A week ago I published a podcast episode that is very special to me. It’s a conversation with my producer, Jullian Androkae, about a project he founded when he was 19 years old in his ancestral homeland in Madagascar. The project is called Vahombey. Jullian created a library in a southern village called Bekitro that serves and cares for hundreds of students. It’s the kind of success story TTE loves to celebrate!

And many good people helped us do that.

Thank you, and Ear Worthy, for your article about the project and the episode.

Thank you, Podcasting Today, for your article.

Thank you, at Podcast Plunge, for including the episode under “Your Recommendations.”

Thank you, podnews, for promoting the episode.

Thank you, of Sounds like Impact, for your announcement about the episode.

And thank you, dear of Don’t Be Caged by Your Age, for being so enthusiastic about adding a promo to the interview you did of me, which will be coming out in late August.

And thank you, anyone and everyone who has or will donate to the Vahombey Project. It is a life-changing place for so many people. Just a dollar will make a difference.

Heartfelt gratitude from TTE to good people everywhere!!!

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My producer, Jullian Androkae, did something unusual and remarkable when he was 19 years old: He opened a library in Bekitro, his ancestral village in southern Madagascar.

That was in 2018. The library is alive and well today. Which you’ll hear about, because this episode is all about Jullian’s Vahombey Project, which built the library, furnished it, stocked it with books, and hired (and still pays) two prodigious librarians, Mme Raissa and Mme Hary, who not only serve hundreds of children a day but have turned the library into a community center.

I call the librarians prodigious because these women are anchors in a somewhat chaotic educational sea. The educational context they work in is quite different from that of the U.S. But the individual situations they deal with are similar — and damn! Raissa and Hary are ON IT! Their voices, which you’ll hear in the episode, inspire me from 10,000 miles away.

Jullian and I discuss

• Giving Back: How he came up with the idea for the project

• Eating Crow: How the village school handled the parents of a disruptive student

• Living on Air: Some pretty incomprehensible differences between teaching in the US and in Madagascar

• Holding the Line: The value of being a “harsh” librarian

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

Call to Action

I love this special bonus episode, and I love the Vahombey project. So I hope you listen and enjoy.

But I also hope you click on this link to make a donation to the library. Much is needed there. More books. Dictionaries (you’ll hear that I’m obsessed with this for some reason). A TV to play English- and French-language shows so students can learn these two languages (in addition to Malagasy). Salaries. Support for wildly popular spelling bees!

The smallest donation can make a huge difference in the lives of the kids, teachers, and librarians associated with Vahombey. Check out the list of urgent needs here.

Click here to see pictures of the library, some of the kids it serves, and Jullian!

Please share this episode far and wide! The more people we reach, the better the chances that the library gets the funding it needs.

Thank you. So much.

External links

Vahombey project

Chuffed campaign

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Got a story to share? Have you taught outside the US? Wanna compare and contrast? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Or send me an email! betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com

Support the Show: If anything about the Teaching through Emotions podcast resonates, please leave a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

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

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Long ago and far away I read a book that really influenced my thinking:

The Chalice and the Blade

by Riane Eisler.

This book argued that human society has typically organized into two different paradigms: the dominator paradigm and the partnership paradigm.

The dominator paradigm being one where hierarchies determine pecking order, authoritarian power, privilege, wealth, personal value, and, well, domination. Who dominates whom. The partnership paradigm being one where collaboration and mutual care prevail.

Guess which paradigm we’re living under now? (and, of course, have been for millennia)

Here’s another book that made great sense to me:

Don’t Think of an Elephant!

by George Lakoff.

Lakoff argues in this book that American political parties basically fall into the same categories Eisler outlines (in stupendous detail) in her book: the dominators and the partners. Guess who the dominators are? Guess who the partners are?

Republicans, according to Lakoff, are the Father Knows Best party. While they value a rigid, male-dominated hierarchy (Christian Nationalism much?), they also, perhaps counterintuitively, appeal to their base through emotions.

Democrats, as you might guess, are the Partnership party. They join hands under a Big Tent with all kinds of people with whom they find common ground. The Dems’ MO is to lay out the facts to the populace and trust that the populace can make their own sense of reality — and agree with the Dems on what needs to be done. Kind of a hands-off, trusting approach to governing. One that rests on cognition.

As I’ve watched politics over the decades of my life, and folding in bits of these two interpretations, I’ve come to see the political parties in gendered terms.

Republicans are our fathers. Democrats are our mothers.

Like so many men, Republicans can do whatever they want, no matter how heinous, no matter how violent or sexually abhorrent and even illegal, no matter how blatantly bullying, self-interested, or amoral — because, I guess, Father Knows Best — and remain viable. You know. Boys will be boys. And men, so help me God, will be men.

