Episode 11: Embracing Transitions!

STOKED for this episode! I just found out I'll be transitioning into a new roll this year at a new school, and I am SO excited! Transitions can be overwhelming and challenging, but they're also opportunities for new beginnings and fresh starts! In this episode, I'll give you THREE 🔥🔥🔥 tips for transitioning into this new  year!

Blog on Reflections and being UNAPOLOGETICALLY AND AUTHENTICALLY YOU!

Join the #SunSationalSummer2022 challenge!

Blog on Valid Feelings of Teachers Transitioning From Summer to Back to School

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Transcript

Welcome!

Welcome to Teaching la vida loca, a podcast for World Language Teachers seeking inspiration, unapologetic authenticity and guidance in centering joy and facilitating language acquisition for the people who matter most our students, I'm your host, Annabelle. Most people call me La Maestra Loca and I'm an educator just like you, and inspiring teachers is what I do.

What?!?!?!  sorry, I just vomitted a little bit in my mouth. I'm very excited about my new role. Let me clarify that. But it doesn't feel like summer should be over yet. But that's okay. Okay, back to the tips. I want to go over three tips to strong transitions, making a strong transition into whatever your new role position. Job looks like next year. And the first is probably the most important. 

Tip #1 for a Strong Transition

The first is go into this new role as unapologetically and authentically you as you've ever been. Let me just say that again. Isn't that good? That's really good, right? That's really freaking good. Let's just say that again. Go into your new role as unapologetically, and authentically you as you've ever been. I actually wrote a blog, the longest one I've written in years, actually, last week about my reflections of iflt, the conference, IFLT and why my language lab went better than ever. And one of the main things I talked about in this blog, I'll link it in the show notes is how for the first time ever leading a language lab, which is where you're like teaching kids and then there's people well

Watching you teach kids. For the first time ever, I literally did not care. A lick about what anybody watching me was going to think about me, which is huge for me because I'm an Enneagram. Three. Cool, buddy. Okay, we'll go there some time. I'm sorry about that. Not letting it out because he's adorable. But I, I went in, I'm Enneagram. Three, I care a lot about what people think about me a lot. Too much, right? But I just went in and I was like, no, not only am I going to pretend like they're not here, which is what I've always done. But I'm not going to care what they think about how I teach these children in front of me, like I don't care. I'm going to be unapologetically and authentically look at. And Annabelle is always more than I have ever been before. And so when I go into my new role on Monday, I'm going in with my loudest dress, my loudest sunglasses or glasses, I'm probably going to dye my hair rainbow colors, I'm going to wear my loudest shoes. And by loud, I just need color, right? I don't wear heels, even though those would be actually loud. But I'm going in as unapologetically and authentically me as I have ever been. Because I want to start that way, so that I don't have to slowly reveal who I really am and who I want to be. Right. I want to be seen as me from the very beginning so that there is no doubt in people's minds of who I am, what I represent what I believe I'm going in as unapologetically and authentically me as I have ever been. And that's what I want you to do. I'm going to say it one more time because it's so good. Ready. When you go into your new role, please go in as unapologetically and authentically you as you've ever been. Yay. Okay, that's tip number one. 

Tip #2 for a Strong Transition

Tip number two, is take risks and try the new things. Remember, these kids don't know you, these new people don't know you, these new students, these new, you know, people that you're working with, they don't know you, and they don't know what you've tried before and what you haven't or what you've always wanted to try. I remember one of the things I did when I moved to my old school was I was beat down a lot by my kids at my previous school before that one. So two schools go. Anytime I did a write and discuss, I was only able to get away with it once a week. And even then it was like they were whining, whining, whining, whining, whining. That's because I discovered write and discuss as IT strategy halfway through working there. So when I went to this new school, I decided, Oh, I'm gonna do retinoschisis all the time. And I did, I did it almost every day. And since the kids didn't know me, and my colleagues didn't know me, it was just something that I did. So it wasn't met with whining and complaining or not nearly as much because it was just part of what I did in my classes. And so whatever you want to try to do that's new, or that feels like, wow, this is a huge risk for me, or this is like out of my realm, try it. There should be nothing to hold you back. Because remember, this is new. And this is an opportunity for new beginnings and an experimenting. So try the new thing. boldly and unapologetically. And do so while being authentically you, Yeti. Um, I'm gonna make another note on that. Just kidding. I'm not done whole. Okay, so going back to this blog post, which is fire and you should read it. But that's another thing I talked about. When you're, you know, going in and trying something new that maybe you observed at a conference like conferences and cloud or ifl t this summer, please, please, please make sure that you are being authentic to yourself. You're not like trying to emulate somebody that you saw it from, like if you saw me or how Yun or I'm trying to think of who else Benton's li at conferences about if you saw somebody do something and you're like, oh, I want to try that. Try it as yourself. put your own spin on it, you know, be authentically you when you implement this new strategy. Because if you're trying to emulate somebody else, it's not going to work. Be you try the new strategy and try the new thing but be done with that one. Okay, that was number two.

