I don’t think I have ever thought about the role of the ego in teaching. Until now! Thanks to an old student who wanted to talk with me about her ego, Joe and I dig into the tension between having self-regard (and being a little self-righteous) and maintaining amicable professional relationships.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Joe and I discuss

* Redefining Ego: Why the ego’s “bad rap” might be holding you back

* Managing Self-Righteousness: Practical tips for keeping professional relationships right — when you’re right, goddammit.

* Validating Expertise: How to handle the frustration of colleagues’ not appreciating the value of what you know.

* Teacher Objectification: Unpacking the emotional toll of being treated like a punching bag for all of society’s woes.

Needless to say, everybody has an ego, so this episode is relevant to everybody. Teachers and non-teachers alike!

Speaking of ego, I love this quote about TTE from Frank Racioppi of Ear Worthy:

“I love that show. It’s one of the shows that does good in this world.”

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

External Link

The Emperor’s Blades

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

In a departure from the typical TTE conversation, I talk in this episode with Felicia Keller Boyle about her two podcasts, The Bad Therapist Show and What Your Therapist Thinks (if you’re already looking up the latter podcast, you are joining thousands of others who listen religiously). So we’re talking podcasting but, actually, we're talking about emotions. We’re therapists, after all.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We talk about

* navigating the guilt of making money and why women in particular can struggle with it

* behind the scenes of how What Your Therapist Thinks reached the top of the podcast charts

* managing the pressure of having a crazy successful podcast

* strategies for overcoming fear and doing the things that scare you most

* Felicia’s specific challenge to help you build your psychodynamic muscles this week

Listen all the way to the end of this episode to hear Felicia’s challenge. She and I would love to hear your results! Leave a comment if you’re comfortable sharing.

For my non-teachers out there: Check out What Your Therapist Thinks! Relevant to absolutely everybody!

And PLEASE please please please: Fill out the TTE survey! I truly need to hear from you what you like, don’t like, want more of, want less of. Include your email address so you can be eligible for the drawing on Valentine’s Day that will get you a free TTE Tee or mug. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes of your time. Thank you so much in advance!!!

External links

The Bad Therapist Show

What Your Therapist Thinks

The Bad Therapist coaching page

Jeremy Enns

Guanyin

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

This one’s from a while back about a teacher who was so fed up with a student who was a huge “pain in the ass” that she wanted to quit. Right then and there.

And I’ll be damned if she didn’t turn that relationship around in the most dramatic way.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Joe and I talk about the difficult circumstances surrounding this teacher’s and this student’s situation and the hypotheses she and I came up with that helped her return to school and dig into their relationship. It’s kind of a miraculous story imho.

This story is relevant to non-teachers, too, in that it encourages openness to but also curiosity about behavior that might seem weird but might actually be an unnervingly pointed cry for help. Which some of us are in positions to respond to — without being nefarious saviors!

We discuss

* nefarious saviors

* furries and Joe’s and my amazingly limited knowledge of them

* why students might actually court negative attention

* doing aikido with super irritating students

* the fine line between caring too much and not caring enough

* Joe’s awesome alliterative axiom

Share your thoughts! Leave a comment! Share this episode! Share a story of your own with us! 413.239.4158. We love hearing from you!

And there's more…

I’m so eager to hear from you that my team and I have put together a survey to get a mid-season formative assessment from my listeners. I really want to hear what you like, don’t like, want to hear or read, etc. Please take a few minutes to give me your honest feedback! I’m a therapist, so I can take the truth.

As incentive, anyone who responds will have their email address put in a nice hat from which I will pull a winner — of a TTE “Stay in Your Effin’ Garden” T-shirt! I myself have one (as you might imagine), and I love it. Soft, perfect fit, extremely useful message. Get to that survey as soon as is humanly possible — we’ll pull the winner on Valentine’s Day. Wow! What a love-ly gift!!

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

God, I hate AI. And I love this interview. Jesse Dukes, producer of the magnificent podcast on AI in schools called The Homework Machine, discusses the findings his podcast team lays out about the complicated ins and outs of a “drunk guy” (as I put it) who has “crashed the party” (as Jesse and The Homework Machine puts it). Jesse (not the drunk guy) is so articulate and so sensitive to the information his team’s research gathered and reported that listening to him talk is just plain enjoyable! Whether you care about AI in schools or not!

But you should care.