I really believe that Democrats, on the other hand, are viewed as women, as feminine, as useful when they get us stuff that makes us feel cared for but as contemptible when any little thing goes wrong or bugs us. Kinda like mommies. “Here, carry this for me.” “What’s for dinner?” “Mom! Mom!” (That latter cry can mean “I need you! Help me!” or “Stop being so embarrassing!”)

(My daughter literally said to me the other night after a delicious dessert she herself had made, “Mom! You’re scraping your bowl too loudly!”)

Obviously, my theory is crude. But perhaps it’s grounded in reality. Perhaps we do have totally different expectations for our two political parties because of the needs and expectations we load into each. What do we need and expect from our fathers? What do we need and expect from our mothers? Do we even stop to think about the differences? Might those needs and expectations be unconsciously enacted on the people who lead our government, who (are supposed to) care for us, make us safe, create the conditions for our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness?

How misogynistic are we, are you, am I?

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I’ve been thinking for a long time about this “owning the libs” phenomenon. It’s so blatantly hateful and aggressive, so gleeful, so self-righteous, so deliberately and nastily insulting.

And so pathetic.

It reminds me of birth order. Put super simplistically, many younger siblings look up to their older siblings, admire and idealize them. Younger siblings — let’s call them the babies of the family — often follow their older siblings around, pester them to play, notice their every move, aspire to be smart or coordinated or poised like them.

And many older siblings don’t even notice their younger siblings exist.

That’s an exaggeration, of course. But consider: Older siblings tend to have their parents to worry about. The oldest child starts off as the sole object of their parents’ overflowing love, attention, and anxiety. Which means the first-born can be dealing with a helluva lot of pressure to satisfy parental needs, hopes, dreams, desires, and expectations.

As long as this arrangement persists, the babies of the family can both fly under the radar of their parents’ notice — for better and for worse — and watch their older sibling’s maneuvers closely. And marvel at their many talents. And wish they could win the attention and approval of that sibling, because damn that sibling is SO COOL.

And when that cool sibling takes no notice of them no matter how adoring they are, what do babies do? They start to needle. To whine. To badger and pull and tug. Because they do deserve their sibling’s attention. No doubt.

But imagine when that sibling, noticing the power they have over the baby of the family and feeling genuinely annoyed by them, bullies them, ridicules them, smacks them down because, let’s face it, they’re irritating and pitiful. What does the baby of the family do?

It grows up into a combination of sniveling brat and insecure bully.

I see folks who love to “own the libs” as younger siblings, as babies. Wanting their older siblings’ attention! Wishing it would flow to them naturally just because they deserve it! But no longer whining and begging for attention. As “grown-ups,” the babies use their older siblings’ tactics. They bully and provoke, ridicule and smack down, insult and objectify, looking to have any impact at all — even on libs they don’t know and never will. It’s like they’re fixated on the libs because, apparently, there’s something the libs can provide for them.

Of course, I see the libs as older siblings. Who don’t necessarily notice their younger siblings because, come on, we’re busy! But who smack those babies down when they become a bother.

As a lib myself, I am absolutely superior. I know best and I’m right. All the time. I simply don’t care about the people who put up massive Trump banners or fly confederate flags off the backs of their pickup trucks or rev their growly motorcycle engines or flip protesters the bird as they drive by with their windows tightly rolled up. I wonder about them, yes. They irritate the fuck out of me in the moment, yes. I marvel at their dickishness. Their pathetic assholery. Their willingness to just be pests.

And I notice that I have no desire to do what they do, to broadcast in inescapable ways that I AM. I EXIST HERE AND WANT YOU TO NOTICE ME EVEN IF IT MAKES YOU HATE ME. I’m better than that, of course. I don’t need them to notice me.

Owning the libs, sadly, appears to be an adult version of negative attention-getting. Because these people apparently haven’t or don’t receive enough love and acknowledgment and notice from people who matter to them. They apparently cannot dwell in their beliefs and principles because their own Gardens aren’t interesting or absorbing or satisfying enough. No. They have to fuck up other people’s Gardens because, apparently, having an impact on a lib’s Garden is much more rewarding than cultivating one’s own.

Which makes sense. If you’ve been a baby all your life, hoping for attention and acknowledgment and validation from someone who should care for you but doesn’t, what kind of Garden can you cultivate? When you’re focused on the external, wishing for something that never comes — and, by the way, receiving what you’ve learned to expect, which is neglect and disdain and condescension — what kind of Garden can you plant and tend?

Here, then, is the psycho one-up/one-down dynamic: The babies act like brats. The libs act all superior. Which drives the babies crazy and leads them to enact even more provocative, negative attention-getting behavior. Which deepens the libs’ contempt. And on and on.

Who’s going to break the circuit? (Hint: I don’t think it’s gonna be the babies.)

