Welcome to the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education podcast, the space where education
meets resilience. I'm Joey Weisler, and in each episode, we dive deep into the personal stories
of educators, students, leaders, and frontline advocates who are navigating the complexities
of modern education. Whether you're just starting your teaching journey, or are a seasoned
professional looking for inspiration, we'll explore how to foster meaningful change, prevent burnout,
and build trauma-informed communities in our schools. Now, let's take a seat at the front of
the classroom and get started. Hey, welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Today, it is such a
privilege and honor to have Jen Rafferty on the show with us. And Jen Rafferty is an educator,
she is a speaker, and she is an author dedicated to transforming the way we approach teacher
well-being and resilience within education. With 15 years of classroom experience, Jen is the founder
of Empowered Educator, which serves as a platform that provides research-based transformational
support to address teacher burnout and foster systemic long-term success within school communities.
As a certified emotional intelligence practitioner and current PhD candidate in educational
psychology, Jen blends her expertise with her passion for social and emotional learning
to inspire educators to reconnect with their life. Also, her best-selling book called A Place in the
Staff, Finding Your Way as a Music Teacher, has empowered countless educators, and her popular
podcast, also called Take Notes with Jen Rafferty, ranks in the top 3% of all podcasts globally,
where she shares insights on personal empowerment and well-being within education. In her 2022 TEDx
talk called Generational Change Begins with Empowered Teachers, Jen shares her powerful
message about how prioritizing educators' emotional health creates ripple effects
that transform classrooms and communities while attempting to break the quote-unquote
superhero narrative. Her dynamic keynotes, workshops, and professional development programs
are continuing to inspire school leaders and educators to embrace meaningful and sustainable
change, and Jen's work is a call to action for educators to prioritize themselves not just for
their own benefit, but for the students and school communities they serve. So Jen, it is such an honor
to have you with us today. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Such a privilege
to have you with us. So Jen, I wanted to start by asking you to tell us about your platform,
Empowered Educator, and also what was your journey in leading up to finding Empowered Educator?
Empowered Educator provides support that focuses on the social-emotional well-being of all of the
adults in schools, because we truly believe that the well-being of a school is dependent on the
well-being of its educators. And my journey was not a result of feeling burnout. I want to make
that very clear. I loved my teaching job. I taught music in central New York, and I really loved it.
I was a middle school teacher, and I was at the time right before COVID, you know, at the point
of my career, I was conducting honors choirs across New York State. I was presenting nationally
about adolescent cognitive development and creating responsive curriculum for the seventh grade
general music classroom and just living my best nerd life, trying to move the profession forward.
I really felt a strong responsibility to give back in that way. I've figured out some things
that were really working, and my love for research took me in really cool directions. And I felt
that I needed to share what I learned and what was working. So that drive to support other teachers
was there throughout my entire career, and I loved connecting with other educators.
When COVID came around, teacher burnout, teacher frustration, teacher overwhelm was nothing new,
but we couldn't ignore it anymore during that time. And there was like a hot minute
when everyone recognized that, and they were like, teachers are the best. Thank you so much
for everything. I don't know what we would do without you. And that faded away really quickly.
It was two seconds of fame, and that to me is profoundly sad. I'd have to sit with that a
little bit more to know why that faded so quickly. But what I do know is that the results of what
came afterwards, it's not a recipe for feeling good. And the kids are changing, the parents are
changing, and 100% of us lived through a pandemic. And I'm not saying that as an excuse. I'm saying
that as a reason to point to that we cannot continue to ignore the trauma that we all experience,
and yet continue to push through and carry on as if nothing's changed. And we seem to have one or
two tools in our tool belt, but they're not working for the current problem that exists.
And so many of us are spinning our wheels about how to make change, how to improve,
but the old ways are not working anymore. And from where I'm standing, the biggest piece that's
missing is this emotional intelligence and connection to emotional needs that we've just
never developed the skillset for. And so we can't possibly be meeting our kids the way that they
need us. We don't have the language, and we're profoundly ill-equipped to do that right now.
