Dear Stellar Teacher: Navigating the Back-to-School Chaos with Confidence

Sara
Hey there and welcome back to the podcast and to another Dear Stellar Teacher episode. This is our monthly segment where my teammate Emily joins me for a more laid-back conversation about all things teaching. And today’s episode is really one that you probably need because we are officially in back-to-school season. It’s hard to believe that we’re already entering the month of August. I know some of you may have already been back at school for a week or two. So whether you’re feeling pumped, panicked, or somewhere in between, we’re here to cheer you on with a little back-to-school pep talk. I know this time of year brings so many emotions—you’re excited, nervous, hopeful, maybe there’s some dread, and you’re worried about seeing that class roster. We just want to remind you that you’ve got this school year, and no matter what comes your way, you’ll be able to handle it. So, wherever you’re listening from—whether you’re setting up your classroom, still at home drinking coffee on your way to work, or maybe stopping by, do people even go to school supply stores anymore? Or Lakeshore? Maybe you’re stocking up on supplies for your classroom. Wherever you’re listening from, hopefully you enjoy our little back-to-school pep talk.

So, Emily, welcome back! Before we get into our official back-to-school pep talk, have you been reading any fun books lately?

Emily
Yeah, so I just read a romance book called Story of My Life by Lucy Score, and I feel like I talk about romance books a lot.

Sara
It’s my favorite genre, so that is totally fine.

Emily
Sometimes when you’re in certain seasons of your life, you just need something easy, breezy, and fun, and that’s what this book was for me. So I thoroughly enjoyed it as a little beach summer read.

Sara
I’ll have to add that to my list because I haven’t read that one.

Emily
It’s cute.

Sara
I recently finished it, and her book came out a while ago, but I’m trying to be a bit more —I don’t know if “responsible” is the right word— but I’m trying not to purchase all of my books and wait for them to come on Libby so I can get them for free. But I just listened to Emily Henry’s most recent book, The Great Big Beautiful Life, and one, I love listening to her books on audio because I’m obsessed with her narrator, Julia Whelan. I feel like she can narrate anything and make it sound amazing. But I feel like her previous book—I don’t know if anybody’s a big Emily Henry fan—I loved Funny Story, which was her book last year, so I was a little worried about this one, especially because I’d heard that it’s a little different. It’s not her typical romance book. It did have a different feel, but I still really enjoyed it. Highly recommend!

Emily
That’s funny that you mentioned Libby because I recently got my husband on the Libby train. I have a library card, so I said, “Here, you figure this out.” Now, he’s all about Libby. He talks about it all the time. We tried to get the Emily Henry book, but it was like 13 weeks or something long, and it was like…

Sara
Yeah, her book was released, like, I think it was the very end of April. I checked Libby and they didn’t have a copy yet, but the next day, they did. Of course, it was like, “You’re 26th in line.” I thought, “Yeah, I’m never going to get this book,” but I waited.

Emily
Sometimes, you just have to spend the money.

Sara
I know. I spend maybe more money than I should on books, so I’m trying to be a little more patient and wait for them, and I did!

Emily
Libby is really cool, though.

Sara
Absolutely. Okay, what reminders do you feel like you really needed at the start of the year? Getting back into it, I always felt like I was that chicken with my head cut off, and it was just crazy. I was the teacher that the moment the building opened and I could get into my classroom, I was there from 7 a.m. until they kicked me out at night, days, weeks ahead of time. I was hectic during back-to-school season. What reminders do you wish you would have had when you were in the classroom that we can share with our audience?

Emily
Yeah, so I was kind of the same. I would go in during the summer, try to get things cleaned up and everything. Despite how many days I went in during the summer and how many workdays we had to prepare our classrooms, I just felt like I was never 100% ready. So my reminder to teachers is that you don’t need to be 100% ready. It’s normal to figure things out as you go. Your students won’t notice if something is hung up or if it’s not, or if their lunch tags are laminated or if they’re not. So trust that you’ll get it all done, even if you’re not 100% ready the second your students walk in the door.

