The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 059: Balancing Relationships and Teaching: Insights from Educator Partners Part 1 with Tammy and Christine
What happens when the classroom door closes, but the workday continues at home? Join us for an eye-opening exploration into the personal lives of educators, as seen through the eyes of their significant others. Discover the surprising truth that 65% of teacher partners report their loved ones bringing work home often. This episode reveals the intricate dance of maintaining a fulfilling relationship while balancing the demanding nature of teaching, particularly for elementary educators. Tune in for heartwarming stories and candid insights into the long-term commitments that often define educator relationships, and see how these commitments withstand the pressures of the profession.
In our candid conversation, we uncover the toll that teaching takes not just on professional life, but on personal health and family dynamics. Hear firsthand accounts from teacher partners about the exhaustion that leaves teachers too drained to engage with family and friends, and the quiet moments needed to reset before rejoining their loved ones. With alarming survey results highlighting the negative impact of teaching on physical health, we stress the importance of adopting healthier lifestyle choices to counteract stress. Join us as we wrap up this segment with a commitment to continuing the conversation in part two, delving deeper into these vital issues affecting educators and their families.
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Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about paring down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musiewski-Bornemann and Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone and welcome to the podcast. Before we get started on the main part of our episode today, I wanted to let you know that the discussion you're listening to today is the first half of a two-part discussion that we're having, so we will not have the complete episode shared with you today. It was just too long to share in one go and we know how you like those short, sharp episodes. So if you are still interested in hearing the rest of the discussion, make sure you tune back in next time for part two. Welcome everyone to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator podcast. I am here with Tammy. How are you doing today, Tammy?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm having some good giggles with you this morning, so that is great. That's always what we want.
Speaker 2:Yes, same. It is nice to be able to do our work with joy, for sure, absolutely Exactly. Yes, we have got a very cool episode to share with you today. So here is the situation. Everyone, tammy and I have shared out a survey, not for teachers but for the partners, the significant others of teachers, to get a broad overview of their experiences, their feelings, their thoughts on our profession as educators. So what we have done is shared this survey out and Tammy has not looked at any of the responses. Only I have had a look. So we're going to share our responses here today on the podcast episode, but it will all be new information for Tammy. How are you feeling about that, tammy?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm quite excited, so I know that. What I do know is that we got a number of responses from, just kind of spread out everywhere like from Florida to Arizona, netherlands, just you know, this is educators, partners, responses from a bunch of different places and we did talk about well, not even really talk about, but mentioned to each other there's. Are there trends? And and you said, yes, there are, which is so interesting because these aren't surveys taken from just one place.
Speaker 3:So, and most of these people I don't even think they know each other or, like you know, there might be a handful maybe, but they're random that's it.
Speaker 2:and. And they have different jobs and they're in different school sectors. Uh, we have public schools, we have international schools, we have private schools. We have a really big range of different locations and roles within those schools and, as tummy says, around the world as well, some in Australia and the UK, all over the place. So it is interesting to see that there are patterns, even though we have such a diverse group within our survey. So let's get into it.
Speaker 2:The first thing I'm going to say is it's not the biggest sample set in the world. We would love to have had hundreds thousands of responses to really see these patterns, but it is a smaller sample set. That's okay, we're going to go with that anyway. The first few questions were census-type questions that probably aren't super important or relevant to what we want to talk about today, but I would like to point out, tammy, that educators seem to be in very committed relationships. We have got 95% of respondents have been with their partner for more than three years and 70% are over 10 years. Wow, yeah, we've got a group of really committed people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, that's so interesting. But also makes sense, right, Because often people will choose teaching or education as their forever career, right, Whether, like, it might not be the same role, but there are definitely people who, you know, they teach 25, 30 years and they stay in that same role, maybe different grades or whatever. But then there's going to be people who, like, have changed roles from teacher to principal and whatever. But yeah, yeah, there's definitely longevity in the profession, for sure yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there you go. Uh, and speaking of roles we have, most of the respondents are working in elementary or primary, so 60 of the respondents are in that place, and then the other 40 are scattered middle, secondary, coaching, leadership district. It's a bit of a scattering across the other 40% are scattered middle, secondary, coaching, leadership district. It's a bit of a scattering across the other 40%. So that also is something to keep in mind with these results as well, that it's predominantly elementary people that we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the next question here was how often does your partner bring work home? So, tammy, what percentage of people do you think never bring work home? We've got real, true work-life balance humans who never bring work home. What do you think? Oh, I would say zero. Yeah, correct, it is zero, not surprising, I'm sad to report. It is zero percent. Yeah, so we've got 65 percent reporting that their partner brings home work either several times a week or daily. Sixty five percent, that's a lot, it is a lot, and 35 percent it's either once a week or rarely. So good on those people, proud of those people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:But it looks like that habit of bringing some work home with you is continuing on.
