The UX Teacher Prep Podcast

Ep 14. Confronting the Challenges of Toxic Teaching Environments

• Zee Arnold • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Every day, teachers across the world face the daunting task of nurturing young minds, often at the expense of their own well-being. This Teacher Appreciation Week, I'm tipping my hat to these unsung heroes and shedding light on the challenges they face within the teaching profession. From ethical dilemmas like grade inflation to the stifling effects of micromanagement, we have an open conversation about the signs of a toxic teaching environment.

If you've ever felt the weight of a negative work environment or wondered about your future in teaching, this episode is for you. We discuss ways to create a healthier professional atmosphere that reignites the passion for teaching and brings back the joy of making a difference in the classroom. Join me and explore strategies for building a trusting environment that supports both teachers and students.

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Zee:

Hello teacher friends. Coach Zee here and I wanna start this episode with a tribute to Teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. I wanna let you know that I appreciate you if no one else does, and every single thing that you do on a daily basis to help students and other educators is appreciated. And I have a special giveaway that I wanna talk about before I get into today's episode. I'm giving away a free coaching session to one special teacher. So if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that I already posted the giveaway on my Instagram page at uxteacherprep, and that's also linked in the show notes in the description below. So if you're a teacher thinking about changing careers, I have a special gift for you In honor of teacher appreciation. I'm giving away a free one-on-one one-hour coaching session to one lucky winner.

Zee:

So here are the rules for the contest. So here are the rules for the contest Follow UX Teacher Prep on Instagram, comment interested under the post or in a DM, and the winner is going to be randomly chosen and announced on Friday, may 10th, at 6 pm Eastern time. I'll reach out on Friday to get your contact information and schedule your free session, and this is open to US residents only so the winners can choose from the services we offer on our website, which is uxteacherprepcom. You can get a career strategy session, a resume building session, a portfolio review, a coffee chat or a mock interview. So the contest starts May 6th and ends May 9th. All right, so now let's get into today's episode, which is all about knowing when you're in a toxic teaching environment and when it's time to make a change.

Narrator:

Welcome to the UX Teacher Prep Podcast, the ultimate destination for educators who aspire to break into the field of user experience and product design. Your host, z Arnold, a 15-year teacher turned UX researcher, is here to guide, coach and mentor you through every twist and turn as you make your career transition into tech. If you're ready for a more satisfying career and lifestyle and you want the balance to unleash your creativity, this podcast is for you. Now for the show.

Zee:

A lot of people are asking if teaching can be a sustainable career, and that's a tough question. I think that, the way things are set up right now, the answer is no. There would have to be a lot of initiatives and trainings put in place to retain great talent and at least bring teaching back to a place where teachers had the power to teach and focus on teaching and where they were respected and students received fair consequences for unfair actions and so many other things. But in today's episode I want to talk about teaching in toxic environments, and there are some ways to recognize when you're teaching in a toxic environment and it's time for you to make a change, whether that be another school, another district or another career altogether. And you might say it's easy to recognize when you're in a toxic environment. But here's the thing it's just like relationships Sometimes you're so deep into it that you don't realize how toxic things have gotten and you need someone on the outside to kind of give you that different perspective, to let you know that, hey, something has to change. And just a disclaimer this might be one of my episodes where I ramble a little bit and it may be raw and a little bit unedited, because this is a topic that I'm so passionate about, and I can go on and on about this one. So I just started reading this book called Black Faces in High Places, highly recommend. It was actually recommended to me by a co-worker, so it's a great book so far, and something that stood out to me was this quote Never confuse what you do with who you are. And I think a lot of times teachers' identities are so tied to the profession that they forget they're so much more than a teacher. So teachers will recognize signs of a toxic work environment and not address it or tell themselves they're going to push through because there's nothing else they can see themselves doing.

Zee:

So let's talk about the six telltale signs that you're in a teaching environment that's toxic and what you can do about it. The first one is that there is some type of ethical or moral situation where you have to go against your own morals, your own values, in order to do your job. So the first thing that comes to my mind here is giving students grades that they don't deserve, right? It happens a lot. I read a recent article about a situation where I think a principal was fired or something along those lines, and it was related to a student getting grades that they didn't deserve. And so that's the first thing that comes to my mind, because it happened to me so many times.