Sara
Well, and that reminds me of feeling ready, which is kind of the same as feeling like it’s enough. Ultimately, that’s a moving target. You can think, “Okay, I got all that done,” and then there’s more that I want to do, right? It’s like there’s always going to be more. So I think at some point, you just have to make the decision that, okay, this is what I can get done in the timeframe I have. I’m going to do it, and I’m not going to allow myself to mentally spiral about everything I haven’t gotten done. So yeah, you have to just decide, “I’m going to feel ready, regardless,” and I’m going to feel like it’s enough.

Emily
Exactly. When I think about getting ready for back to school, I think about my whiteboard. Did you ever put, like, a massive to-do list on your whiteboard?

Sara
I spent so much time on to-do lists—on my whiteboard, in my planner, on Post-its. I made to-do lists everywhere.

Emily
Yeah, so I guess another really helpful tip is to prioritize what’s important for you to get done now and what’s just extra.

Sara
Yep, all the bulletin boards and that extra cutesy stuff— as fun as it is, that really is extra. I think unless you really enjoy it, you don’t need to do all that.

Emily
Yeah, when you went back to school, how many teacher workdays did you typically have before you started?

Sara
So in Houston, where I taught, we usually had 10 days—two weeks before. But hold on, don’t get excited! Out of those two weeks, we’d get about a day and a half in our classrooms. We were doing grade-level meetings, trainings, PD, and all that stuff, so we weren’t really getting time in our classrooms. I will say, my principal was constantly trying to advocate for more time, and when I was an assistant principal, I was trying to advocate for teachers to have more time. We got as much time as we were allowed, but there were so many required district trainings—things that we had to do for the district.

Emily
Yeah, we had similar things. I would just sit in those trainings and make my to-do list of what I needed to get done in my classroom.

Sara
All the decor I needed to print out. Yeah, the trainings were not effective.

Emily
Exactly. Well, the school district where I live just said they were giving their teachers two weeks of workdays, and I was shocked.

Sara
Two weeks of actual workdays, or two weeks of training? Probably more like what you just described.

Emily
Yeah, probably.

Sara
I think that’s one of those things where I would remind teachers: we always wish we had more time, right? So let’s not spin our wheels and use our mental energy on wishing we had more time, because we just won’t. But I really think using the time that we have is so important. But that’s not even the most important thing. The most important thing I want teachers to remember, my number one advice, is something I didn’t really learn until I was getting ready to leave school, or even now in my own life. I think this is a challenge for all of us as adults: You cannot forget to take care of yourself during the back-to-school craziness. When I look back on the habits I was creating at the start of the school year, I was working late, not drinking enough water, not taking time to eat lunch, not exercising. Before the school year even started, I had depleted myself completely, right? By the time day one arrived, I was already running on fumes. If you think of the school year as a marathon, it’s not a sprint. You have to be prepared for the entire year, which means you can’t burn yourself out in August. To your point, you need to decide what it means to be ready, and don’t overdo it in August because we have a long year ahead. You need to be more disciplined—like, it’s 4 p.m., I’m going home, or it’s time for a lunch break. Take time to sit down with your teammates and actually connect and have a conversation. Drink enough water. Use the fact that you can have a bathroom break whenever you want before the school year begins! Teachers are so selfless and giving, and we forget to take care of ourselves. My hope and encouragement is that you remember you are just as important as everyone else, and you need to make sure that you’re taking time for yourself because nobody else is going to do that for you. Put yourself first during this back-to-school craziness. The craziness will still be there, and the year will go on, but you want to be ready for it.

Emily
I love that. Put yourself first. And to your point about leaving at four o’clock, or whatever time you can. I was that teacher who sat in trainings all day, so I stayed in my classroom working until like 7 p.m., and then what happens the next day is that my feet are dead tired, and I’m dead tired. But the reality is, you’re going to fill up the space; you’re going to fill up the time. So if you’re like, “Oh, I can stay until 10…” or—please do not stay until 10! If you’re like, “I’m going to stay until seven,” then you’re going to work until seven. But if you tell yourself, “I’m going to work until four,” you can potentially get the same amount of stuff done within that timeframe. So it’s like, I always think about tasks like liquid—they’re going to take up the space of the time you give them. So if you say, “I’m going to be done by four,” you could potentially get everything done, leave, and feel satisfied.

Sara
I think of that same concept—this is completely unrelated, so we’re taking a tangent here—but that same concept is true when you’re planning a wedding.

Emily
Total tangent!

