How to Reconnect and Feel Fulfilled

Vicki Davis (Intro): Happy Thought Leader Thursday. Today, we’re going to talk about how we as teachers can re-engage in our own classrooms. You might have heard somebody say, “My heart isn’t in it anymore.” It’s mid-July as I’m releasing this episode, and some of us go back to school soon, and we may not be ready. So here’s a quote from Dave Burgess in his best-selling book, Teach Like a Pirate: “Some teachers look out over the 99% engaged classroom with kids on fire about learning and feel successful. Others choose to focus on the one percent and feel like failures.” And then he says, make a conscious decision to focus on what empowers you. Now, I’ll admit it — I tend to be a one-percent focuser. I find that kid who wasn’t with me and I carry him home, sometimes even through the summer. But if we’re going to engage our students, we must engage ourselves first. Let’s start by looking at the wins. Now, let’s talk about teacher engagement.

Announcer: This is the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: So excited today to be talking with Michelle Singh. She’s a National Board Certified Teacher, founder of The Restful Teacher, and CEO of LCT-E Learning Solutions. She has over 20 years serving in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools as a teacher, district leader, and consultant. So Michelle, as we start the school year, we’re looking ahead going, “Okay, I really need to engage those students.” What is the work you’re currently doing in that area?

Michelle Singh: I’m actually doing my dissertation right now around the disengagement of Black students in classrooms, particularly secondary language arts classrooms. So I’m doing a lot of work around student engagement and the factors leading to student disengagement — everything from issues with their home life, their community life, their cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional worlds. There are so many layers to student disengagement, and it is not because students are lazy, and it’s not because students don’t have discipline. Think of the iceberg. It’s not all what you see at the top. There’s so much more below the surface that causes the disengagement of students. But one of the things that has really stood out to me when it comes to engagement — I’ve noticed in conversations with my clients as a consultant that we are disengaged, just like our students.

Michelle Singh: In order for us to truly tap into what we need to really be there and serve and support our students the way they deserve, we have to fix our own disengagement, our own disconnection. There are a lot of things that cause us to disconnect. It could be traumas from our childhood that aren’t addressed, that we’re not even aware of. It could be the toxic work environments we’re part of. It could be burnout — not prioritizing our wellbeing and our rest. It could be having too much happening in our families.

Vicki Davis: There are so many things besides just the exhaustion. We have to relate to educate, but that takes a lot of effort.

Michelle Singh: Oh, it does. I love that — “you have to relate to educate.” I just finished one of my college classes with aspiring teachers, and relationships are the most important thing. I heard it echoed in the room: every experience they shared about the teacher who influenced them was because of trust, was because of safety, was because of relationships.

Vicki Davis: That’s what you talk about with Ms. Fernandez. Tell us a little bit about her.

Michelle Singh: In my TED talk, I talk about Ms. Fernandez, my Spanish teacher. One of the things I’ll always remember Ms. Fernandez for is her ability to see me — to see me exactly as who I was, this little immigrant girl coming from Jamaica with the heavy accent, with the bushy hair, with the school uniform. The only kid in the class wearing a uniform, because that’s what we did in Jamaica. The only kid in class who stood up to speak, because that’s what we did in Jamaica. The kid that everyone laughed at, where other teachers stayed silent. She was the one who made me feel seen, who told me it was okay to be me. And she was also the one who gave me incredible learning experiences that I didn’t recognize were incredible until I became a teacher myself and started looking back and tapping into her strategies and implementing them in my own practice.

Vicki Davis: And we have all these kids who are hurting and who need us. The percentages you shared in your TED talk — 2% of teachers in America are African-American male and 7% are African-American women. And if you’re not engaged… we need more. We don’t need to lose the ones we have. What do we do, Michelle?

Michelle Singh: I can talk personally about what I’ve done, as well as what I’m helping other women educators of color address. It’s addressing that disconnection in yourself, addressing the reason why you don’t feel fulfilled. Because if you’re not fulfilled, how are you going to show up and do a job that’s so important? I have been there — where I’ve shown up and been on autopilot and didn’t even realize I was on autopilot. And that didn’t serve me, and it did not serve my students. So how do we get from that to feeling so full inside that we’re able to serve from a place of fulfillment rather than a place of sacrifice?

Vicki Davis: Some days, even if I’m totally in sync with my teaching, I don’t feel it — so I show up anyway. But there is this huge systemic problem of teacher disengagement. Teachers are hurt, they’re wounded. So where does a teacher start who’s listening to you and thinking, “Michelle, you are right”?