So here’s the thing: MAGA is horrifying. And unconscionable. And pathetic.

And, when I think of them as neglected and even abused babies, I feel compassion. It would SUCK to be them.

Can we send out love to people whose hatred masks deep neediness?

Shit, I might be completely wrong about this. But if it helps me to battle my own hatred, then it’s a worthwhile error. As a lib, I can practice what I preach: dig deep, skip the easy contemptuous response, get to compassion, and radiate as much love as I can muster. While also allowing the genuine emotions MAGA behaviors trigger, metabolizing them, learning from them, and pooping out what is non-nutritive.

A truly rigorous psychic workout.

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It is so frustrating to me — and I think to a lot of educators — that the practices schools adopt that are meant to solve all their problems end up fading away. Like Restorative Practices. A really great program aimed at strengthening relationships through honesty, support, and community connection.

Of course, no program can be a silver bullet. Change takes humans who exert discipline and consistency and commitment. But, as my readers know, anything that strengthens relationships in schools is good because it increases the chances of effective teaching and learning. Not to mention growth and development. So sticking with programs that foster connection makes sense.

Marisol Quevedo Rerucha, author of Beyond the Surface of Restorative Practices: Building a Culture of Equity, Connection, and Healing and CEO of Heartset Consulting Group, argues for restorative practices in schools. In this episode from Truth for Teachers,

Marisol discusses

• School Culture: Who are restorative practices for?

• Living Our Values: How does our humanity get in the way of our work?

• Making Mistakes: How do we hold each other accountable with love and dignity?

• Being Human: How to blend personal and professional development

• The Role of Faith: What is the Way of the Buffalo? What is a Cow Moment?

Marisol is wise and offers lots of great perspective and advice. If you leave this episode thinking, “YEAH!! Let’s do this thing! But how?” here are a couple of suggestions (beyond using restorative practices in your school):

• Read Loretta Ross’s Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel

• Contact TTE

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

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Got a story to share? What’s your experience with restorative practices? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Or send me an email! betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com

Support the Show: If anything about the Teaching through Emotions podcast resonates, please leave a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

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

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Season 4 of my podcast, Teaching through Emotions, is going to do something totally new. Something never done before. You will hear things that have never been broadcast over the airwaves in the history of podcasts — or of airwaves.

You will hear actual Teacher Support Groups.

Not stories about TSGs. Actual TSGs.

You will get to be a fly on the wall of teachers’ conversations about the hardest parts of their teaching lives. You will hear honesty, emotion, true discombobulation. You will hear worry, concern, frustration, and self-undermining insecurity. You will hear teachers tell it like it is — and you will undoubtedly resonate with all of it.

And you will hear how we unpack the teachers’ stories, reframe them, and come up with a plan of action based on our new and improved provisional understanding of each situation. You’ll hear how that plan went. You’ll hear the teachers’ relief and amazement at the unexpected results. All through raw audio recordings.

I hope you listen!

But here’s where I ask for your help:

I also invite you to participate.

If you’re a teacher who knows you’re going to have a challenging start to the school year AND/OR you’re a teacher who loves talking and continuing to learn about teaching AND you’ve got a mellifluous voice (just kidding! all voices are welcome), consider joining a Season 4 TSG.

• teachers at all levels, from early childhood to college/university, are welcome

• administrators and staff are also welcome

• participants’ identities will be completely camouflaged

• the groups will meet weekly for one hour

• we will begin right before the first week of school

• we will meet for at least 4 weeks, longer if the group wishes

• the meetings are absolutely free!

Questions? You probably have some. Email them to me at betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com. Or leave a message on the TTE Hot Line: 413.239.4158. Or leave a comment.

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You know you want to sign up? Click here. I’ll be in touch to set up a meeting with you to orient you to the project and answer any and all questions.

I hope you consider this! It’ll be a big help to the podcast and, I hope, a big help to you and the other teacher participants. Win-win-win!!!

Just so you know, though: spots are limited. In fact, there are very few left in the podcast TSGs. So get in touch NOW!!!

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My favorite psycho guy, D.W. Winnicott, thought about families as holding environments. As spaces populated by people who facilitate (or not) development. That’s what families are, right? Groups that occupy space that is supposed to make it safe to grow and develop.

I think of classrooms as holding environments. I think of schools as holding environments. And I think of our country as a holding environment.

Right now, it’s a failed holding environment. An extremely frickin’ unbelievably unhealthy holding environment.

What makes for a healthy holding environment? Here are a few crucial elements:

• limits

• boundaries

• good-enough parenting

• attachment

Limits

These are the things that contain people’s actions. Often they begin with “No.”

“No, you can’t speed in a construction zone.”