Speaker 3:That is not surprising, as mentioned, with the 0% never bringing work home. It's not surprising, as mentioned, with the 0% never bringing work home. I would like to know of the 35% who bring it home like once a week what their roles are or were right and yeah, I would like to know a little bit more about that. And, if there, because I think it's just inherent, especially for elementary teachers, to bring things home, Because I feel like your brain doesn't really turn off teaching, Because you see teaching in everything.
Speaker 3:Or in a lot of places Right when, like you'll just go to the like even now I'm not a classroom teacher anymore, but I'll go to, like, the grocery store and see these perfectly aligned you know cereal boxes or whatever and I'm like, oh, what a fun math prompts. You know things like that. It's not intrusive into my thoughts, but it's just the way I think. I know a lot of teachers think that way. So it's hard to just go home and not think about, oh, this would be a good fun lesson, cause, like you might not even intentionally be working at the time, but you can't stop your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Absolutely A hundred percent. But we do have to keep in mind that this is what their partners are witnessing. What their partners are witnessing, what their partners are seeing True, that's right. This is obviously what they are seeing. They're physically seeing their partner them working, yeah, them working. Good point. So I 100% agree with you. It's hard to turn it off in the brain, but this is obviously a huge percentage of people who are like like getting the laptop out or getting the marking out, or you know, they're actually seeing it happening at that rate.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so thank you for bringing me back to that. So then, what teachers I'm sorry, what partners aren't seeing is what is going on in their partner's brain? Right, that's scary, I know. Oh, my goodness, yeah, yep, absolutely yeah. But I mean, and also like think of the conversation sometimes you have when you get home too. I wonder if that's included, cause like that's decompression time 's, you know, unloading your day. It might not, it doesn't look like work because you're not like working on your laptop or like in your plan book or whatever, but it's still something related to your work day.
Speaker 2:So, right, that's yeah too, it would be good to have some follow-up questions on that one, wouldn't it?
Speaker 3:yeah, but yeah, I mean good info it is it is okay.
Speaker 2:So the next question is how often does your partner share rewarding experiences from their job? So this is people who are coming home and talking about light bulb moments or funny moments or really great experiences with their students. So what kind of frequency do you think people are sharing these rewarding experiences from their job? So we had daily, several times a week, once a week, rarely or never. What kind of frequency would you predict?
Speaker 3:I would say probably, and my hope would be daily that there was some kind of something funny or like a good story that made it home to share. Yeah, I would say maybe, like I would hope that the percentage for daily is high.
Speaker 2:It's not too bad. The highest one was several times a week. Okay, it's not too bad that the highest one was several times a week. So so, several times a week or daily together was 55 of responses, so that's more than half the people. Yeah, but it's more than half the people. Once a week or rarely. Once a week or rarely is 45.
Speaker 2:And then yeah, that's, that's a lot yeah right, I guess so like, but I still I feel encouraged that 55 percent of people are, several times a week or daily, coming home and going yeah, this great thing happened today. You'll never guess what what happened and also with the 45 percent.
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean it didn't happen, it just wasn't shared, that's true, true, potentially, that's true. So then my hope would be that there was some positivity, that there's some positivity in everybody's day, every day. But yeah, maybe it's just not shared Possibly.
Speaker 2:Because I guess if you say you and I went for coffee after work and I told you, guess what this kid said to me today, it was hilarious I probably wouldn't also feel the need to go and say that again, maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true. I think it would be depending on what the thing was. Yeah, that's true. So because if it was really funny, I'd be telling a lot of people, Telling everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Of course, keeping all confidentiality at the same time, of course.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yes, and you know, because, like, especially when you work with little ones, like their writing can really crack you up. So, yeah, that's always fun to share, yeah those spelling errors can be gold, can't they? Yes, yeah, and that's like those are worth like taking the photo of and then, when you're having a bad day, look at it again. So you can get a laugh out of it absolutely for sure, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:so our next question was how would you rate the impact of their job on their personal time? So we're talking about time away from work, the impact on their plans, the events they're going to, their personal life. So what would you predict is the percentage of people that are being significantly or moderately impacted in their personal life?
