Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers

Trauma is an epidemic right now, affecting kids across racial and socio-economic lines. And I'd bet that every teacher is working with kids that have experienced trauma. Most kids who have experienced trauma will not receive any kind of special services or counseling, but they will show up to the classroom, and you'll be expected to understand and manage all of the complex emotions and behaviors that come with them on your own. Join me today as I give you an overview and solid foundation for understanding trauma-informed teaching practices. You'll learn ways how trauma impacts students and what we can do as teachers to support kids without carrying the weight of that trauma ourselves. Listen in for specific dos and don'ts to make it easier to navigate this in your classroom, so you can build better relationships, prevent conflict, and teach students effectively.  Click here to read or share the transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.

In this episode of the Truth for Teachers podcast, we're talking strategies for dealing with complainers at work so negative colleagues don't impact your enthusiasm for the job. Whether it’s in the teacher’s lounge, staff meetings, or just passing one another in the hallway, even a short conversation with a negative teacher can be totally draining. Everyone complains occasionally and no one is going be positive all the time ... this episode targets constant complaining or venting.  Ultimately what we’re talking about here is dealing with people who are nonstop, chronic complainers, or people who rarely, if ever, are looking for solutions, and they will likely shoot down any ideas you offer because they’re just wanting to complain.  I’m going to share 12 ways you can head off chronically complaining coworkers at the pass! Click here to read or share the transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.  

By now, you've probably heard me talk a lot about strategies for work-life balance and productivity as a teacher. Join me today in this episode of the Truth for Teachers podcast where I personally reflect on what those principles look like in this season of life currently. I’ll share five choices I’ve made that are essentially habits now, and they help me to automate and simplify my life. Hopefully, it will give you some ideas about ways that you can do the same in order to focus on your biggest priorities! Click here to read or share the transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.  

In this episode of Truth for Teachers, we're talking about how to keep teaching from ruining your marriage (or any relationship you have with a significant other). I can’t tell you how many emails I've gotten over the years from teachers telling me that teaching is ruining their marriage. I’ve heard of husbands giving their wives ultimatums: It’s either teaching or me. And I’ve also heard from many 40HTW club members over the years that they have used strategies from the club to reduce their workload, which has ultimately helped them strengthen their marriage and have more time to spend with their partners. This episode will use a slightly different format, as I’ve asked club members to share some of the things that they are doing to preserve their marriage and keep teaching from coming in between themselves and their partners. Join me today as I’ll be sharing some of the advice that they’ve written, and also play a couple audio clips so you can hear things in their own words. Click here to read or share the transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.  

Do you feel like it’s less work to go into school sick than to write plans for a sub? If I wasn’t contagious, I showed up to my classroom every day, because planning lessons for six subject areas and prepping/organizing all the materials was a massive job.  The solution? To remember that unexpected absences aren’t really unexpected: We know they’re going to happen from time to time. So even though you don’t know when, you can still do the bulk of your preparation in advance, and set up your expectations and routines to make things go more smoothly. In this week's episode, I share 5 tips to help you simplify prep for substitutes, and how you get ready-to-use sub plans I've created. Click here to see the emergency sub plans AND get one day’s assignments for FREE. Click here to read or share the transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.

Join me today and listen in on a conversation I had with Shawnta Barnes, where she shares her very honest and transparent thoughts and feedback on why really great teachers get saddled with the biggest workload.   This is an episode that I've been wanting to do because I have experienced this situation myself, where my class list was loaded up with the most challenging kids, only because the administration said, “You can handle it.” And ... I know this happens in schools all across the country, where teachers are almost being punished for their effectiveness or are expected to pick up other people's slack. While there might not be any instant solutions to this known problem, Shawnta and I will talk about some specific things you can do to advocate for yourself. Click here to read or share the condensed transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.  

In this week's episode, I'm excited to try this new episode format because I get a lot of questions from teachers which I haven't been able to answer up until now. Either I don't have enough information or knowledge to answer, or I don't have enough to say that would fill an entire podcast episode. And sometimes, the question is just so specific to that person that it wouldn't make a good episode for everyone else. I think this will be a really fun way to cover a wide variety of topics in a short amount of time and still give you a lot of value. Basically, I’m going to give my BEST piece of advice for each scenario.  All of these questions came from Instagram. If you want to ask a question, go to my Instagram Story Highlights, or fill out the form at truthforteachers.com.  Click here to read or share the transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.

One of the issues I’m most passionate about is making teaching more effective, efficient, and enjoyable, so I’ve gathered a group of educators to create a Productivity Roundtable. Joining me are five members of the 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club’s graduate program. They have done a tremendous amount of work in experimenting with various productivity strategies in their classrooms and creating systems and routines that work well for them and their students. Since they teach at different grade levels and subject areas, in different types of school settings and communities, in a diverse set of locations throughout the United States, you’re going to hear what works with a variety of teaching contexts and teaching styles. This time around, we’re talking about how to manage differentiation. During the roundtable, we’ll move past “differentiation” as a buzzword and talk about what’s happening in real classrooms. Each roundtable member will share how they differentiate instruction, and then move into how we can make differentiation more scalable. We’ll finish up by talking about their differentiation fails and mistakes, and some traps or pitfalls they think teachers should avoid as they look for ways to differentiate. Click here to listen to the audio, or read or share the highlights from the roundtable session and participate in the discussion.  

In this episode, I decided to put myself out there and tell Truth for Teachers listeners some facts that are embarrassing for me to admit. I've heard podcasters in other niches do this episode format, and I felt like I knew them much better afterward. I also related to a lot of what they shared — it made me feel less alone to hear someone else admit the things that a lot of people think or feel, even if we're not always talking about it. Click here to read or share the condensed transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.  

We are back from our summer hiatus and kicking off a new season of the Truth for Teachers Podcast! Are you in the middle of the back-to-school craziness or preparing for it? It's that time of year for a lot of you, and I know a lot of teachers begin to have back-to-school nightmares or trouble sleeping due to this very high-pressure time. There are so many things at the start of the school year that are unknown or unfamiliar and completely out of your control. That stress can come from feeling like you have to prove yourself and worrying that you're not doing enough. And there is the pressure of having a new group of kids and their parents or even any changes in personnel at your school. So it’s natural to try to handle that by controlling as many things as possible, or oppositely, bending over backward to be likable or worry how to win your kids over.  Join me today for a quick trick that you can use to lessen your anxiety during those first weeks of school. Learn to shift your focus to help build better relationships that are centered on what kids really need from you!  Click here to read or share the transcript and audio or participate in the discussion.