Brain Break

Before we do number three, I think it's time for a brain break. Okay, this one's a little bit. I don't know unconventional, it's a different one than what you're used to in these episodes or from my blogs and whatever. This one is just a gratitude brain break. It's Though if you are listening and not driving, think I'm always paranoid, I listen to podcasts when I drive. So I'm always paranoid, I'm gonna say something and have you do something when you're driving. If you are not driving, I want you to actually physically go get a piece of paper and a pen real quick, or note card and a pen or a journal and a pen. If you're a journal person. If you are driving, you can just do this. While you're driving verbally, you don't have to do this written. But I encourage you, maybe when you get somewhere to do this written, because it's pretty powerful. You can totally do this with students pass out a sticky note, have them do this as a brain break. It's powerful. But I unless you teach upper levels, I would do this in L one in their first language. I want you to take a second to write down 123 gratitudes something that you're really just feeling super grateful for right now. What is filling your cup, what is making you smile. For me, I'm in the middle of the sensational summer challenge, if you haven't joined is if this is the first episode you're listening to, I have a podcast episode on it, I have a blog, I will link to them. I have a free resource for you to maximize your summer fun and joy, that for me, I'm midway through that and so I'm just really grateful for time with my son. We got snow balls this morning, we went to city park, we rode rides together, we played. We just napped and snuggled like, I'm feeling really grateful for my son and the opportunity to have really important quality time with him. It's been really, really special. So that's what I'm grateful for. So I want you to take a second you can push pause, even if you're driving, go ahead and push pause. And I want you to take three deep breaths. And I want you to verbally say that gratitude out loud. And if you are writing it down, just take some breaths while you're writing it down. And go ahead and take a second to read that out loud. And then you can come back to me again 123 gratitudes. Ready, go. Yeah, I don't know why pause my voice. I probably didn't need to do that. But it was good. It felt good. I took a breath. Also not editing that out. Yay for brain breaks. Hurray. Try this one with your students and let me know how it goes.

Tip #3 for a Strong Transition

Okay, so the last tip for you as you transition into your new role is to find yourself a mentor. And for those of you who have been in education for 20 years, and you're moving into a new role, I still want you to do this. And you can call it a different word if it bothers you. But it shouldn't. We all need a mentor, especially if you're moving into a new school or a new role, like your teaching level that you haven't taught before. This mentor, if you're moving into new school should absolutely be somebody at that school. If you're just moving into teaching at a level that you haven't taught, go and find your your community online like Instagram, that is how I connect with teachers literally all over the world teaching similar levels. To me, it's really, really powerful. So you can find a mentor elsewhere.

But if you're moving into a new school like I am, the first thing I'm going to do is find a person that I vibe with that I get like, Ooh, yeah, you definitely seem like my kind of people. I'm going to find a person who I know that I can ask questions to when I'm confused, or I learned a new acronym that's, you know, unique to the school, or I need to figure out how to submit PTO or I need to know what the heck the deal is with subs or sub plans or whatever, I'm gonna find somebody that I know that I can lean on and it's not going to be a burden for them to answer my questions, right and to help help a girl out. So I encourage you to find a mentor. Now, if you are not changing schools, not changing roles. And you've been doing this for a while, find a mentee, find somebody who's new to your school. Find somebody who is a brand new teacher, and just say, hey, I want to let you know, if you have any questions at all this year about how the school works or you know, who to talk to when you need food delivered or when you need to know where the nearest vending machine is or when you need to know who to talk to for XYZ come to me. I'll be your person. Find a mentee if this doesn't apply to you. But for most of it, many of us it's going to we can use a mentor, you know, lean on that person. Make sure you ask them first but I am very excited about finding somebody that I connect connect with my new school and then I can lean on when I need help because we shouldn't go about this alone. We work too hard as it is. And if we can just real quick go to somebody for fast answer Rather than spending 1520 minutes searching for it for ourselves, you know, let's just lean on people who are more than willing to help us. Yay, yay, yay. So those are the three tips. I'm going to summarize them again, real quick. Number one, food, but juicy one, it's the best. Go in to your new job, your new role, your new position, your new career, your new whatever, fill in the blank, as unapologetically and authentically you as you have ever been. Number two, take risks and try the new things. Remember, these kids, these people, they don't know you, they don't know your style. They don't know what you do, now is the time to try the things. And number three, find yourself a person, find yourself a person that can help you so that you can be more whole and ready going to this role. And you're not worried about all the little things that come with a new school new position, new jobs, etc. I'm so excited for you and your new transition. If you'd like to hear about mine, I'll share about it right now. This year, I will be moving to Morris Jeff Community School here in New Orleans. It is a public charter. It's actually one of the few unionized schools in the city, which is very exciting. They've already gone through that whole process. There's a contract everything that's very exciting. This school like my last deal, prioritizes equity and inclusion, and anti racist education. So I'm thrilled to still be at a school that centers that that was a priority for me. And he needed a snack refill. And I am going to be moving back to elementary, which I didn't think I would ever like, say like ever. But I'm ready for it. I think that I felt really tired and pretty burnt out last year, after a lot of apathy throughout the year from kids that I love. I love them. And I know they love me, but I was feeling kind of burnt. And I really needed to find a place that valued language education as much as I do. And so I'll be able to teach third and fourth grade next year, and I will see these students every single day, every single day y'all can you even I'm so excited. It just feels really good. And I know it's going to be I know it's gonna be great. It's gonna be exactly what I need it to be. As I transition into this new role, I'm going to be following my three tips. And I'm super excited to hear about your new year. And if you're not ready to think about the new year, that's totally fine. But let me know when you do want to share because I'd love to hear from you.

Thank you!

 You can email me if you've enjoyed this episode, please, please, please do me a favor, send it to a friend who needs to hear it, whether they're in education or not. Share it on your social media and tag me. I love hearing that this podcast is making a difference for you. You can also give me a review. If you have the extra minute that would be awesome. Because that helps Google find me and helps more teachers find me as well and hopefully helps me impact them and their students as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening teacher. I'm grateful for you. And until next time, I'll be teaching la vida loca starting Monday.