Teacher burnout is a
state of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged
work stress. It leads to a feeling of detachment, fatigue, and cynicism. It's
a serious issue, with many teachers reporting feeling overwhelmed and
disconnected from the passion that initially drew them to the profession.
Studies indicate that approximately 44% of K-12 teachers often or always feel burned out. This is higher than the average burnout rate for other professions. A 2022 Gallup poll reported that K-12 workers have the highest burnout rate in the US.
Teaching through Emotions is a podcast and newsletter for teachers on the verge of burnout. Betsy Burris shares practical tips and heartfelt stories to help people navigate relationships and really connect with one another. Sometimes, it's for teachers, but mostly, it's for everyone.
Betsy has been guiding teachers for the past 40 years in making sense of their emotions so they can have better relationships with even their most difficult students (and other people in their lives) and foster success and joy in their work.
Teaching through Emotions is a rare form of relief for educators. Rare because it focuses on the bedrock of teaching — relationships — and rare because it turns negative emotions into understanding, compassion, and effective plans of action.
Betsy says: "It’s not psychotherapy, and it’s not life coaching. It’s more like psycho-coaching: using psychological frames to coach teachers through tough feelings to more attuned and effective teaching. In a nutshell, Teaching through Emotions is about using your emotions to feel better and teach better."
Betsy explains: "I’m a teacher educator and a psychotherapist, a combination of skills that allows me to see classroom behavior and teacher experience through a beneficial lens: the psychodynamic lens. By psycho, I mean having to do with emotions and unconscious expectations of ourselves and the world; by dynamic, I mean having to do with relationships and how we fit together with other people, for better and worse. I have been helping teachers, administrators (and parents and even students!) build their psychodynamic muscles for almost two decades."
Betsy Burris has a robust Substack newsletter page with helpful information for teachers.
Betsy observes, "I am devoted to the idea that teachers need support in developing and maintaining their Social-Emotional Competence so they can flourish in classrooms, just as we hope students will. Teaching can be incredibly difficult and wearying for teachers, but there are few jobs as important. I help teachers do that job with hope, joy, and success."
The podcast has a fascinating history. It began in 2021 and released episodes sporadically through those years. After releasing only one episode each in 2023 and 2024, Burris seems to be on track in 2025, with five episodes released since March 20th.
The podcast's unique intro music is hard to describe, but it could be called a mix of adult contemporary and folksy a cappella. Burris is an excellent narrator and interviewer with an evident passion for this topic.
In the April 17th episode, Betsy unpacks a classroom story from Siobhan, a special ed teacher working with high schoolers who grapple with big emotions, by acting out in big ways. What happened when her students broke a deal they made? How did Siobhan handle it? (It wasn’t pretty, at first! But then it got, well, amazing.)
In the episode, Betsy and her co-host Joe discuss why students might get “insufferable” in the first place and what they might be communicating, how to prevent obsessive self-blame that can lead to insomnia, what makes for a healthy “holding environment” in a classroom, and how to talk frankly with students about classroom dynamics.
Clearly, this podcast is intended for teachers in a classroom setting. However, thousands of people in business positions could be helped by this podcast, including Training managers, HR orientation managers, Onboarding supervisors, on-the-job trainers, and even driving instructors and call center trainers.
In a nutshell, Teaching through Emotions is about using your emotions to feel better and teach better. In today's turgid educational environment with entitled parents, conspiracy theories about cat boxes in schools, book bannings, culture wars exploiting children, and anti-intellectualism transforming teachers from heroes into political enemies, this podcast is more needed than ever before.
Comments
Post a Comment
Thank You for your input and feedback. If you requested a response, we will do so as soon as possible.