Michelle Singh: You start with acknowledgement. Acknowledgement that you are disconnected, that you are not fulfilled, that you realize, “I have been on autopilot for so long. I am burnt out. I need help.” And when you start with acknowledgement, then you’re starting to confront the behaviors and the beliefs that are keeping you stuck in that lack of fulfillment. Really think about: what does fulfillment mean to you? What is it to feel like your cup is full? What is it to feel like I am totally connected with my why, and I have defined success on my terms — not society’s standards, not someone else’s standards? What does that feel like to me? What does that look like to me? You have to define those things for yourself, and you have to acknowledge beliefs and behaviors that are not serving you well. And I’ll tell you this — it’s not something you can do alone. You know how there’s the A-team? I have the Michelle team. That’s God, that’s my therapist, that’s a coach, and that’s a community. Because you can’t do this work alone. I have to have those four things to be able to say, “Okay, this is when perfectionism is coming in. This is when that limiting belief is coming in. This is when that imposter syndrome is coming in.” And here’s what I can do to move forward.

Vicki Davis: When you have too much, it’s too much. And it’s hard when you get there, Michelle. Speaking from experience, some teachers feel like there’s no option but to quit. That’s just where they are.

Michelle Singh: I know. I’ve been there. I have been there, where I felt I just didn’t have another way out. My health was at risk — my mental health, my emotional health, my physical health — all of that was at risk because of the work environment I was in. And I had gotten to the point where I just could not take it anymore. I literally broke down in tears in the office of my supervisor’s supervisor — she was a superintendent. And I left shortly after that. After 15 years in the public school system, I chucked up the deuces and I left. Now I’m still connected — I still do work as a consultant, and I still serve. However, I do it on my own terms.

Vicki Davis: So we acknowledge that there is a time when you have to step away. There is that time.

Michelle Singh: You have to. And it’s not easy to step away — 15 years in a career, and you don’t know what’s next. But when your health and your family are at stake, when you’re looking at all of those things and realizing you might not be here in a couple of years because your health is getting so bad — then you have to make a decision to prioritize yourself. And that’s what a lot of us don’t do. We are great at doing everything for everybody else and saying yes to everything, but we don’t prioritize ourselves. That’s one of the things I’ve learned to do in the past couple of years: say yes to myself. Say yes to myself, and say no, and set boundaries.

Vicki Davis: Boundaries is a great word. Because when you say yes to one thing, you’re saying no to something else. So there are seasons, and it’s okay to transition. I’m curious, though — you’re doing your paper on this right now for your dissertation. Are there some low-hanging fruit you can point teachers to, to help them engage themselves?

Michelle Singh: I would say do a clarity audit. Let’s call it that — a clarity audit, where you’re really going to do some self-reflection to figure out what in your life makes you float and what in your life frustrates you. And then I would even say, make a list of the things that you no longer want to tolerate. The clarity audit will help you figure out the things that make you the happiest, that are completely aligned to your core values — this is your why, why you’re here on this earth, why you’re doing the work you’re doing. But then also identify the things you don’t want to do anymore, and figure out a way to not do those things anymore.

Vicki Davis: Unless it’s the dishes — most of us are stuck with those. Home comes with you, especially when you’re stressed out at home, you know?

Michelle Singh: There’s a book I read when I left teaching and started on the entrepreneurial path — Rachel Rodgers (We Should All Be Millionaires). One of the things I learned from that book was identifying the things in your life that take up time where you could be doing something more valuable, and then delegating that. So for me, of course, driving — but also laundry. The time it would take me to do laundry, I could be doing something that could make me more money or more productive: write an article, do something for my students that’s just more pleasing. So I delegate the laundry to a service. The cost of that was not as great as I thought, because I’m getting fulfillment from not doing it anymore and doing something I love instead. I was able to identify those things I no longer wanted to tolerate and figure out a way to get them done — and focus on the things that made me float.

Vicki Davis: Could we finish with a pep talk for teachers as they head back into their classrooms and just need some encouragement? What would you say to them?

Michelle Singh: It’s so important to celebrate the small wins. We don’t take time to do that — the smallest things. A kid smiled at you today. A kid said, “Hey, Miss, I like your shoes.” The smallest wins. I would say celebrate the small wins and write them down, because you’re going to need to go back to those to boost you up when you’re not feeling your best, when you’re feeling like you’re not enough. But know that you are enough.

Vicki Davis: Oh, those do help — taking those letters they write and putting them in an “atta-girl” drawer, opening it up and looking at them when you have the hard days, because they do come. Well, thank you for coming on the show today, Michelle.

Michelle Singh: You can connect with me at empty2empowered.com — that’s the word “empty,” the number 2, empowered.com. And that’s how we can stay connected.

Vicki Davis: Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com/newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.