This is a super important and complicated issue. Please listen. It’s food for thought we really need to digest.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We discuss

* multiple “disruptions” in schools (not just AI)

* how teachers are responding (and could be) to AI

* the shocking reality of how districts are responding to AI

* how students are responding to AI (you might be surprised) — and why

For our non-teacher teachers: Hear Jesse’s wisdom: If you want to feel hopeful, talk to a teenager. Right on!!

External links

Rand report: “AI Use in Schools Is Quickly Increasing but Guidance Lags Behind”

Stanford article: “Cheating: The AI Elephant in the Classroom”

Teaching Systems Lab, MIT

Teach Lab podcast

The Homework Machine

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

It’s a good thing when parents are involved in their children’s educations. When parents establish routines for getting homework done. When parents attend Back-to-School nights, parent-teacher conferences, and student performances. When parents contact teachers with concerns or questions about their children’s experiences at school.

But it’s a bad thing when teachers go all nuclear on their children’s teachers.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode, Joe and I chew on a teachers’ story of a parent who decided the right thing to do one night, right around dinner time, was to send an angry, accusatory email to their child’s teacher. Sound familiar? I fear it does to too many of you. In which case, this episode is for you!

We discuss

* what a ghost moose is

* possible explanations for reprehensible Mama Bear behavior

* why passionate (read “pissed-off”) parents are a gift

* how to engage with people you want to hate

This episode is helpful for parents, too, whether you have a child in school (and might be tempted to go ballistic on a teacher someday) or don’t (and might be tempted to go ballistic on someone else someday). Or if someone has gone ballistic on you! There’s good stuff for everyone in this episode.

I would love to hear about a time when you had to deal with an irate person who was spewing on you. Leave a comment! Leave a voice memo on the TTE hotline! 413.239.4158. Be in touch!

Thanks so much for listening.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

From Teacher of the Year to burnout and depression to “the best year of school that I’ve ever done.” In this conversation, you’ll hear the story of physics and math teacher Stephanie Watroba’s dramatic journey through burnout — what it was like, why it happened, and how she got through it.

It’s an informative and intense conversation.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We talk about

* the ebb and flow of daily burnout

* a possible meaning of negative talk in the teachers’ lounge

* the role of the internal critic in burnout

* warning signs of burnout

* how to “make friends” with burnout

It’s not just teachers who experience burnout, of course. This episode is for everyone who gets depleted and cannot care for themselves when they’re not meeting their own and others’ high expectations. Stephanie’s experience and insights are universally valuable.

* Ms. Stephanie Watroba started working at Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter Public School in 2013 as a physics teacher. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics with a minor in Mathematics from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and is a proud member of Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics honors society. She has held the titles of math team leader, science team leader, and teacher of the year in her prior years at BART. She currently teaches physics, calculus, and pre-calculus. In her spare time, she enjoys video games, dungeons and dragons, horseback riding, and ballet. *

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout

Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’m on a roll with the boys-and-men-in-trouble theme here. My last rant dropped two weeks ago, on November 7th. It was about a bunch of youngish Republicans (all over 30 years old, apparently) who texted each other racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and generally hate-filled messages with evident glee. Today’s rant is about school-age boys and their rel…

Here is a guarantee: You will never hear an interview like this one anywhere else. Because it’s a family affair! A Holiday Family bonus episode of TTE! In which my beloved daughter and I chit-chat about basically the things that matter the most to us.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We talk about

* living attached to your soul

* how school teaches us to sin

* why hatred isn’t bad

* how the divine works

* what organismic learning is

And much, much more. Listen to the very end where Mae gives us an assignment and I invite you to share your work right here in the comments:

If you’re not a teacher and you look at the list above, you’ll agree that this conversation is relevant to everyone. I mean, souls? sin? hatred? the divine? organismic learning? Who wouldn’t want to listen in?

If you do, thank you. As always.

Note: A regular TTE podcast episode will not drop next Thursday because it is, of course, Thanksgiving. The next regular episode will appear in your inboxes the following Thursday, December 4th. And it’s a(nother) good one! About burnout! Be sure to tune in!

Have a loving Thanksgiving.

Credits

Founder and Host: Betsy Burris

Co-Host: Joe Johnson

Producer: Jullian Androkae of PodVision

Audience Development: Andreea Coscai of PodVision

Music: Tom Burris/Jabbering Trout