So I have not been in a middle school classroom since December 2019, meaning that I just missed
the pandemic by months. But I began teaching at the college level in January 2020. And even though
I only experienced being a college professor under normal conditions for less than 10 weeks,
I still definitely recall this drastic change from spring 2020 to fall 2020 to fall 2022 to now fall
2024, seeing the needs of our students entirely reshaped. And it's challenging for us as educators
to become caretakers of those needs while also taking care of ourselves. And as you mentioned,
Jen, this becomes a big recipe for burnout. So I wanted to ask, what do you see as the root causes
for burnout among teachers in our field? And how can teachers work to reclaim their well-being
in the face of these instances? Well, I think one of the biggest contributors to this is the
superhero narrative that we all subscribe to. And this is what I talk a lot about in the
TED talk. So many of us own this idea of being a superhero as part of our identity, where we can
do it all. And it's a really dangerous narrative. And one, by the way, that I myself subscribed to,
because it justified all of the chaos, that it allowed me to shape shift my boundaries.
Because if I was a superhero, then I could just handle it all. And so it didn't matter what was
happening around me. And that pressure is overwhelming. And if there is ever a time where
I am saying, this isn't OK, I'm not OK, well, then it doesn't align with the superhero narrative.
Because if I really believe that about myself, then I should be able to do it. And if I don't,
then I should be able to do it. And so then we spiral into this judgment and shame rollercoaster
that feels awful and never actually solves anything. And what's true is you're not a superhero.
Superheroes are immortal and indestructible beings. And you are very much human. And in the
work that we do, we are heroes in so many ways. But we are human heroes. And we need to treat
humans like we do. And that means that we require basic human needs, like eating. I mean, how many
teachers do you know that go throughout the day without eating, without drinking water, because
they feel as if they don't have time to go to the bathroom throughout the day, having a good night's
sleep? These are basic human needs that we deny ourselves, because we equate our productivity
with our identity of being the superhero character. So I am unsubscribing to that. And I encourage
everyone who's listening, who that is resonating with, to unsubscribe and start asking yourself
some pretty confronting questions. What if I was able to put the armor down? And that could feel
very scary, which is why we do the work that we do at Empowered Educators, creating that sense of
safety and helping and guiding people to create that sense of safety for themselves without the
armor. I can personally relate to the superhero narrative, especially during my opening years of
teaching. In the fall of 2018, I was teaching at the feeder school connected to one of the worst
school tragedies in US history, which had occurred just six months earlier. That term, I worked
closely with the children, siblings, neighbors, and friends of those directly affected by the
tragedy. And at the same time, I was also grappling with the profound loss of my friend to suicide.
And I made myself a promise that semester that I would do whatever it took to take the pain out of
every child. And I remember while living with my family that term, my parents told me that they had
to hold their breath every time I would come home and put my key through the door, because they had
no idea what mood they would be walking into with my emotions from that school day, having been as
intent as the most miserable student I had worked with. I remember sending tips to the school social
worker for interventions left and right and seeing myself as a mandatory reporter. I also sometimes
attempted to resolve student crises myself when maybe at times it would have been best for me to
stay a little bit less involved. Within a year, it came to the point where I was so overwhelmed,
attempting to stay subscribed to the superhero narrative, where I believed it was my job to
save every child. This realization that I could not sustain this narrative for the sake of my
health found me at what I recall to be one of the most disappointing and even lowest moments in my
life. So I wanted to ask, what is the work that empowered educator is doing that is getting the
attention of teachers who are also facing this type of struggle?
It's not your job to save anyone. And I think so many of us go into teaching because we want to
make a difference. We want to provide a vision of a future that doesn't exist yet for kids to grow
into their potential. But what happens so often is that, like you said, becomes your whole identity.
And it is, although well-meaning, very presumptuous to think that we can save someone else. And as
teachers and educators listening to this, I know this might sound confronting in some way, but
what's true is you can't actually make anyone do anything. The only person that you have any agency
in changing is you. That is it. And so we spend so much time, energy, money, attention
into everything and everyone outside of ourselves. And then our wellbeing is affected then
by everything outside of us and how you feel, how you show up, that's an inside game.
