Welcome to Season 3, episode 11 of Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers.

I'm your host Angela Watson, and I'm here to speak life, encouragement, and truth

into the minds and hearts of educators and get you energized for the week ahead.

Today I'm going to share some thoughts on how I created unnecessary stress and

sabotaged my own success as a rookie teacher and how my thinking has changed over time.

Visit truth for teachers.com to get the transcript, links to recommended resources, and

to share your thoughts on the show.

There's no question that being a new teacher is tremendously stressful, but when I reflect

on my teaching practice and how it evolved over the years. I realized that I created a lot of my own stress, simply through the way I chose to perceive my work.

The mindset that I held towards my students and their parents, as well as how I viewed my role in the classroom,

often made an annoying incident feel maddening,

and a challenging situation feel impossible to overcome.

Today I'll share four specific ways

I sabotaged my own success as a teacher,

as well as how and why my thinking changed since then.

The first way that I sabotaged my success was that I mimicked the discipline style of others,

even when it made me uncomfortable.

I began my teaching career in a time and place where it was

considered the norm to exert power and control over students. Respect was

something that was demanded, not earned.

Shaming students was acceptable.

Getting down in kids faces and saying things like,

...