“No, you can’t eat an entire blueberry pie every day and not gain weight.”

“No, you can’t cheat or steal.”

You get it. These are a pain in the ass for people who want to get their way all the time, but people who get their way all the time tend to lose touch with reality. (Or die.) So limits help us develop a strong and survivable relationship with reality. They also, weirdly, can unleash creativity. Like “No, you can’t use oil forever to run your cars.” But the limits have to liberate desirable activity, like healthy development or inventiveness or physical and psychic safety, not control people by abolishing their human rights.

Boundaries

These are the things that keep individuals psychically safe. They differ by person and even by circumstance. I might be perfectly happy exchanging intimate details about my life with my partner or close friend but NOT with a co-worker, a mere acquaintance, or the guy who’s changing the oil in my car. Permeable boundaries with my partner or a close friend. More solid boundaries with people I don’t know well.

Boundaries are like our psychic skin. Anger can (and should) occur when our boundaries are violated. Trauma is the worst-case scenario, and I don’t think many of us have escaped some sort of trauma. Our boundaries are supposed to be inviolate. They’re supposed to be respected and honored, and we’re supposed to have the last say on where they are at any given moment. Boundaries are the membranes that separate and connect us at the same time because, if we’re safe within our Gardens (which are defined by our boundaries), then we can relate safely and effectively with others.

Good-Enough Parenting

This is what it takes to be an effective developmental partner to your child, student, and anyone else you’re in relationship with, actually. Good-enough is not perfect. You don’t have to do everything right. In fact, making mistakes is welcome in the good-enough world. And repair is powerful. Circling back after a transgression or hurt and revisiting with genuine interest and desire to connect can be more important sometimes than the original harm.

Good-enough is not fused. That is, you don’t have to act with everyone else’s needs always in mind. Rather, you can act with your needs in mind. And model what it takes to negotiate multiple legitimate and precious existences in respectful, well-bounded ways that might not prevent disappointment but involve mutual understanding and care.

Good-enough is a relief. Which allows us to relax and relate to each other without fear of error or reprisal or self-recrimination.

Attachment

The ideal type of attachment is (duh) secure attachment. When you trust your parent enough to be able to totter off and do your own thing but race back when you need comfort, reassurance, or a Band-Aid. Consistent, reliable, attuned (but not perfect) response coupled with a willingness and ability to repair makes for a healthy attachment figure. And we all need these! Perhaps that’s why psychotherapy is so popular these days. (It’s apparently reached an all-time high.) Most therapists recognize this is the type of person they’re supposed to be for their clients.

Perhaps the worst type of attachment is disorganized attachment. Where your parent confuses the hell out of you all the time, making it impossible to know when you’re safe and loved and when the world is real and reliable. They’re fun and accessible one minute, intrusive and demanding another, then distant, withdrawn, and punishing the next. Holy shit. What a nightmare to have a parent like this.

Our country is not a healthy holding environment

Let me count the fucking ways:

• Limits: There are plenty of new limits that have been placed on US citizens. Abortion is illegal; immigration is, basically, illegal; voting rights are being severely curtailed; books are being banned; free speech of citizens and the press is being attacked; the freedom to be oneself in all one’s glory is being rescinded; religious plurality is being reduced to a single white Christian male point. These limits do not liberate creativity or growth. They crush. While the people imposing the limits lift limits from themselves. Emoluments and self-enrichment? Bah! Corruption and self-dealing? Hah! Unrestricted sexual exploitation and abuse, especially of young women? Of course! We may sometimes wish there were no limits on us, but check it out: This is what that’s like.

• Boundaries: If you’re not white, you’re not safe in your home (doors and walls used to be effective boundaries) or anywhere else. (The same is becoming true if you’re a protester exercising your First Amendment rights.) If you’re a woman, you don’t have autonomy over your body. If you’re a political enemy, you’re not protected from illegal harassment. Our administration flows like algae-infested waters into every aspect of our lives they want to. No boundaries means no safety. Living in a permanently unsafe environment is terrible for the human body and soul.

• Good-Enough Parenting: It might seem odd to think about our nation’s leaders as parents, but that is precisely how I see them. They are the holders of our country; they are the setters of the limits and respecters of our boundaries by making and enforcing laws that are good for us. They are supposed to care about our well-being and safety. They are supposed to model maturity, decency, self-restraint, and high moral virtue. Is that happening right now? Oh fuck no.

• Attachment: Our main attachment figure right now is a malignant narcissistic psychopath. Not your ideal attachment figure. Trying to make healthy use of such a man (and all his minions — isn’t it amazing how many of them there are? And how they flock to each other like fuckin’ flies to shit?) is impossible. (And it makes you wonder what sorts of parents the people who voted for this man have.) So we’re floating in a world where our parents are self-obsessed, have no perspective (or limits) on themselves, have no interest in helping or taking care of us, and are actually sadists who prefer, apparently gleefully, to inflict harm on as many people as they can. Oh and — they’re bald-faced liars. Gaslighters. If the definition of insanity is having an inaccurate relationship with reality, and it is, then they want us to be insane. They are driving us insane.