Sara
Here’s the thing: you will take up as much time as you are given for the engagement, right? And I say this because my engagement was three months. We were engaged and married three months later, which means in three months, I had all the things—the dress, the cake, the venue, the music, all of that stuff. But if my engagement had been two years, guess what? I would have been planning a wedding for two years. I’m glad I only had three months to plan, because it was exhausting and stressful. It’s the same thing. It’s so true, right? Like, if you’re like, “I’m going to work until seven,” you’re going to fill up that entire time. So don’t even give yourself the option to work until seven. At 4 p.m., walk out of the building and get done what you can. Also, maybe that urgency will help you be a little bit more efficient.

Emily
Okay, I really didn’t know where you were going with that wedding metaphor, but it makes total sense. You had the same wedding that you would have had if you had a two-year engagement, so your classroom will look the same.

Sara
Yeah, I’ve been married for 14 years now, and guess what? My marriage has worked! It’s totally fine. So thinking of this in the long term with your classroom, right? I don’t know if this is the best analogy, but the amount of time you spend right now in August is really not going to make a substantial difference in how the school year goes. So give yourself the gift of work-life balance. Take a step back. Don’t fill your days with work.

Emily
Yeah. So when you started the school year, did you ever lose your voice?

Sara
Oh, always.

Emily
Yeah. That was always such an interesting phenomenon to me, because it was like, I guess I just didn’t talk all summer. No, that’s not true. We know that’s not true because I’m a talker, but I was always hoarse at the beginning of the school year.

Sara
And sore feet.

Emily
Sore feet, for sure.

Sara
So, what are we telling teachers to do? Drink lemon water and wear comfy shoes?

Emily
Yes, exactly. Tea with honey and wear comfy shoes. Exactly.

Sara
Something I think is important for teachers to keep in mind, and this is more of a mindset thing, is that sometimes there’s so much comparison to other teachers in our building or teachers we see online, you know, whether it’s on Instagram or TikTok. We’re comparing what we’re doing to other teachers. And the comparison thing, right? When you start comparing yourself, that’s just a spiral. I think whether it is—this could go in both directions—sometimes we feel the need to have all new classroom decor. We feel like we need a whole new classroom theme every year. You know what? No, you don’t have to! If you want to have the same classroom decor that you use year after year, it’s completely fine to rinse and repeat. It’s completely fine to use the exact same activities that you used last year. If you’re the type of teacher for whom it’s easier to do what you’ve done in the past, it doesn’t matter if everybody else on your team or on the Internet is doing something new. You can use the tried and true and still benefit from it.

And I think, on the other side, there are teachers who are like, “I get a lot of joy out of trying new things. I want to do something new!” If you’re that teacher, don’t feel like you have to do the same thing over and over again. If you get joy from trying new things, go for it! Even though they’re kind of opposite examples, it’s like, don’t be afraid to lean into what’s going to bring you the most joy and what’s going to work best for you. Knowing that what works best for you is not going to be the same thing that works best for your co-teacher or somebody else. So, put your little blinders on, don’t pay attention to everyone else, and just do what’s going to be the easiest and bring you the most joy.

Emily
Yeah, I can see how teachers today, the young ones, look on Instagram, or TikTok, and see all these beautiful classrooms, but that is somebody’s highlight reel, right? So I like how you brought up not comparing yourself to other teachers online or other teachers in your building. It’s so easy for you… I mean, I did this. I would peek into somebody’s classroom after they left and be like, “Where’s she at? What’s she got to do?”

Sara
And then it’s like, now I need to go to Lakeshore and completely redo my theme because it doesn’t measure up to all the cuteness happening in the classroom across the hall.

Emily
I know, but you really need to focus on what matters. So, that kind of brings me to my next little tip. It’s also a mindset thing—the new year is a chance to reset and focus on what matters. I mean, like you were just saying, what matters to you and what brings you joy might be different than someone else, but really center on what matters. I always loved back-to-school season because it just felt like that rebirth. Like, “New year, new me” kind of thing. And I always really enjoyed picking something new to work on and focus on, and that really got me motivated. Summer was always the time when I listened to podcasts and got new ideas, and then I always felt so excited to put those into practice with my students. So that’s really what brought me joy.