Speaker 3:Okay, so like they won't go do something because they have work to do basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or yeah, they're distracted or they're too tired, like there could be lots of different reasons why it's being impacted. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah Ooh, I hope this is a low percentage.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not, I'm afraid.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I was going to say like 20%, but that makes me sad that, and with you mentioning, like you know, people being too tired or maybe being too stressed and they don't want to maybe be around people or whatever, the social event is okay. Is it like 60 percent? No, it's higher.
Speaker 2:Oh, dang, yeah, um, wow, wow yeah, so like 75 it's 75 75% of the partners reported that we are having either moderate or significant impact on our personal life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh shoot, that's a tough one. Like okay, I'm going to take myself back to full-time teaching. And I know that there were definitely like Saturdays I wouldn't plan social things because that was a planning day. I would meet with my co-teacher and we'd go have breakfast and plan together. So at least I was kind of like sort of social but actually working for a few hours. So you know, there's that, but there was definitely. I remember waking up some days and thinking, as soon as I woke up, I can't wait to be home, I can't wait to come home after school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I was just knowing how tired I felt and not wanting to like encounter the day feeling that way and you know, sometimes it's just like that because you're just waking up and you're not ready for the day yet. But I do definitely remember thinking this is going to be a long day. I can't wait to just be home and like not talk to people. This is going to be a long day. I can't wait to just be home and like not talk to people. So like social things are very different and good for you, or like even just being outside or whatever. But even that it was like, oh, I just don't want to engage at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is bringing back memories of my first year in Brussels and a big group of us had organised to go to the Christmas markets in Cologne in that first year, and if you have heard about Christmas markets in Europe, you'll know that the markets in Cologne are just something else. They're beautiful. And we'd arranged it, paid for the hotel, bought the train tickets, did the whole thing, and we got to it. Paid for the hotel, but bought the train tickets, did the whole thing, and we got to the end of the week and I was like I have reports due, I'm exhausted, I can't do it, and I just bailed out, completely bailed out, oh man. So I mean, there might be some truth to this. There might be some truth to this answer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, yeah yeah, that it's just real, though, right, you just get it's just a next level of tiredness and like I just yeah, I just remember feeling like not functioning properly or I don't know like you, when you're just so tired you just can't think straight, you don't function well, you just yeah, it's just really hard. So I guess it makes sense when you put every all of your energy into those eight hours or nine hours at school and then you just you're like, nope, you're not doing it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:But I would like to applaud the 10% of people here that have they're reporting zero impact on their personal life. Well done to that 10%. That's amazing. Good on you. Yeah, Feeling very proud of you and your efforts there. Well done. We should all strive to be a little bit more like you. Okay, the next question. So this, knowing what you know now from the last question, the next question is how would you rate the impact of their job on family relationships?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Mm-hmm. Oh, I would say that there's definitely an impact on relationships in and I hate to say, like a negative way just because people you don't want to engage with people.
Speaker 3:Sometimes after you've been at school, you've been at school and, especially if you haven't, if the day is like your average school day, it's fine, and I'm not saying that every day is, like you know, super hard and whatever, but you know every day is different.
Speaker 3:But I can definitely see that sometimes when teachers come home they don't want to talk to anyone and so that would not sit well with partners and kids. Absolutely, because you get home and you're a needed person again, still Exactly, and so you feel the strain of having to continue conversation or meal prep or pack up to go to the next thing or whatever, and it's a lot of energy that you just feel like you don't have and like we always say that say or not like we, but generally in the population you know, like you hear people say you can't pour from an empty cup and that's what's happening. It's like you're going, you're putting yourself in a deficit. It's like you're going, you're putting yourself in a deficit. And so sometimes, even if you just get like 10 or 15 minutes of just disengagement from people, that can change that feeling of negative. I think, like you come home and you're a very negative person because your day was very hard and you're exhausted.
Speaker 3:And sometimes you just can't walk through the door and immediately be greeted by all the things or, you know, pick up people and whatever. But even just that short bit of time just to have like some mental quiet and then go outside of your room or wherever you are and be ready to like, then I don't want to say like face your family.