And we become so disconnected from ourselves in the name of selflessness, in the name of education.
And what kids actually need are adults in their lives who are authentically, fully expressed
individuals. And that requires you to do introspective work. So what we do at Empowered Educator
is first meet people where they are with their stress and their armor, because you're not learning
anything if you're all armored up. And we actively go through some of the things that you're feeling
are causing you stress, understanding the biology of what stress is doing inside of your life.
Inside of your brain and inside of your body and giving you your own flashlight so you can make
the changes that you need to align with the person who you want to be. And that is actually how
you're going to make impact. Thank you so much. And the work you are doing with Empowered Educator
is appreciated by schools everywhere. So your mission with Empowered Educator is to create
thriving school communities. And I wanted to ask, what does a truly thriving school look like to
you? And what actionable steps can schools take to move toward that vision? So I think that's
really what I just described is everyone on campus, the adults on campus first,
having the tools to be self aware, to self regulate, and to show up as their most authentic,
fully expressed selves. That's how we thrive. And that provides fertile ground for our kids to see
examples of adults who are not living in perpetual states of exhaustion and frustration and burnout.
And when kids see adults who hold boundaries, when kids see adults who are not shying away from a
difficult or challenging conversation, when kids see adults who respond to their behavior choices
with curiosity and compassion, that's when things really start to change for the next generation.
And again, it all goes back to the individual because schools, organizations don't change until
people change. You mentioned the word self regulate. And I think that is a fundamental word
for educators to acknowledge and apply to their learning spaces. In my classrooms, self regulation
involves lightly tapping on the brakes and allowing everyone to spend about 90 seconds just breathing
together before regathering for whole group learning. So I wanted to ask what self regulation looks
like in the classrooms you have been a part of and what advice would you give to teachers as relates
to self regulating? Well, self regulation can look like anything that feels good for your nervous
system. First of all, you need to connect enough with your body so you recognize when you're in the
dysregulated state because you will feel it before you even think it. But we're so used to ignoring
the messages from our body. It's often way too late by the time we realized how far dysregulated
we are. So connecting to your body, noticing my heart is beating really fast. My shoulders are all
crunched up. I'm sweating. I have this headache that won't go away. Noticing like what's happening
here with curiosity, non-judgmental curiosity. And then the self regulation could be whatever
your body needs. And connecting with it enough to have that dialogue with your body is really
important. What do I need right now is a question that educators hardly ever ask. They don't ask,
what do I need right now? They ask what everyone else needs. What do I need right now? Sometimes
it's going for a walk. Sometimes you need to shake it out and actually move that emotional energy
throughout your body. Sometimes it's taking a pillow and smacking the couch a couple of times
as hard as you can. Sometimes it's breathing. Sometimes it's meditation. But there are some
really messed up things that happen that you can't just breathe and meditate away. You actually need
to physically, actively do something with your body. And then you can't just sit down and do
something with your body to get rid of that emotional feeling because feelings happen in the
body. This is why when you tell someone to calm down, it doesn't work because it's not in a place
that's cognitive. It's physical. I often get in my car sometimes and go down the highway and scream.
I think that's a great release that is a self-regulation strategy because sometimes it's
more stressful to sit down and meditate. I need to get that out of different kinds of way. So I do
whatever my body calls. This morning I was just laying on the floor to have a feeling of being
grounded because that's what my body needed right then. And knowing yourself enough and practicing
and connecting to your body enough to know, to ask that question, what do I need right now? And then
something about empowered educator and our team is we're all practitioners. We practice every single
thing that we teach, which is why I share. Yeah, this morning I was lying on the hardwood floor to
get that sense of grounding that my body was so desperately needing so I can show up to this
conversation feeling regulated. That's the whole point. I'm responsible for how I show up.