  You simply cannot fabricate more despicable attachment figures.

And so here we are. Living in the most dysfunctional family I, personally, can conceive of. With bottomless coffers that our holder-in-chief is spending by the billions at his malevolent whim. There is so much about this that is crazy-making it is amazing that any one of us has held on to our sanity. Let alone our civility. (The current situation might help explain the current epidemic of assholism. Just sayin’.)

The good news? We might be ready to change things up in this nation in ways that are way past due: universal health care and childcare, revocation of Citizens United, enshrined voting laws that cannot be revised, solid rights for women to control their own bodies, maybe the ERA? Let’s look ahead to the kind of holding environment we want and need and begin working towards it now.

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So something happens that irritates you and you berate yourself for being too judgmental, eh? It might be time to rethink that judgment.

In this episode, which is the one you, dear listeners, listened to the most this season, Joe and I talk about a simple, probably all-too-common story of a teacher who condemns herself for having negative feelings in school. You might be surprised by our conclusions!

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

We discuss

• Psychology of Boundaries: Why personal space in a busy classroom isn’t just a preference, it’s a psychological need.

• Reframing “Judgment”: Why we mislabel valid annoyance as a character flaw.

• Failure: How to view conflict as data instead of a disaster.

• Overcoming Self-blame: The power of asking for what you need rather than internalizing the problem.

Beyond the classroom? You don’t have to be a teacher to enjoy this episode! Too many of us turn our legitimate annoyance against ourselves. Hearing how someone (who happens to be a teacher) reframed her negative experience into open-hearted understanding is good for everyone!

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? Ever had a moment when you might have misunderstood your feelings? Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158. Joe and I can unpack it confidentially in one of our episodes and maybe, maybe offer a different and helpful perspective!

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: [www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe]

It’s summer summer summertime! I hope you’ve already begun relaxing. If you’re looking for ways to reflect on your year, consider re-listening to other TTE podcast episodes. There’s lots of food for thought here just waiting for you!

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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

I recently re-listened to a popular TTE podcast episode called The Meowing Student: Understanding weird behavior in the classroom. In this episode, my friend and co-host, Joe Johnson, came up with a really great axiom: Serve Don’t Save. It’s relevant to teachers, but it’s totally relevant to everybody else.

Here’s what he meant:

Lots of us go about our days looking to help people out. Right? We care. We want to reduce suffering. We want to make a difference in people’s lives. We want to serve.

Which is a worthy goal.

As long as it is implemented from inside your own Garden, with strong Garden Walls that separate your responsibilities and competencies from others’.

If you help someone by leaping out of your Garden into their Garden and then begin weeding and edging and chasing down groundhogs, their groundhogs, then you are not serving. You are saving.

You are fixing them or their lives by doing their work for them. Those weeds? Theirs to pull. That edging? Theirs to do (and they might not even want the sharp cuts you make in their lawn.) Those groundhogs? Theirs to eradicate or co-exist with. In short: That’s their Garden. You need to get the hell out of it.

Saving, in my view, is an assholic move. I mean, if you’re a nurse or doctor or CPR-trained bystander, by all means save lives! That’s a kind of saving we want more of! But psychic saving is a major boundary violation.

That is, not only can I not fix you, but even trying ends up robbing you of the opportunity to fix yourself. And, of course, at bottom you’re the only person who can fix yourself.

Just as I am the only person who can fix myself.

I can support you in doing your work. I can treat you with respect and honor. I can mirror back to you what I see from my Garden. I can cheer you on.

But I can’t save you.

People who revel in saving others are actually doing the complete opposite: They are serving themselves. First, they are protecting themselves from the anxiety (and sadness and anger and whatever) they feel when they look at you and empathize with your situation. They are acting on their own emotions (many of which arise through the very act of empathizing) in order to expunge them.

Second, on top of ridding themselves of unwanted emotions, Saviors get to pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Because they are so helpful! And competent! And kind and caring and thoughtful! This is the self-aggrandizing part, what I call Grandiosity.

Meanwhile, the person they saved looks better on the surface but, because they didn’t do their work themselves, they haven’t learned anything (except maybe that their Savior thinks they’re incompetent and definitely that their Savior will do their work for them). They haven’t changed. In fact, they’re going to need saving again eventually. Which might suit the Savior, because Saviors love being needed, but it doesn’t help anybody else in any lasting way.