Speaker 2:No, but I 100% know what you mean, because I'm sure everyone wants to be coming in just 100% there for their families, for their partners, for their kids. But if you are depleted already from dealing with the emotions and the stress and the noise of being in your workplace all day, they're not getting that full, complete version of you, are they? So yeah, I mean it makes sense if they're. You know, especially in light of that last question, if they're not having time for personal events and personal interactions, of course it's also going to be impacting the immediate family as well.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, yeah, real shame, real shame. There is this other quote too, and I think I learned this from our friend, krista um. It's something like we often give what's left of us and not the best of us, and so when we go home, family is getting what's left of us from the day, and that's not good and it's not okay, but it's just what happens. And you can kind of revert back into your best self if you just get a little bit of quiet time, because, like school life is noisy and sometimes it's just that constant voices and noise that go in your ears, like it takes up a lot of mental space, and so just having like that little bit of few minutes of quiet to just like okay, I feel okay now, that can just like change your relationships, because then you're not snapping at people and you're not, like you know, not wanting to engage with people or go out and do things and whatever.
Speaker 2:So exactly, yeah, exactly okay. This one I found fascinating. All right, so how would you rate the impact of their job on their physical health? Okay, so there's different ways you could look at this right. In one way in my head I'm thinking it's like we're active. We don't have a sedentary job. We're not sitting still all day. We're active. We get outside while we're on playground supervision, we move around a lot of people, especially these elementary teachers. We're getting on and off the floor. That's really good for you, for your mobility and everything. So you could look at that as being like this is good for your physical health, health. But then you could also look at you know how many, how many germs are floating around school and what is all that stress and worrying doing to us? So I found, I found the response here very fascinating. So, okay, what percentage do you think? Responded that it is having a positive or a very positive impact on our physical health.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm going to say that's a low percentage, correct? Because? Yeah, because I would say that when the school year begins, things might be fine, but as the year progresses, you definitely will your habits change. Like, remember when we taught in Singapore and I had that drawer of snacks? Yes, I do, yes yes, I do.
Speaker 3:And when we and when we had like really smoggy days or whatever and the kids couldn't go out to play, or it was like raining or something, and there was chocolate in that drawer and I just remember like we were eating a lot of chocolate during indoor recess days.
Speaker 2:I also seem to remember quite a lot of donuts.
Speaker 3:Which is like not a healthy habit, right?
Speaker 3:And that when we have those kinds of habits, like consistent we're talking habit here, not just like a chocolate once in a while, having chocolate every day at like first recess or lunchtime or whatever just becomes part of your routine, then that's going to impact, because we know that stress can you know we can stress eat or emotional eat or whatever and that's one of those things that many of us will go to is like I just need like a fix of chocolate, I need a sugar fix, I need something to just like make me feel like it's okay.
Speaker 3:And if it's that piece of chocolate or like even if you go home and at the end of your night you're having like a glass of wine or something to just like decompress and sit there, a beer or something whatever, it's fine but like is it something you should be doing every night? Like that again can turn into a different kind of habit where you're relying on something external like that to help you get your fix right. And those are habits that can turn, you know, into something that's bad for your body and bad for your mental state for sure, absolutely yeah, so we we had zero percent reporting that it had a very positive impact and only 10 percent saying positive.
Speaker 3:So okay, so like yeah, so people aren't starting up, like people aren't saying I'm gonna be teaching and I'm gonna make sure I go to the gym every day or going for a walk or yeah, like those things don't generally go together, although that's like a great habit to create, like right after you're done school, go for a walk around your block, have that as your decompressed time or whatever, but that that's yeah absolutely, and when you look at the research of what things can lower your stress and can give you those happy chemicals, we should be putting our attention in different areas than the 4 pm chocolate, because that is yes, and becoming sedentary.
Speaker 2:Yep, just sitting still and zoning out once the kids leave the room, things like that. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of research around the things that are going to actually energize you and unfortunately, it's not the things that we generally go to first, unfortunately.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, that's unfortunate, but not surprising, correct?
Speaker 2:Maybe this is a part I'm stretching here. It's not surprising, correct? Maybe this is a part I'm stretching here. It's not really a positive. I was going to say that 65% are saying negative, but only 15% are saying very negative. Is that a good thing? I?
Speaker 3:mean it's a bit of a stretch. Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch. Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch, but yeah, it just it's. It is very sad. It makes me sad for teachers.
Speaker 2:That that's how we feel, for sure, and that's what our partners are experiencing alongside us. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, hi, absolutely yeah, hi, everyone. This is where we're going to pause between part one and part two of this discussion. We hope you have enjoyed the results of the survey so far and will join us again next time for part two. Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z Professional Learning Services forward thinking educator support. Find out more at planzplservicescom.
Speaker 1:Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at planzPLS on Twitter or Instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti. Thank you.