There's a difference we can acknowledge as a means to self-care and self-regulation where
self-care involves the things we do to restore our well-being and self-regulation involves being more
in tune to our own bodies. And I think what's so important about regulation is that students are
able to easily pick up on a dysregulated teacher and correct me if I'm wrong, but a dysregulated
teacher who then dysregulates the environment ultimately makes student learning outcomes near
impossible during that window of instruction. I don't know that I would say it's impossible,
but I would say that the type of learning that happens is definitely affected. We all co-regulate
with each other. So while you described students can see when a teacher is dysregulated, it's more
of a feeling. You feel someone's energy when they walk into a room before they even open their mouth.
You actually described it yourself earlier when you're saying you would turn the key and your
parents would be like, oh my gosh, and you probably wouldn't even have to say anything and they would
recognize the kind of mood that you were in. And so we are able to experience someone's emotional
frequency and their emotional state just by being in the same room. And as a teacher, you get to
co-regulate with your students. They're co-regulating with you and your emotional state gets to be your
priority because that's what shifts everything else. I shared this story, you know, I travel a
lot and I'm on a plane a lot and often there's some turbulence. I'm okay on the plane at this point. I'm
not one to lose it, but it's uncomfortable. However, there was this one plane ride that I was on where
the turbulence was a little bit more than I would be used to. And I'm doing all the strategies. I'm
calming down my nervous system, but I'm still feeling like this low hum of anxiety. And I look
at the flight attendant and she's like on her phone, like not really paying attention to what's
going on. And what I realized was like, oh, okay, like she's the person in charge here and she's
fine. And I was able to borrow her calm and I was fine. And that's very much the job of the teacher
in that classroom is that kids are going to come in dysregulated for all sorts of reasons. What
happens at home, what happens on the schoolyard. They just took a test and they were insured. Their
friend texted something that they were, you know, or shared something on Snapchat and now everyone
knows they're all dysregulated. It is your job to prioritize your regulation so you can make the
biggest impact in your classroom. So Jen, I have to take a moment to read an Instagram post that
you made yesterday that is really even helping me as we near the end of our academic semester here
at the time that we are recording this. The post you made said, your worth does not equal your
productivity. You are not your work. And it can be really easy, especially for educators, to conflate
your identity with your career. The truth is that you are so much more. And when you realize that
you don't have to prove your worth through your productivity, you can breathe more easily, relax
more, sleep better, and be more present with the people that you love instead of hustling, grinding,
and wearing your badge of honor of how stressed and busy you really are. So I wanted to ask,
what are some ways that teachers can continue to prove their worth throughout their careers
without losing themselves? Yeah, this is a big question because this is also how our society is
built, right? Work harder, do better, make more money, success, that's your identity. And we are
falling victim to yet another narrative. And if your worth is always connected to your productivity,
well then anytime you're taking a break or a pause or resting, well, how does that align within your
identity of productivity? It doesn't. So again, there's shame and judgment, and we speak so
negatively about ourselves when we're resting, and we're not actually getting the benefits of
resting if we're shaming ourselves for it anyway. And we consistently brag about how little sleep
we've been on and how busy we are, as if that gives us space in this world and say, hey, look at me,
I have value, I'm worthy to be in this room, and it's just BS. You are worthy because you woke up
this morning, and your productivity has absolutely nothing to do with your work. There's a great book
by Dr. Devon Price, who wrote, Laziness Does Not Exist. It's a fabulous read, and it really speaks
to how as a society we look at laziness, resting, and how it contradicts everything we think we know
about what's important. And what's so interesting is when you really sit down with people and ask
them what's important, they talk about things like family, friends, connections, relationships,
and very rarely do you hear someone be like, oh, my work, my working, my 40, 50, 60, 70 hour work
week is really important to me. So there's this disconnect, there's this incongruence that I'm
always really curious about when I see these incongruences, because why do we believe one thing
but behave another? Well, because the belief of productivity is so much stronger than what we're
saying we really value. And finding ways to create that congruence is also something we guide people
and help people do through Empowered Educator, because when you're living a life with alignment
and incongruence, that's when you're actually able to start to move the needle forward to do the
things you want to do in this world. Definitely. And you're reminding me, even that same first year
teaching I had on the side of my board just for fun and for giggles and pleasure, I had what I
called my sleep counter, where every single day I'd walk in the room and I'd update and let the
students know how many hours of sleep I got that night. It was usually four, that was an average
number, and we'd go be like, woohoo, Mr. Weiser got four hours tonight, yay. So if it was like
five to five and a half, that was like, wow, he hibernated, what happened? And I think once or
twice it came in on three and a half. You're like, oh, come on, you could have done better than that.