Zee:

So if you find yourself in a situation, or you're constantly in this situation, where you're going against your morals whether it's to give students grades or to hide things under the rug, students cheating or things like that that's not good for your mental health and that's not good for you in general. It's a clear sign that that environment is not conducive to your professional integrity. And so that's the first thing I wanted to mention, because I see this happening so many times in schools and teachers especially when teachers are new and they come in, they're shocked that some of the things that they're asked to do and they don't feel like it's right, they don't think it's ethical, but they're asked to do these things and it goes against their own morals. And then you continue to do these things every semester, for example, you're giving students grades they don't deserve. Students who haven't showed up to school, students who haven't turned in one assignment are passing, and what happens? We just perpetuate that situation where students are moving up to the next grade and social promotion and they haven't earned the right to move and academically they're just not ready to make that change. They're not ready to go on to the next grade. So that's the first sign you're in a toxic working environment. The environment is violating your ethical or moral values.

Zee:

The next one is lack of communication. As a teacher, you know the importance of clear communication. So if you're trying to reach out to your principal, you're trying to reach out to your assistant principal or any of the leadership at your school, and they're not getting back to you, you feel like you're being ignored and there's poor communication or lack of communication. That is a sign that the environment is toxic. You should be able to have open communication with your school leaders about anything that's happening in your classroom or that's happening, you know, anything that's on your mind related to your career. Let's say, for example, you reach out to them and you're interested in a professional development or some type of career advancement and they're not responding to that. They're not giving you those opportunities to grow. They're not communicating back with you and saying, hey, you know, check out a PD that you can go to. You know, check out some type of program that we can enroll you in to help you grow your career. That's a lack of communication and that's also a situation where you don't have an opportunity for advancement. And so if you feel stuck in your role and you feel like there's no opportunities for you to grow or advance, that might be a sign that you need to move on to something else.

Zee:

You know that communication piece is key, especially if you're communicating that with your administration and nothing is being done right. It's like, okay, you want to improve, you want to do something different, you want to be a dean, you want to be in a leadership role, you want a different type of classroom environment, you want to teach a different grade? Right, and the communication just falls on deaf ears. That's a sign that something is not right, something is toxic there. Your supervisors should be supporting you in your growth. They should be supporting you and they should have open communication and collaboration with you for your next steps. All right.

Zee:

Now we're on to number three, which is micromanagement, and I know you've heard this so many times, but I feel like teaching is a place where, depending on the school you're working, in, a lot of times you are being micromanaged. Every single thing you do is being managed to the T, and that's not a healthy environment for you to work in, because you don't have the trust and autonomy that you need to succeed as a teacher, and autonomy that you need to succeed as a teacher. Teaching is supposed to be a creative field. It's supposed to allow you to be creative. Unfortunately, what I found was that every time there was a new initiative or a new thing that was going on, it would stifle your creativity as a teacher even more. You don't have the autonomy to roll out certain content the way you want to roll it out in your classroom or choose certain books for your students.

Zee:

I can talk about a situation where I was teaching and I was being micromanaged to the point where I was told to write specifically on the board before each class period, the time, minute by minute, what I was going to be doing with students, and so, as you can imagine, that became very stressful and I decided that I wasn't going to do that. Why? Because one you have classes back to back, you're teaching middle school, you have multiple students coming in, multiple classes coming in back to back, and you're expected to run up to the board and write the times for each specific activity that you're doing with the class One, it might not happen that way. Two, putting the time up there sometimes is not beneficial for students, especially if students are worried about timing and pacing and sometimes it's a little bit too much for certain students. Even when I tried to do that on a PowerPoint slide and plan ahead the day before, you know, looking at my schedule, seeing the times I had my classes, I wasn't allowed to put it on the slide deck. I had to put it on the actual board so that anytime an administrator came in the classroom, you know, if I would change my slide they wouldn't see that timing right. That would just be like on an agenda slide. So I was supposed to put it on the actual board.

Zee:

And to me that's a serious case of micromanagement and I could not understand the purpose for that and I never got an answer for why that was so important. And the thing about it is a lot of times when administrators are trying to micromanage you, it comes off as they don't trust you because they're trying to tell you what to do with every single step of your day. I also think about different schools having specific templates for lesson plans. That doesn't give you the creativity to do what you feel that your students need To me. That's a toxic environment when you're constantly micromanaged. Yes, you can give me the curriculum, but I should have the freedom and the creativity to do what I know is best for my students and as long as I'm showing the results from my students, that should be sufficient, because all the micromanaging takes away from the actual teaching and the goal, which is for students to learn.