I know this because I have been a massive Grandiose Savior in my time. (If my next book ever gets published, you can read how that came about — and how I pulled my head out of my grandiose ass. Fingers crossed.)

All these facts about the futility of saving does not mean Saviors can’t serve. It doesn’t mean Saviors can’t care. Or love. It means, if you’re a Savior, you have to get to know and honor your boundaries. And others’ boundaries. And you have to wrestle with the undergirding beliefs you have about yourself and your fundamental value. And about other people’s ability to help themselves. And their right not to help themselves if they don’t want to. And it means accepting realities that are different from yours and might get your fingers itching because fixing those realities would feel so good….

Serve. Don’t Save.

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My husband and I have been buying flowers to put in our fresh, new flower beds. And my husband has planted them. I look out our kitchen window several times a day now and feel kind of inexplicably happy when I see these plants blooming and stretching and thriving. They’re beautiful bundles of utterly contented and perfectly balanced life. When I gaze at them, I feel the way they look.

I cannot gaze at them enough.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I am writing a book about F*ckin’ People. Specifically, about assholes. Working title: Saving the World One <Bleep> at a Time. (<Bleep> because swear words like “asshole” are no longer welcome in book titles.) I have been thinking about and working on this book for years. And I basically gave up on it a couple years ago because I had no idea how to get the attention of an agent given the slews of manuscripts each one reads every day.

But now…

Thanks to a recommendation from my sister-in-law Carol, I connected with a collaborative writer who worked with me to write a successful book proposal. Not only did Sarah write with me and encourage me and represent Your Everyday Reader for me (because I’m so in my head that I don’t know anymore what normal people know and don’t know about relationships), but she also sent the book proposal around to agents she knew (or to agents people she knew knew).

And I got one. I got an agent.

And she is wonderful.

I am not one to share much about myself. It is difficult for me to believe anyone actually wants to know. But I thought my dear TTE readers might want to get this update. My book has made it through the proposal stage and the getting-an-agent stage. Now we’re heading into the hooking-a-publisher stage. And both Sarah and my agent are optimistic that we’re going to sell this baby.

We’ll see. But here’s the lesson I am actively learning (and it ain’t easy, given my particular psychic structure): My expectations of the world — that I won’t be seen or understood, that I’m always out of step — can change. Are changing. Persistence might just pay off this time. If it does, if my book sells, I will have a lot of internal work to do to adjust to this new data!

In the meantime, I am trying to ground myself by looking out my window and breathing gratitude for beauty and for my good, unbelievably good, fortune.

I’ll keep you posted.

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We knew it was going to happen even if we couldn’t imagine it: The school year is coming to an end. And so is Season 3 of Teaching through Emotions.

Huzzah! Congratulations to all for making it through another crazy year!

Speaking of crazy years: In this episode, Joe and I review some of this year’s craziness. We share some facts and lots of strong personal opinions about them. And we invite you to weigh in! What did we get wrong? What was crazy for you this year? What are you looking forward to this summer? How are you going to rejuvenate before the new school year begins? We’d love to hear from you!

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

We discuss

• Prejudice and Oppression: the state of our federal government’s influence on education

• What’s Good? What’s Bad?: constantly feeling out the magic line between opposing stances in the classroom

• TTE Updates: reviewing Season 3, your favorite episodes, and what we are working on plus what we’re releasing this summer

• Important Bonus: how to say “effin’” in Spanish

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? What was crazy for you this year? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Or send me an email! betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

External links

Joe does talk about furries and litter boxes in schools (as he mentions) in this TTE episode: The Meowing Student: Understanding weird behavior in the classroom.

Here’s the book I taught that has a conservative take on school reform in our country: Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform by Diane Ravitch (who has since flipped to the progressive side).

Joe’s favorite episode: To Care or To Detach?: Finding the emotional balance in teaching

One of Betsy’s favorite episodes (and our listeners’ favorite): Handling Teacher Guilt: Are you being too judgmental of yourself?

TTE merch (T-shirts, mugs, The Feeling of Teaching)

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

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I have written about my snarky attitude towards the field of psychology here. I stand by it even as I draw your attention, dear readers, to a recent article published in the Journal of Educational Psychology as reported on the American Psychological Association’s website.

Once again, intrepid researchers have proven the obvious.

“Teachers’ emotions in the classroom play a critical role in how students learn,” the APA article begins.

Um.

I confess: This statement brings out the sour grapes in me. (If you haven’t noticed.) I studied teachers’ emotions and the effects on their knowing and acting in the classroom way back in the mid-1990s. I wrote up my findings in my dissertation, completed in 1998. (Title: Spontaneity in the Classroom: A Systems View of Teachers’ Knowing-in-Action) I tolerated ridicule from a professor on my dissertation committee (he was a famous psychologist who told me that I and others were “dragging him kicking and screaming” into the realm of emotions in teaching. He didn’t think they mattered).