Sara
Well, and I think too, it’s kind of along those same lines. I think it’s important to remember that last year does not carry into this year. Right? So, like, if you had a really rough group of students from a behavior standpoint, or maybe they were really low academically, or maybe you had conflict with your administrator or your teammates, that was last year. This is a fresh start. This is a new year. So, if you had a less-than-ideal experience last year, leave that in the past. Don’t bring it into this year. Allow yourself the opportunity to really reset and say, “Okay, this is how I want to move into this next year.”

Emily
Speaking of “New Year, new me,” did you ever have the experience where somebody comes and looks at your roster and says, “Watch out for him?”

Sara
Oh gosh, yes.

Emily
Like, “Oh my goodness.” So, “New year, new me.” These students are also having a new year, new me. I encourage teachers not to worry about how a student acted in previous classrooms, because this is a new opportunity for them too. I just could not stand when people did that to me. I would say, “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it,” because I wanted to create my own opinion of these kids.

Sara
Well, I think too, especially because there’s not a whole lot of benefit in that. It’s like, if you had a bad experience working with a student, that’s not going to benefit you, and it’s not going to benefit the student. And I always, I sort of sought out information, because I’m an information gatherer, and I’m like, “I need to know, I need to know.” And I always regretted it. I was like, “Why did I even do that?” But there was one year, there was a student in my class, and of course, the previous teachers were like, “Oh, you got that student. Good luck. He’s a challenge.” And he ended up being my favorite student ever. Was he challenging? Yeah, there were moments that were really challenging, but our personalities worked together in a way that he didn’t connect with or jive with the previous teachers. The challenges he had in third grade and second grade weren’t challenges he had in fourth grade. It was a reminder that I had built up this expectation, thinking that because I had this student on my roster, the year was going to be so hard. I was already looking ahead into the year and thinking of all the challenges we were going to have. I made it much more of a mental drama than what actually happened.

Emily
Exactly! We built it up in our heads, and then it wasn’t as bad as it actually could have been.

Sara
Yeah, for sure. Another suggestion I would give to teachers, and this is actually something that my therapist had me do sometime in the last six months, but create a— I feel like this was on Instagram for a while, but it’s actually really helpful. She talked about the importance of creating a dopamine menu. So, when you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, right? Which I know happens during the back-to-school season, you want to have some really easy things that you can reach for that you know will give you a good hit of dopamine. Not like scrolling on Instagram, right? Because that’s not the best. We want a good hit of dopamine. So, whether it’s going for a walk, or if you have a playlist you really like listening to, or if there’s a healthy snack you can have, or maybe it doesn’t even need to be healthy—maybe it’s a treat that you’re like, “Oh, I really enjoy this.” Or maybe it’s calling a friend, going into your coworker’s classroom, or meditating. Whatever that is for you—giving yourself 10 minutes to listen to an audiobook, whatever helps you reset. Make that list your back-to-school dopamine menu. Be intentional about planning the things that you know are going to make you feel good. Then, every day, grab one or two things off that list and make them a priority. Again, it’s like, you don’t want to burn yourself out before the year even begins.

Emily
That’s a really cool suggestion. I’ve never heard that before, but I love it.

Sara
All right, anything else that you want to share with teachers as they’re getting ready to kick off the school year?

Emily
I mean, ultimately, you got this. You got this. You know how to teach. You know how to build relationships with students. And I always reminded myself, by Halloween, we will have this thing down. We will be a well-oiled machine, and this classroom will run itself. So definitely trust your instincts and know that no matter what, you are going to be an awesome teacher this school year.

Sara
Well, and I think too, just like you are doing such an important job, don’t lose sight of that. I know sometimes that, for whatever reason, our society and culture do not give teachers the gratitude, appreciation, and recognition they deserve. So let us give that to you. You are doing an incredible job. The work that you do this year is going to be life-changing for the students in your classroom. Don’t lose sight of that. Know that we here at the Stellar Teacher Company will be cheering you on throughout this year. So when you need a little bit of encouragement or inspiration, reach out to us on Instagram. Tune into this podcast. We are cheering for you. Be sure to take care of yourself during this back-to-school season.

Emily
Definitely. Well said.

Sara
All right. Well, we’ll see you back here next week, and good luck as you get into your classrooms and get excited for this next school year.