Zee:

So number four is a negative culture overall, and when I say negative culture, I'm thinking about gossiping, backstabbing, bullying, all of those negative things that can usually happen in a school setting. So pay attention to how your colleagues interact with each other, whether it is a culture of support or a culture of sabotage, because when you're in a situation where it's constant gossiping, you know, in the teacher's lounge or wherever it is happening, the school building, texting after work, and all you can do is talk about what's happening in the school building. You don't have time to worry about yourself after work and worry about other things. Even when you meet up with your coworkers, the conversation is about what's happening in the school the drama, the conflict. That is all toxic, all right, and that's what leads to you having a loss for your passion for teaching? Right, because you're not going into the school to teach so that you can be surrounded by gossip and negativity. You're going because you want to teach the students, right? You have all these great ideas you want to bring to the students and ways to help them learn the content.

Zee:

But if you're sitting in a culture where it's just gossip, gossip, negativity, and even if you're trying to be that positive one, sometimes the negativity just engulfs you and you're trying to be the one to bring the light to others and it kind of seems like you know, why is she always so happy? Why is she always so excited about everything? This is something you should be mad about, right? All that negative gossip and that backstabbing and all those things are clear, obviously clear signs that you're in a toxic work environment. And these signs can be for the classroom, as teachers and even in other roles. We don't want to be in toxic work environments, and I'm not saying this to say that negative things don't happen in every work environment, but I do find that in the teaching space, things for some reason just become more and more toxic. I don't know if it's the dichotomy of having just so many different teachers, students and parents and everything that's involved there. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I feel like if you don't have your focus on it can be easy for you to get caught up in that gossip and that backstabbing and that whole negative culture.

Zee:

All right, so number five is lack of recognition or support. So, as an educator, you are used to nurturing and uplifting others. Right, that's your role. You nurture and uplift students. You try your best to make them feel good, make them feel successful in the work that they're doing, in their social, emotional learning, all of those things. But, as we know, teachers are constantly undervalued, undersupported and they just do not feel like they can bring that positive morale and motivation into the school building. Now, teachers are the backbone of our community. They keep the children while parents work. It's not babysitting, but it's just the facts. They put up with a lot of the bureaucracy pushing through to provide the best education possible for students, who sometimes don't appreciate it, but sometimes they do and they impact students' lives and put themselves last to put their jobs first. That's what teachers do.

Zee:

Teachers need to be appreciated every single day. I'm sure you've heard this a million times. Everyone who you see that has a talent was taught by some kind of teacher, right? And so I'm not talking about just this teacher appreciation week, okay, I'm talking about on a daily basis. Personally, I think the first step is closing the pay gap. Teachers are not getting paid how much they deserve to get paid for the work that they do. And, of course, smaller class sizes, equal distribution of duties all those things have to be done to show teachers that they're appreciated. I remember during the pandemic, teachers were praised. I mean, the praise that went out for teachers during the pandemic was unbelievable and it was beautiful. But as soon as all that died down, teachers went right back there on the back burner. There is so much to be done on the school level, on the state level, to appreciate teachers.

Zee:

I mean, I can go on about this topic forever, but not feeling appreciated is a big reason why teachers are leaving the classroom and it's a sign that you're in a toxic work environment, because you do have some teachers and some schools where teachers are shown levels of appreciation that you probably wouldn't believe that are actually happening. Sometimes it depends on the school, the district that you're in, but if you're in your environment and you just feel like you're constantly getting more and more things put on your plate. You're never getting a thank you, you're never getting any type of appreciation for the work that you're doing as an educator. Yes, you're working, you're getting your paycheck, and that should be a thank you. But at the same time, one as I said before, teachers do not get paid enough. And two, it just seems like teachers are getting things piled on, piled on. Oh, work after school, do this, volunteer extra things without the extra pay.