I earned a MSW in 2008 so I could understand better how emotions work for teachers and everybody else. (Here’s the thesis I wrote for that program.) I’ve been blogging about emotions in teaching, what I have called Teaching through Emotions (here we are!), since 2012. I published a book about it in 2015. I have been running Teacher Support Groups and psycho-coaching teachers and administrators ever since.

Thirty years later, psychologists are publishing articles on the impact of teachers’ emotions on students’ learning.

Well, huzzah.

OK, done with the sour grapes! This is very important research! I have not read the article this news item on the APA’s website refers to — because I don’t want to — but I do think it’s important to underline some key findings:

• It’s better to be joyful than angry when you’re teaching.

• This is true no matter where in the world you teach.

• Teachers’ emotional well-being is important and should be supported in schools.

OK? So get on it, teachers. You need to be supported emotionally in and by your school. Not after school. Not on your own time. There must be places for you to go and people for you to talk to in school, during school, who can help you not just decompress when you need to but also, crucially, understand what your emotions are telling you. So you can learn from them and thereby transform them (and yourself) (and your classroom).

If you need evidence, don’t take my word for it. Take the APA’s.

(OK. Still sour grapes. I’ll probably take them to my grave.)

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For those of you who remain, and even for those who are leaving, this rant is for you. If you’re staying in a system that makes burnout all too …

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God knows I am no fundraiser. Actually, neither is my guest, Erin McQuade-Wright — at least, not anymore. Erin used to be a fundraiser for non-profits and even has a podcast called The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser (which shares psychodynamic wisdom on how to survive that difficult job). But now she’s a coach who helps people of all types live vital lives. (Her company is called Vitalist Coaching.) In this episode, Erin and I talk about our areas of overlap (hint: it’s a large region) and revel in our delight in talking about emotion work, healthy relationships, and the wisdom of psychodynamics.

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

We discuss

• Personality Types: Enneagrams and their usefulness in learning about ourselves

• Somatic Knowing: Brain vs. body knowledge and the half-life of an emotion

• Emotional Lives: How much emotion is allowed in a classroom? How can we manage big emotions? How can we turn difficult feelings into freedom and space to be real?

• Definition of Self-Care: How dealing with negative emotions helps us fill up so we can be present and resilient

• Nourishment Barriers: How are you resistant to joy and why is that bad for you?

• How Does Burnout Work for You? Are you singing the burnout song with a chorus of colleagues?

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? How are you managing your emotions at this point in the school year? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Or send me an email! betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

External links

Enneagram

HeartMath Institute

Vitalist Coaching

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

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I’m just thinking about the value of silence. I can feel impelled to fill it with chatter and jokes when I’m with quiet people. Silence is a perfect void that I rush into because I imagine it means something bad, like someone is uncomfortable or doesn’t have anything to say or is bored. Or, perhaps most accurately, silence makes me uncomfortable or challenges me to have something to say or, worst of all, gives me space to be bored (which I’m really bad at).

Bottom line: For me, filling silences can be exhausting.

But Memorial Day suggests other interpretations of silence. They’re obvious, I know, but not always evident when I’m impulsively filling a void. They’re worth meditating on, I think:

Silence can mean

• someone is feeling

• someone is thinking

• someone is remembering

• someone is praying

• someone is waiting

• someone is taking up space for themselves

What do your silences mean? How easy is it for you to let silence fall? If you’re a teacher, do you program silence into your lessons? What are the benefits of ushering silence in and letting it be?

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Happy Memorial Day. May you sit in silence for a little bit before plunging back into noisy life tomorrow.

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In this rant, I lay out some symptoms of our world’s insanity and share ways to survive them. It can feel hopeless, but here’s what I believe: We can still cultivate wellness and goodness in our own relationships. In fact, we have …

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Of course emotions are bad! They make you feel bad. And they make you a bad person. Only bad people feel emotions like anger, irritation, judgment, envy, hatred. Definitely hatred. “Hate” is a strong word. So hating is bad.

I think, but I’m not sure, that this attitude towards negative emotions is common. I mean, who wants to feel terrible? Who doesn’t do whatever they can to change their mood when they’re sad or frustrated or feeling helpless?

Well, me, for one. And anyone who is curious about the legitimate sources of those negative emotions.

For me, and for Teaching through Emotions generally, negative emotions are a gift. Because, like physical pain, they indicate that something is wrong. And they can be amazingly accurate. Attending to negative emotions with curiosity and a smidgen of psychodynamic perspective can lead you out of negativity and into life-changing understanding! And a plan of action that evaporates the negative feelings and strengthens relationships at the same time! Amazing!

