A Look Back at 20 Years

On August 5, 2006, I married my husband, and on August 7, 2006, I started my first teaching job. This means I have now completed 20 years as an educator and 20 years as a wife. Neither is easy, but after 20 years, I believe I can offer a few words about what I have learned.

20 thoughts about being an educator…

To be a great teacher, you have to be a great learner. Every year brings new challenges; no matter how much you plan, you will encounter a variable you have not encountered before. Ignoring issues should never be the answer. Instead, you must stay curious, willing to learn, and tackle each new challenge to ensure all students are learning and thriving.
There is no shame in leaving a school. Some leaders preach about teachers providing a heavenly classroom environment while creating a hellish work environment. If you die, there will be a sub in your room tomorrow. Don’t let any environment convince you that you must stay for the kids, because if they wanted you to stay, they would create an environment you could thrive in.
Routines and procedures are a must. You can still be a cool teacher and still keep students in line. You do not need to yell to run a tight ship. I pride myself on not yelling at students, but students always told newbies who popped up mid-year, “Mrs. Barnes is fun, but she doesn’t play.”
You have a contract start and end time for a reason. Honor that! Yes, it is true that some nights you might need to stay late, but not every night. For the first few years of my career, I was at school most days from 7 AM to 7 PM. Mr. Barnes mentioned that we had to be in the same location to do certain activities. In other words, “Come home!” Even if you don’t have a significant other, you don’t need to live at school, aka work.
Students die sometimes. I was not prepared during my second year in the classroom for a student to get hit by a vehicle while walking to school and later die before the school day ended. Every year, I think about him. College does not prepare you for this. If you teach long enough, students will pass away. Honestly, I don’t believe there is any preparation, but I feel we should do a better job at acknowledging this truth.
Having “concepts of plan” isn’t the way to go. I don’t care who you are or how many years you have been teaching, but you need to lesson plan. The amount of detail you need to write out may change, but having a plan every single day MUST be the standard, or you will have foolery and chaos in your classroom.
Being an educator is political. You should not opt out of conversations that are uncomfortable when students are being impacted. The students we are teaching will soon run this world, and they should not receive the message that we should choose silence as long as we are not affected.
Promote yourself. This sounds a bit egotistic, but you control your narrative! Be great at sharing what you are doing in the classroom. Many times educators get overlooked because they fail to toot their own horn. It took me a while to do this, but it has given me so many opportunities because I did.
Some colleagues are as immature as the kids. Not every teacher will be your BFF. Some relationships need to be work only.
Find a teacher mentor. There are excellent educators everywhere that we can all learn from. Find someone to learn from, whether they are in your building or even online.
Take your PTO and provide no explanation. Years after I had kids, I finally started consistently taking PTO for reasons other than my kids’ appointments. I would plan those days at the beginning of the year. They were on my calendar on day one, so I could plan my year scope and sequence around my absences. When colleagues or even the principal asked me where I would be, I usually replied, “Not here.” You do NOT need to justify PTO. Just take it and live your life!
Attend after-school events each semester. I made a point of rotating among the performing arts, clubs, and athletics to see as many students as I could, and it was nice to interact with parents in a setting that wasn’t focused on their child’s academics.
Call parents. Yes, I said CALL. Email is cool, but at some point, you need to pick up that phone and call. Remember, for most parents, the most important thing on earth is their children, so they can get a little sensitive and emotional when they hear bad news about their kids. Don’t let their reaction scare you. I had no problem telling parents, “If you continue cursing and yelling, I will have to hang up the phone, and we will have to continue this conversation later.” No one is going to stress me out on a phone I can hang up.
Take your work email off your phone. If you aren’t going to take it off, at least turn off the notifications. Later in my career as a teacher, I took my work email off my phone and kept it off as I switched to teacher coach and later to school administrator. When I started teaching, I had a flip cell phone that I kept in my purse, and that purse was locked in a cabinet. I went the entire school day not worrying about email pinging me. Guess what? The world did not fall apart. When I shifted to removing the email from my phone after upgrading to a smartphone, I answered emails on my computer and scheduled responses for the next morning. After doing this as an administrator, an unexpected outcome was that my teachers followed suit. No one is going to stress me out on my cell phone, where I pay the bill, because I’m reading work emails on it at home when I should be doing something else.
The people who win Teacher of the Year are not the best teachers. I had the opportunity to listen to a panel of teachers who won Indiana’s Teacher of the Year, and they all said they were not the best. The people who win Teacher of the Year at the school, state, or national level are good teachers who can effectively promote the profession. Don’t think you are not an awesome teacher or even the best teacher because you could be, but you simply lack the charisma needed to sell the profession to others.
No is a full sentence. Do you know what you get when you are really good at a task in education? You get volunteered for more tasks without regard for your capacity or desire to do them. Be okay with saying no. Release the guilt and let them ask someone else.
Depression, anxiety, and stress are serious pitfalls of this profession. We are exposed to our students’ difficult home lives and have so much put on our plates. We have to take care of our mental and emotional health to show up the best for our students.
Your physical health matters. Go to the dentist, eye doctor, etc. Refer to point two. They will replace you if you pass away. Don’t expedite your departure by ignoring your health.
Don’t sacrifice your children for other people’s kids. I want to be known as a damn good teacher, but I care more about being an excellent mother. If you are a parent and an educator, you can’t keep prioritizing your students over your children.
Find joy in each day. I taught middle school for most of my career, and I loved it. No matter what happened each day, I could always find one aspect to make me smile. Even on the day my student died, whom I mentioned in point five, I still found a tiny bit of joy. He had finished his project early in my creative writing class, meaning we would have his words with us forever.

