SELebrate Good Times

When I started this journey, I thought my job was to help educators find better strategies to support them with the behaviors they were seeing in their classrooms.

And don’t get me wrong…

Strategies matter. And systems matter. And SUPPORT definitely matters.

But the longer I do this work, the more I realize something:

Most educators don’t need another expert talking AT them.

They need to know they’re NOT ALONE.

Every polaroid in this video represents a teacher who chose to stay curious.

A teacher who was willing to try something different.

A teacher who wanted more than survival mode.

A teacher who wanted to BE the teacher that wanted to stay in this profession…and LOVE it again.

People ask me all the time about the book, the podcast, the conference, the community…

But when I look at these pictures, I don’t think about any of those things.

I think about THE HERD.🦬🦬🦬🦬

A group of educators reminding one another:

You don’t have to carry this alone.

And maybe that’s what so many of us have been looking for all along.

You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.

That’s true for students. It’s true for classrooms.

And it’s definitely true for teachers.

This week, we welcomed five new educators into The Community.

Because sometimes what you need most isn’t more information.

It’s perspective.

It’s people who can see what you can’t.

It’s having someone beside you saying, “Have you tried this?”

And when you join our community, you don’t just get the people…You get the tools, too.

The very first thing I get to show our newest members is A Year of SEL.

Not because teachers need more work.

But because they deserve support that’s already built, organized, and ready to use.

You don’t have to spend your summer searching for answers.

You can spend your summer growing.

Growing your confidence.
Growing your systems.
And growing into the educator you want to be.

If you’re looking for a place to do that alongside educators who get it, the Facebook group is waiting for you.
🫵🏻🦬💖

You can still be proud of your students’ growth…
even if it doesn’t look the way you had HOPED.

You spent all school year dreaming about what the END of the school year would be like…feel like…and the amount of growth your students would experience.

But growth isn’t measured by comparing this year’s class to last year’s class.

Growth is movement.
Forward is forward.

A student who learned to ask for help.
A student who made a friend.
A student who finally felt safe enough to be themselves.
A student who learned that mistakes don’t make them a bad kid.

A student who walked into your classroom believing they couldn’t…and walked out believing they MIGHT.

Not every seed blooms on the same timeline. But that doesn’t mean growth didn’t happen.

And maybe that’s the reminder teachers need right now:

You were never responsible for controlling every outcome.

You were responsible for creating a place where growth was possible.

READ THAT AGAIN! 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

A place where students felt seen and safe.
A place where they could try again tomorrow.

Come back to this when you need the reminder.
You taught into the skills they needed…and they experienced growth.

That growth is enough. It gets to be.
Now go start reading Becoming the BISON with us!

If this post resonated with you…your herd is waiting for you in the FB group!
🫵🏻🦬💖

The teachers who finish the year proud…

aren’t the ones whose students never struggled.

They’re the ones who never stopped believing growth was possible.

I was listening to one of my teachers reflect on her year this week and I found myself smiling the entire time.

Not because she had an easy class.

Trust me, she didn’t.

She had a classroom full of kids who challenged her, stretched her patience, pushed her buttons, and needed more from her than she thought she had to give.

But what struck me was that she wasn’t talking about any of that.

She wasn’t talking about the hard days.
And she wasn’t talking about the behaviors.

She was talking about the growth.

About the kid who can now stop and think about how their actions impact someone else.

And the student who learned to reflect instead of immediately reacting.

About how her kids can set goals for themselves, make adjustments, and keep going when things get hard.

About students who are PROUD of themSELves.
Like REALLY proud of themselves.

And as she was talking, I realized something…

The teachers who finish the year proud aren’t proud because they had the easiest students.

They’re proud because they can see who their students are BECOMING.

And maybe that’s why this work matters so much.

Not because we get perfect behavior.
Not because every kid magically catches up.

But because every once in a while, you get to witness growth that once felt impossible.🥹🥹🥹

That’s what we’re talking about when we read Becoming the BISON.

Not classroom management.
Not behavior strategies.

Growth.

In students.

And in ourSELves.

If you’re spending this summer becoming the kind of teacher who sees possibility where others see problems, come read with us inside the Facebook group.

Because the best part of this work has never been doing it alone.

🫵🏻Slide in my DMs and leave me a 🦬 BISON and I’ll send you the link.

One thing I’ve noticed after spending this year in classrooms…

The teachers creating the most growth weren’t the ones with perfect classes.

They weren’t the ones with no behavior challenges.

They weren’t the ones who never felt frustrated.

They were the ones who stayed CURIOUS…while everyone ELSE was asking:

“How do I stop this behavior?”

💁🏻‍♀️They were asking: “What is this student struggling to do?”

That’s a very different question.

And it leads to very different outcomes.

The best educators I worked with this year didn’t spend their energy trying to control kids.

They spent their energy trying to understand them.

🦬💖

What I’ve noticed after spending this school year in classrooms…

The teachers who are struggling the most aren’t always the ones with the biggest behaviors.

They’re often the ones spending all of their energy trying to stop them.

😭The blurting.

😭The arguing.

😭The work refusal.

😭The eloping.

😭The defiance.

😭The shutdown.

They’re exhausted because they’re fighting symptoms all day long.🫠🫠🫠

But the teachers seeing the most growth?

They’re asking different questions.

Instead of:

“How do I make this stop?”

They’re asking:

“What is this student struggling to do?”

Because the behavior isn’t the thing.

It’s the clue.

The student who argues may be struggling with flexibility.

The student who refuses may be overwhelmed.

The student who elopes may not yet have the skills to regulate what’s happening inside.

And when we stop focusing solely on the behavior, we can finally teach the skill underneath it.

That’s where the growth happens.

Not when we get better at managing behavior.

When we get better at teaching children.

🦬🫵🏻💖