and then have a plan for how to teach them. It’s a lot to take on, but it is one of the best investments you can make at the start of the school year.

Emily 12:08
And if you want some help with this, we’re here to help. We’ve got a procedures and routines planning guide and checklists to guide you through each step in the process.

Heidi 12:16
And there are links to all of that in the show notes. And then we have maybe my favorite product we’ve ever made, our Tell Try Tally Talk slide decks. This is as close as we can get to showing up and teaching your procedures for you. All you have to do is add the steps you want students to follow, and then you can add a photo if you want. And then the rest of the lesson is already prepared for you.

Emily 12:39
And make sure you come back to the podcast on Thursday for our Can’t Miss Classic episode, because this week it’s all about how to plan procedures step by step, and that is a great resource if this is a new process for you.

Heidi 12:52
But also, don’t forget to check out last week’s Can’t Miss Classic episode where we talked about how to soften the back to school landing. Simplifying and automating your personal life is another way to get some external structure.

Emily 13:05
Anything that you can put on autopilot before school starts becomes one less decision you have to make in a moment when you are so overloaded with decisions. So if you can pick out all your clothes for the first week or plan to eat the same lunch for a few days, you free up time and energy that go toward getting the school year up and running.

Heidi 13:24
So make sure to grab that episode if you missed it. All right, you are working on your first day script. You’re planning your procedures. You’re automating decisions in your personal life. All of those systems are giving you a huge boost of external structure, so you don’t have to carry so much. Emily, what is next on our list?

Emily 13:45
Our fourth system is to use checklists. This is different from your to-do list. These checklists are to help ensure you’re remembering every step in your process. Even if you’re stepping into the same routines you were using last May, it is still worth writing down each step.

Heidi 14:02
Yeah, because it’s been a few months. You’re probably a little rusty, and if you’re like me, it’s really easy to overlook a step or two. So consider these like your pre-flight checklist. And a fair warning: I’m not a pilot. I’m basing this information off the internet. But if Google is to be believed, pilots are supposed to run through a checklist before every flight, no matter how experienced they are.

Emily 14:26
Now, obviously, the stakes of forgetting a step in your end of day routine are not quite as high as forgetting a step before flying a plane, but you still don’t want to be left scrambling when a sticky note could have saved the day.

Heidi 14:39
So let’s think about sometimes when one of those checklists can come in handy. I am a big fan of having a morning routine for tasks to do before the kids arrive, and then another routine to do after they leave. And both of those are great candidates for a step-by-step checklist.

Emily 14:54
And you can expand that to an end-of-week checklist for everything you need to do on Friday to set up for Monday. Or a checklist of what to remember when you start pulling small groups or introducing centers.

Heidi 15:05
Remember, the goal is to keep from carrying details in your head if you don’t have to. So grab some post-its and draft a few checklists. It’s a simple way to keep everything on track. And if you want some support with that, we have a whole set of back-to-school checklists to help you walk through all of this. Really, it’s tons of details. Probably more checklists than you need, so it can give you the right structure to get your ideas all organized and in one place.

Emily 15:30
Plus, you’ll get the satisfaction of going through them, being like, “Oh, check, check, check! I don’t need that. I already thought of that, and that’s just such a boost.

Emily 15:38
Okay, our next system is to put your room to work, like the actual room, not the kids in it. Although they should definitely be helping too. But the goal here is to make the structure as visible as possible.

Heidi 15:50
So here we’re going to think labels. These are a great tool. Label the pencil cup and the lunchbox station and the bin for homework folders. Label anything that has a designated spot.

Emily 16:02
And even if you don’t want to keep those labels up all year, having them out for a few weeks can greatly reduce the number of questions that you will be asked.

Heidi 16:10
And you can also get your walls involved, make lists for how you want things done, and then post them. It’s even better if you can include an image, either clip art or a photo, of exactly what’s expected. That way, before it’s time to line up on day three, you can post the list as a reminder.

Emily 16:28
This is a great tip for any time of day. So pull out your list and review the steps before having students turn and talk during a lesson, or before walking through the halls to get to music class. Again, you don’t have to leave these up all year.

Heidi 16:42
But you will probably be really glad you have them all year. In January, when the lineup routine is getting sloppy, you’re going to be so glad that you can reach for a lineup poster that’s already done, so you can review your expectations right in the moment when it’s needed.

Emily 16:57
All right, that brings us to our last system for getting the details out of your head. One of the kindest things you can do for yourself is to stop expecting future you to remember everything. Future you will be busy teaching, redirecting, answering questions, solving problems, and making 100 tiny decisions. So leave behind some breadcrumbs to show future you the path.

Heidi 17:21
Yeah, you can’t assume that you’re going to remember the details when you are at max capacity, as Emily pointed out. So think of breadcrumbs as trail markers in the woods. They are small cues to help you stay on track.

Emily 17:34
An easy one here is to grab a highlighter in your first day script. Ask what will future me have a hard time remembering. Mark any key details like the time to switch between activities or the steps for teaching students how to log into their Chromebooks.