20 thoughts about being married…

Before you get married, do pre-marital counseling or therapy. We ALL have baggage. Some of us have cross-body bags, and some of us have an entire suitcase set. Working through some of your stuff together and showing vulnerability will set you up for a successful marriage.
The person you marry on your wedding day will not be the person you are married to 5, 10, or even 20 years later. As we age and have different life experiences, we will change. We cannot expect the person at the altar to be frozen in time.
Check your family. Your spouse should not have to fend off your family because you won’t check them.
Check your chosen family, aka friends. Every friend who was part of your single life might not need to stay around for your married chapter. Your friends should want to see you win in your relationship. If all they do is tear down your spouse, check them, or drop them.
Your spouse cannot and should not be your everything. Have a life outside of your spouse. Have hobbies. Travel without them. Be involved in activities without them.
Love is an action word. You have to choose to DO love every day. Some days, you won’t feel like being loving. Love is a choice and an action you must choose. Failure to keep choosing it can result in the failure of your marriage.
Keep a bank account for yourself. I know this is a hot button topic for women who want to be traditional wives or men who want a traditional woman to take care of. Many people, male and female, do not leave abusive or loveless marriages because they don’t have their own money bag. You can automatically send money to a joint account to pay bills while retaining your own account. This advice applies to both males and females. My husband and I shared this philosophy during a financial literacy class we were teaching at church, and the pastor disliked our philosophy so much that he interrupted us. No, we don’t attend that church anymore.
Find marriage models. Neither my husband nor I believe our parents were ideal models for marriage, which made it hard to know what to do as a married couple. Our parents had good aspects, but we didn’t want to replicate our childhoods. Over the course of our lives, we have had the privilege of meeting people who have served as models for us to follow. No one has a perfect marriage; however, married couples can benefit from learning from other couples whose marriages are thriving.
Kids will shift your marriage dynamic. We did four rounds of IVF and ended up having only one cycle work. That cycle, the first one, resulted in identical twins who were born at 30 weeks and 2 days. Keeping them healthy for those first few years consumed us. Almost every conversation was about them and their well-being. Our marriage took a back seat. Eventually, we recognized that we had to schedule time together just for us to keep this spark alive.
Plan day dates. Yes, I said DAY dates. I don’t know about y’all, but as I get older, I don’t want to be out in the evening. If I’m going to a movie at night, all I’m doing is paying to fall asleep in an oversized recliner next to strangers. Remember point two. You and your spouse will change. Learning each other as you evolve must be an intentional act. It is helpful if you are not dozing off, so opt for a daytime activity that lets you connect.
Be mindful of what you post about your relationship online. My husband and I have both experienced situations where someone misinterpreted what we said online about each other or relationships in general. Apparently, some folks can’t comprehend that you can post relationship advice without talking about yourself, your spouse, or your marriage.
Check your religious beliefs. My husband and I were both raised Christian and still consider ourselves Christians. We attend church most Sundays and are 10% percent tithers. We take our faith seriously while also accepting that many of the teachings are sexist, patriarchal, and harmful to both men and women. We had to reach a shared agreement on the role faith and religion would play in shaping our marriage guidelines.
Table it. If you can’t talk to each other nicely, wait and have the conversation later. If you love your spouse, the words you wish you didn’t say will return as a punch of guilt and shame.
Return to the table. Sometimes we table it and choose not to revisit it because we don’t want to have a tough conversation. Strong marriages involve tough conversations and problem-solving. The conversation you keep kicking down the road will rear its head eventually, and it probably won’t be pleasant.
Work on yourself. My husband and I have both been in therapy individually to work on ourselves. Sometimes, YOU are the problem.
Go to therapy together. As a married couple, we have been in therapy three times. The first time was when we couldn’t get pregnant. The second time was after our kids were born and had so many needs. The last time was after the pandemic. There are some situations where you need a third party to work with you.
Be careful who you confide in about your marital problems. If you have to get something off your chest, talk to only one or two people about it. Many times, it is helpful if it is not a family member.
Have a parenting plan. Each person in a marriage was raised differently. It should not be a battle of which one of your childhoods will win as the childhood for your children. Instead, it should be a shared endeavor to create a parenting style that works for your family.
Kids aren’t cheap; manage your fertility. We know so many married people who don’t want any kids or additional kids, but they also aren’t taking any precautions. Having more mouths to feed when you have limited funds will not help your marriage thrive.
Find the joy. Each day, find one reason to smile about your spouse.

At 42, this is the advice I have for you. I hope that, even if you aren’t an educator or married, you can find ways to apply this advice to your life, because many of these points can be applied to other professions and other types of relationships.

With love,

Educator Barnes