And obviously it caught up to me very quickly by the time I burned out. And when I reached that
burnout, I realized that we live, like you're alluding to Jen, in this very matrix-based society
where we all have these constructed standards that we expect people to fall into a cycle of exhaustion.
And once they get there, we no longer know how to take care of the exhausted. And that's how we run.
And I believe that through Empowered Educator, you're working so hard to change that narrative.
So I wanted to say thank you for all the work that you're doing to break down those standards
and help people thrive. I think that's what thriving really is all about.
100%. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I received that.
Absolutely. And I wanted to ask Jen, in terms of what schools look like and what education looks
like, I know that this is a very challenging question for my guests, but I always like to kind
of take a little bit from everybody and see if we could actually make this recipe come to life.
What would you say is a secret ingredient to the secret sauce, if you will,
and actually thriving in education? You know, from where I'm standing,
the secret sauce, the secret sauce, you know, as I was even saying that it's so big.
There are so many structural and fundamental problems within our public education system.
Kids are falling through the cracks. Kids are not feeling supported right now, especially
the mental health crisis is out of control. And it's really easy to point fingers out,
but I just, I have to keep going back to this one thing. The secret sauce is looking in the mirror
because organizations don't change until people change. I said that already before. I'm going to
say it again. And until each individual starts to realize their own agency, starts to realize that
they have the ability to walk into these spaces, feeling empowered to actually make decisions and
have conversations that are not coming from a place of stress and survival. That's when we really
start to see change. So the secret sauce is get in front of a mirror, do the work, do the work.
And yeah, it's not easy and yeah, it feels hard sometimes, but this is what's going to make the
change. Everyone says that they want. Definitely. It's like that narrative that
we cannot pour from an empty cup. Therefore we need to improve ourselves before we help others
improve as well. Where can our viewers go to learn more about empowered educator and how to
stay connected with what you do? If you take a look at the webpage, empowerededucator.com,
and you go to the resources page, there are a ton of free resources on there for you to get your
feet wet and to kind of dabble a little bit in some of the work that we do. And we always have
workshops and classes going on all of the time. So if you go to the workshop page, you'll see that
we have lots of asynchronous classes, self-paced classes and live synchronous classes.
Lots of different opportunities to get involved because what we do here is truly look at whole
school communities. It is not just the teachers. It is not just the principals. It is the office
staff. It is the paraprofessionals. It is the TAs. It's the bus drivers. It's the school nurses.
It's the cafeteria staff and it's the parents because we need to have holistic language,
universal language, universal work that really lays a solid foundation for these kids to grow.
And we've seen it. We've seen the change happen. It's pretty amazing.
Thank you so much for that. And Jen, I wanted to go ahead and also thank you for sharing your
wisdom and passion with us today in our dialogue and just share with all of our viewers based upon
my interactions that your work with the empowered educator is not only transforming the lives of
teachers, but also trying to show what's important within our entire school-based communities.
And again, to our listeners, I'm so inspired by all the work that Jen is doing because truly she
is a movement. So I would love you to go ahead and learn more about what she does through
empowerededucator.com. You can find a link to her website in our show notes and also be sure to
tune into her own podcast, Take Notes. And remember that creating change starts with one empowered
step at a time. Until next time, let's keep the conversation going as we empower others
while using our voices to make a difference. Thank you for joining us on the Classroom
Narratives Healing and Education podcast. If today's episode inspired you or made you think
differently, I'd love to hear from you. Drop a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts
and stay connected with us on the at Classroom Narratives podcast over Instagram and Facebook.
Remember, together we can transform our scars into stars in education, one conversation at a time.