317: Back-to-School Anxiety? Here's What Every Teacher Needs to Remember

Welcome back to the Stellar Teacher Podcast. I'm Emily from the Stellar Teacher Team, and you're listening to Episode 317. Today, we're talking all about something that almost every teacher experiences this time of year, and that is back-to-school anxiety. And today, I am joined by my wonderful teammate, Megan. She's a classroom teacher and a member of the

Stellar Teacher Team. Hey, Megan. Hey, Emily. How are you? Oh, I'm doing good. But what I really should be asking is, how are you? Because you're about to go back to school. So how are you doing? Yes, you nailed it when you said every teacher has back to school anxiety, and I am definitely there. It doesn't matter how many years I've been doing this. There is always those anxious,

nervous feelings. Yes. Somebody on our team recently described it as the summer, end of summer scaries. Yes, the back to school, end of summer scaries. It is a very real thing. I love that comparison. I mean, as a teacher, I always would get the Sunday scaries, you know, that feeling of, not to be negative, but that feeling of impending doom that Monday brings.

So here we are in August and all of our teacher community is getting ready to go back into the classroom. So today we're going to talk about back to school anxiety and we're going to sort of give you some mindset shifts and some advice as so many of you are headed back to the classroom. So whether you're a brand new teacher preparing for your very first classroom or you're a veteran teacher like Megan, who is getting back to school butterflies all over again, this episode is for you.

So Megan, tell me, are you a waiting for the email that the floors are clean type of gal so you can run into your classroom and get ready? Or are you ignoring all things school until your, you know, your teacher work days? Yes. You know, it's funny that you ask that because I think in different phases of life, I've definitely been in both of those places. Yeah.

And now I think, well, I'd be lying if I said I haven't been up to school all summer long because I definitely have. But I have refrained from doing much up there because I know that I needed to rest and to leave it. And so I will have everything like aesthetically done and put back together. I'm also the teacher that takes everything down and puts everything away at the end of the school year.

So I have to redo everything to go back to school. So I do all of that before work week. So I kind of live in both of those camps. Have you looked at any sort of curriculum or anything like that on your computer while you're at home?

Nope. That's good, though. That's good. I love that you're giving yourself the break that you need. And I think as we approach our back to school season, it's really important to think about,

well, what actually is going to help me feel prepared on that first day of school when my students come in? For some teachers, it's I need my room to look great. And for some teachers, it's I need to have every single thing planned for my first week.

I need to have all my copies made. I need to have all of my ducks in a row when it comes to what we're actually going to do. And for a lot of us, it's also I need both of those things to happen in order to feel really good on my first week of school. A reminder that I sort of want to put out there is that

excitement and nervousness can feel exactly the same in your body. You know, it's like those butterflies. It's that feeling, sort of like a jumpiness feeling. Sometimes it's hard to discern whether it's excitement or nervousness, but I think it's so important to have the right mindset, especially as we approach our back to school year. Emily, I think you nailed it when you said that

too of like excitement and nervousness live in those same physical feelings and in our mindset of like, I'm so excited to meet these new students. And I'm also so nervous of what is it going? Who are they? What are they going to bring? I know. And there's so many unknowns too, like, are they going to, you know, are they going to like me? Am I going to be prepared for them?

But I think that once you start to have that mindset shift of I'm excited to meet these students. I'm excited for the opportunities that this new school year is going to bring. Once you sort of start to trick your mind into feeling excitement rather than nervousness, it can have a big impact on your feelings going back to school. Absolutely. So Megan, do you have

any advice to our teachers who are headed back to the classroom real soon? Yes. Well, I wish I could say extend summer longer, but that's not going to happen. No. So I think some of my most practical things that I would say would be living in the mindset of trading that perfection for priorities of, you know, I am very much in that camp, like you said, of I want everything

put away, organized, labeled, ready to go. But I also want my plan book ready. You know, with that loose plan, like we talked about last month of like, what am I going to do that first week of school? What things am I going to teach? All of those. I want the copies made. I want all of that done too. But I also need to live in the camp of things are going to

change and I have to be able to be flexible. And so you mentioned earlier, having those priorities, like what are those top three things that I need to get done for tomorrow? Because there's always going to be a mile long list of, oh, I didn't do this. Oh, I need to reorganize the library. Oh, I didn't get to that. It's going to be okay. We're going to be able to move forward and

we're going to get through it without all of that being done. I don't need to be thinking ahead to what's happening in a month or even really what's happening next week. But what do I need to have done right now to be able to be present with my students? Oh, I love that reminder. Being present with your students is such a great mindset to have during those first couple weeks of school because