Don’t get me wrong. There are many negative emotions I don’t want. When I’m stressed or anxious about something that scares me — the possibility that someone is irretrievably angry at me, that I’ve done something wrong that I can’t repair, that I’ll be abandoned or attacked or reviled for being me — these deep (what I call) Bedrock emotions are gripping and torturous. I don’t like having them. I want to escape them as fast as I can.

But still I know that they are symptoms. They are messengers. Often they carry information from my past, from experiences that taught me lessons I internalized into psychic Bedrock — experiences that are not relevant now because the original lessons are over and the present is different. When I’m engulfed by these kinds of (what I call) transferential emotions, I acknowledge them — “Oh, hi, Transference. There you are. Let’s see how you communicate with me today” — and wait for them to dissipate. Because they always do. But I hold myself tenderly while I live through them.

Most often my negative emotions alert me to repair work I need to do either on myself or with others. I ask my feelings, “What are you teaching me about myself and others? What is in my power to do to resolve the source of this emotional uprising?” And I try something. What I’ve learned from years of experience is that the relational experiment I try will result in one of two things: relief and resolution OR more data. That I can then fold into my next experiment.

I’ve written this whole long thing because I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that this knowledge and these practices — the knowledge and faith that negative emotions are a motherlode of valuable information and the practices that strengthen relationships — are not second nature to most people. That most people avoid these emotions at all costs — even if the costs include disconnection, objectification, deepened disaffection, loneliness. If you’re like, “Yeah! Damn straight! Why would they be second nature? Everyone avoids negative emotions!” then I hope you keep reading and listening to Teaching through Emotions. Because I believe the fate of our world depends on our ability to connect with each other humanely. Which means we have to deal with our negative feelings. Which means we have to at least acknowledge them, maybe label them, even sit with them, to see what they have to teach us.

I’d love to hear your perspective. What do you do with negative emotions?

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As y’all probably know, I’m a big fan of caring in education. But, thanks to today’s guest, Rachel Branham, a veteran Teacher Support Group participant who’s now working in higher education, we get to consider the downsides of caring, too. What if you’re not a particularly “squishy” person? What if you don’t want to be “in the shit” with your students all the time? What does caring look like for you? How does a natural inclination to detach serve you and your students?

This is such a fun and stimulating conversation! Applicable to anyone who, well, cares. I hope you enjoy it!

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

We discuss

• Caring vs. Controlling: Sliding along the continuum between “squishy” teaching and detachment.

• Alienation from Big Emotions: When students are joyous or chaotic, feeling outside of their world and not knowing what to do about it.

• Students’ (and Teachers’) Psychological Needs: Do all students need or want to be seen? How can teachers love students who are causing them pain?

• Setting Boundaries: When and how do you tamp down exuberance when students are “coloring outside the lines”? Where are those “magical lines” in the first place?

Connect & Share

Got a story to share? How do you balance care with detachment? How do you find and navigate the “magical line” between them? I’d love to hear! Leave me a voicemail at (413) 239-4158 and we might feature your perspective in a future episode!

Or, if you’re a millennial and hate using the phone (like Rachel), send me an email! betsy@teachingthroughemotions.com

Support the Show: If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast app. Your feedback helps others find us.

Get full access to the community: www.teachingthroughemotions.com/subscribe

External links

Radical Love: Rethinking care and professional love in the classroom

Pedagogy Basics: What educators can learn from early childhood teachers

Dream Keepers: Comic Edition

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

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Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Yesterday was Mothers’ Day. (Yes, Mothers’ plural. The original idea for the day, initiated by Julia Ward Howe, was to bring mothers together to protest war and assert their right to participate politically on the assumption that they would never want to send their sons away to kill other mothers’ sons. Not a bad assumption.)

You may be thinking, “Darn! I missed Teacher Appreciation Week” or “Rats! I forgot to get my amazing mom a great gift.”

Well, dear friends, I am here to help.

Every teacher and every mom deserves some TTE merch. Specifically, a T-shirt (super soft, extremely comfortable) or (and?) a sweet mug, both reminding everybody to be healthy and sane — that is, to stay in their effin’ Gardens.

To do your homework without needing reminders or threats. To ask for what you need instead of acting out. To respect differences. To care enough to help out, to cooperate, to look for the good reasons behind teachers’ and mothers’ (and others’) actions or asks. To get to know and accept yourself. To be curious and empathic without being co-opting and controlling. To be kind and compassionate to yourself and others.

TTE merch reminds people to do and be all these things and more!

Buy some merch now!

And please remember: Every day is Teacher Appreciation Day. Every day is Mothers’ Day. Stopping and thinking about people who are really easy to take for granted (not just teachers and mothers but neighbors, friends, co-workers, cashiers, baristas, construction workers, custodians) and, better yet, thanking them, makes for a Good Day.

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