Heidi 17:49
Or the one I always forgot on the first day: submit attendance. If you need something to jump off the page, highlight it. You can even make it cute. Those mild liners come in lots of fun colors if neon is not your thing.

Emily 18:02
Another breadcrumb is alarms. This is my go-to. You probably need to offer more bathroom breaks in the first days of school before anyone has an accident. Schedule some alarms so that you remember to pause for a break.

Heidi 18:15
And I had to leave my lunch early for the first few days so I could be outside before the bell ring because we had to pick up our kids and take them inside. Otherwise, my students would get nervous about when and where they were supposed to line up because it was different than what they were used to in first grade. So setting an alarm meant I could inhale my sandwich in the 15 minutes I had for lunch without having to watch the clock the whole time.

Emily 18:37
Or forget to go out early because you’re so tired.

Heidi 18:41
Yes, and another breadcrumb is gathering your materials. In the first few days of school you’re probably using a lot of supplies that you won’t use during a normal school day, so make it easier to stay in the flow by having everything you need for the day in one place.

Emily 18:58
And if you really want a gold star for organizing. Try stacking your materials in the order that you will need them. So put end of day materials at the bottom and start of the day at the top.

Heidi 19:09
And then after you do that, grab your end of day checklist and add “put away today’s materials” to the list. We’re not starting day two with a pile of clutter.

Emily 19:19
Yes, say no to clutter, at least at the start. There’s only so much you can do once the year starts going on.

Emily 19:27
Okay, those are our six systems for creating external structure, so that you don’t have to carry every detail in your head. Write a first day script or a run of show document. Plan your procedures in advance. Simplify and automate your real life during back to school. Use checklists, put your room to work, and leave breadcrumbs to show yourself the path.

Heidi 19:50
Each of these systems work because they reduce demands on prospective memory. That’s our ability to remember to do something in the future. Prospective memory is especially vulnerable when we are interrupted, stressed, juggling multiple tasks, or in a new environment.

Emily 20:07
So yeah, all of that sounds like the first day of school. And the goal here is not to become better at juggling all of that. The goal is to stop juggling as much. So until the automaticity is in place, do yourself a favor and create the extra structure you need so that you can enjoy the magic of getting to know your new students.

Heidi 20:27
If this discussion was helpful, you definitely want to grab our soon-to-be-released book, Structure and Spark. In it, we walk you through every season of the school year and offer you all of our best tips for meeting the specific needs of that season.

Emily 20:41
Our book comes out august 18, and so you still have time to pre-order. And once you do, come to secondstorywindow.net/book, and there’s a form there so that you can tell us you pre-ordered. And then we have some really fun bonuses for you if you pre-order.

Heidi 20:57
There’s a link to the book in the show notes, and if you have already pre-ordered, thank you so much. Pre-orders tell booksellers that our book is worth recommending to readers, so they really are a huge help, and we appreciate every single one.

Emily 21:10
And if you pre-ordered but you haven’t submitted the form, go ahead and do that because you can still get your bonuses.

Emily 21:18
Now for our teacher-approved tip of the week, where we share an actionable tip to help you elevate what matters and simplify the rest. This week’s teacher-approved tip is to add some joy. Tell us about it, Heidi.

Heidi 21:30
Well, if you remember a couple months ago, back to our summer reading episode, I mentioned that the smallest of joys by Diane Schiffer was on my TBR list. I have finished it now, so gold star for that, I guess. And it is as lovely and comforting as she is, but she has an idea that I want to borrow for today. She recommends setting happy traps, and I’m just going to read how she describes them because I can’t do it justice.

Heidi 21:55
So she says, “Happy traps are little gifts to yourself. They are sweet surprises you prepare for yourself, a gentle sort of trickery meant to coax a smile on a hard day, or give your weary spirit something kind to land on. Creating happy traps isn’t about buying expensive treats or curating someone else’s idea of the perfect lifestyle. It’s about tuning into what makes you feel light and warm and delighted. What gives you relief from the stress, or the boredom, or the heartbreak, or whatever it is that is blocking your own joy, do that.”

Heidi 22:26
And I think that’s such a beautiful way to show compassion for yourself. And if anyone is in need of some self-compassion, it’s teachers at the start of the school year. So before you get too lost in the thick of things, what surprises can you tuck away to lift your heart on a long day?

Emily 22:41
Oh, I love this! It’s so cute. It’s like that feeling of finding like $5 in your coat after you take it back out in the fall and you put it on for the first time. And it’s like ooh! But you’re just going to be creating that feeling on purpose with your happy traps.

Heidi 22:58
And I think, like for me, an easy way to do this would be to get one or two favorite treats and then hide them. You could, you know, tuck them in the back of your desk or in a closet where no one in your family is going to stumble on them and take them. And then when you come home after 12 hours at school putting up bulletin boards and arranging desks, you know you’ve got something lovely waiting for you.

Emily 23:19
And it doesn’t even have to be a physical treat. You could create a folder on your phone and add all the photos that make you smile, or write yourself a note of encouragement to read on a hard day.