Zee:

And the last thing I want to talk about is a physical or mental health decline. If the stress and toxicity of your job are impacting your health significantly, whether it's physical symptoms like headaches, mental health issues like anxiety, depression, it's a clear sign that your well-being is at risk and over time, it's just going to get worse and worse. For me, when I started teaching, it was such a joyous experience learning, growing, learning with my students and all of those things. But over time, teaching did bring on a lot of physical and mental stress for me and I ended up having to go to therapy. I ended up having complications with my health high blood pressure. Excessive weight gain, which caused me to have significant knee pain. Blood pressure, excessive weight gain, which caused me to have significant knee pain, anxiety, sleepless nights. It wasn't until I transitioned to a remote role that I was actually able to find balance and focus on my health.

Zee:

Going for walks, going to the gym, eating healthier All those things that are stressful in the teaching environment and that were continuing to be even more stressful as we went through remote learning and coming back to school in person. Those things just started to compound and affect my health, and I know that so many teachers' health are affected by that. If you feel like your health is declining and things are getting worse and worse you're finding yourself having to take off more time from work just to have those mental health days and you're just feeling like you know. You come into the classroom, you're shaking, you're nervous, you're just stressed about every single thing that's happening, you're not getting sleep these are all the signs that your physical or mental health is declining and, of course, if your doctor is telling you that as well, like my doctor was telling me, the environment is just too toxic. I think back to all the teachers that I've spoken to who have talked about their mental and their physical health declining. I think back to episode seven with Sharon Ng when she talked about how she was in the emergency room so many times and her health was just declining and she had to let go of her teaching career.

Zee:

It's happening, it's happening in so many places and, unfortunately, one spa day or one mental health day is not enough to change that. You need a complete overhaul. And even the summers are not enough to help teachers recoup. And teachers need that summer to recuperate, believe me. And then you have the teachers who spend their entire summer focusing on what am I going to do for next year? What am I going to? Let me reinvent my curriculum. Let me, because I'm not going to have time during the school year, so let me work on this. Let me think about how I'm going to. And they spend their whole summer just going through that same process of thinking about work, thinking about work. And do they ever get the time to actually decompress? Do they ever get the time to actually rejuvenate themselves? Most of the time, no, most of the time, no. I mean they might take one week out of that summer to really focus on relaxation, but a lot of that time is spent thinking about those teacher things. So there's that All right.

Zee:

So we spoke about six ways to know that you're in a toxic work environment and it might be time for you to change. So what now? What should you do if you find're in a toxic work environment and it might be time for you to change? So what now? What should you do if you find yourself in a toxic work environment? Well, first, you have to go with your gut. If something doesn't feel right, it's not right, don't fool yourself into thinking that everything is fine. It's just me. You know things are going to get better. Things are going to change year after year, school year after school year. When you see the same things happening, going to change year after year, school year after school year, when you see the same things happening, you have to face the reality and understand that this is a toxic environment.

Zee:

And the second thing is don't be afraid to advocate for yourself. Speak up, talk to people that you trust in your school, talk to your school leader and let them know hey, these are some things that are bothering me. These are some things that are happening. Your union representative, whoever you need to talk to, you have to speak up for yourself because at the end of the day, it's going to come around to. We didn't know these things were happening. We didn't hear from this person. This person didn't tell us what was going on right, and so addressing the issues head on can actually lead to some type of positive change.

Zee:

And I think back to the numerous times I had to speak up while I was a teacher, not just for myself, but also for other teachers, paraprofessionals, who are too afraid to speak up for themselves. I remember speaking up so many times in, especially in staff meetings, when things were just taking a turn for the worst, and I just saw the looks on my colleagues' faces and I knew I had to speak up. And so, if nothing changes, then maybe it's time for you to make a change and take a leap to another school, another district, another role or even another career. So I hope you got something out of this episode and, as always, if you need help with a career transition or if you want to learn how I transitioned from teaching for 15 years to a career in tech as a UX researcher in just five months, visit uxteacherprepcom to learn more, and I hope to see you all on Instagram for my teacher appreciation week giveaway, and we'll talk next time.

Narrator:

Hey, thanks so much for tuning in. If you like this podcast, hit, follow and scroll down to leave a five- star rating. Then share it with a friend. If you're looking for resources to help you on your tech transition journey, head over to uxteacherprep. com. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at uxteacherprep for daily tips and motivation. Have a topic you'd like to hear addressed on the show? Send us a DM on Instagram. If you're listening on YouTube, like, subscribe and share. Until next time, be well.