Heidi 23:30
I keep meaning to save like all those videos that make me laugh, so I have them all in one place. You know, when I need a little boost. So maybe this will be my my kick to get that going.

Emily 23:40
Yeah, that’s a good idea.

Heidi 23:42
All it takes is thinking about what you love and then finding a way to add more of it to your life. Everyone needs more of those kinds of tasks on their to-do list instead of what we spend so much time on.

Heidi 23:53
Okay, to wrap up the show, we’re sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily 23:58
Well, I’m giving extra credit to another boring thing that proves that we’re just old perimenopausal ladies over here, because I’m giving extra credit to the new redesign of travel tissues. So.

Heidi 24:11
You showed me these; they are fancy.

Emily 24:13
They are so smart. Like I can’t believe it took this long. So you know, those little travel packs of tissues are always the worst because when you first like take one out, it’s all right, and the little flap will tape back. But before long, it won’t stick anymore. And then as more gets out of it, the more like loosey goosey it gets, and so it just sort of falls apart in your purse, and the tissues are half hanging out, and it’s just the worst.

Heidi 24:39
Or then all the crumbs at the bottom of your purse end up in the bag with the tissue, so you go to pull out a tissue, and it’s already gross.

Emily 24:45
I know it’s so stupid. So these are basically now they look like itty bitty little baby wipes containers, is what I would liken it to. They’re so cute, and so the the shape of it has been given a little bit more structure in the way it’s designed, to begin with, and then the top is like a baby wipes opener, so it keeps it very firmly closed in your bag. So you have the satisfying pop when you open it, then reach in and get your nice little towel, and then snap it shut again. This is so brilliant, considering that baby wipes have been that way for quite a while with those kind of lids, I’m surprised that it took travel tissues this long to get on board. But I’m a fan.

Heidi 25:27
Well, we’re glad they got there in the end.

Emily 25:28
All right, what are you giving extra credit to?

Heidi 25:32
Okay, well this is kind of niche, but I just finished the audio book of When Gavin Met Stacy, and I I think I smiled the whole time I was listening to it.

Emily 25:42
This is probably very niche. I don’t know how much, we watched this back in the mid 2000s, but I don’t know if a lot of Americans did. But hopefully, there’s some out there.

Heidi 25:54
I debated it even saying this, but I thought if someone has watched it and loved it, they would definitely love this book. So I’d feel sad not saying it, or maybe this will be your push to start watching it. If you got a BritBox subscription, so you could watch the Other Bennett Sister, all of Gavin and Stacey’s on BritBox, so you could catch up.

Emily 26:11
Oh, but we should probably give a disclaimer that this is very British humor, so the language and the jokes are a little bit wild by American standards. So just go in with that in mind and don’t hold it against us.

Heidi 26:23
I think it’s considered family viewing over there, like everyone’s sitting around on Christmas watching this. But it’s it’s a little more grown up. Think Ted Lasso. I think that’s a very good comparison.

Emily 26:36
I’m remembering a few specific things from Gavin and Stacy that might be a little farther over the line than Ted Lasso.

Heidi 26:42
Well, Ted Lasso had way worse language, though.

Emily 26:45
Okay, true, true.

Heidi 26:46
Yeah. Anyway, let’s come around all the way back to the beginning here. Gavin and Stacy is a British sitcom, and it started in 2006, and then true BBC fashion it ended in 2025. Now, in 19 years, how many episodes do you think they made? 22. They made 22 episodes.

Emily 27:05
What is with British TV?

Heidi 27:07
Don’t get it. But this is the love story of Gavin, who’s a boy from West England, and then Stacy is a girl from Wales. And if you don’t know your UK geography, that’s on the opposite side. And because these two fell in love, two very different families now have to mesh their lives, and it’s just quirky with a big heart, which is my go-to. It’s all written by Ruth Jones and James Corden, who play the best friends to Gavin and Stacy, and it’s just it’s just lovely.

Emily 27:36
It has a lot of heart, and it is just so funny.

Heidi 27:40
Yes. So if you enjoyed the show, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Ruth Jones and James Corden narrate it, and it’s basically like getting to eavesdrop on the two of them chatting. I don’t know if you would enjoy it as much if you read it, because listening to them talk like they make each other cry, they make each other laugh. Plus, in the audio book, they include like snippets from the show when they’re talking about writing a scene or you know something like that. So it was just it was the kind of experience you want from an audio book about a favorite TV show. 10 out of 10, perfect.

Emily 28:10
Well, I will have to listen now because that sounds amazing and I haven’t read it.

Heidi 28:14
Yes, you’re in for a treat.

Heidi 28:16
Okay, that is it for today’s episode. Make time to work on a system that can lend you structure as you start the school year, so you don’t have to carry it all. And don’t forget to plan some happy traps, so you have some fun surprises to look forward to.

Heidi 28:30
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I’m Heidi.

Emily 28:34
And I’m Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an episode.

Heidi 28:40
You can connect with us and other teachers in the Teacher Approved Facebook group. We’ll see you here next week. Bye for now.

Emily 28:47
Bye.