Taming Monsters and Making Magic
Flying by the Seat of My Pants Used to Be My Superpower. Now It’s a Survival Hazard.
Flying by the seat of my pants has always been something I view as an ADHD educator superpower.
I can pivot on a dime to add pizazz, evoke a spontaneous giggle, or soothe a child navigating big feelings. I can create an engaging lesson out of absolute thin air, remember tiny personal details about a student’s family, and I am a dynamite read-aloud story reader.
And then… there’s the clerical, administrative side of teaching.
If I am being completely honest, I am petrified that someday this flaw is going to come back to bite me. Like, "What other career could I even DO?" kind of scared.
"I have always been a respected, loved-by-families teacher on the outside... with a growing monster on the inside whispering: 'If they only knew how much I am struggling.'
When I first began my career, I was hired straight out of college by my dream school - a nature-based, whole-child-focused private school tucked away in the woods of New Hampshire. It was a mix of "pinch me" and "oh no."
Because state certification wasn’t required there at the time, the overwhelmed (and perpetually broke) post-college version of me decided not to take my second Praxis exam and just skip finishing the cert process. (I’d like to go back and have a stern talking-to with past me! 😜)
Then came the real work: the endless planning, the prep, learning complex curricula, and having to invent my own from scratch in subject areas where nothing was provided.
It was a neurodivergent nightmare.
When I found out I was pregnant, the low pay, lackluster benefits, and long commute no longer felt doable for my growing family. Photos accidentally exist of me positively ugly-crying during that final last-day-of-school celebration. I even had to unfollow their social media accounts for a while out of sheer nostalgia and homesickness for that kind of teaching community. But I knew I needed to make a responsible change, and I truly believed my love for supporting kids was needed in public education.
Enter Public School (and the "Monster" Grows)
Fast-forward to my fourth year in a public school setting, and that growing administrative monster has only gotten bigger.
I somehow dragged myself through studying for both the second Praxis AND the Foundations of Reading exam to get officially certified (thanks a lot, past Nicole 😏). But that "flying by the seat of my pants" strategy has gotten exhausting in my more mature age.
Between learning rigid new curricula that we're told to teach to fidelity (I loathe that word) despite what I feel is the quality, keeping up with certification hours without a clear system, navigating extreme behaviors, and somehow producing assessment scores that show growth... I constantly find myself feeling as though I’m just not cut out for this field.
I know I love it. I know that in ways that don’t count on paper, I am genuinely very good at it. I just don't know how other teachers do this without feeling like a puddle of mental slop by May.
What I'm Learning (And What We Need to Change)
If you are reading this from your couch with 400 unread emails and a cold cup of coffee, I want you to know three things:
You are not a bad teacher; you are an un-systemized teacher. Your empathy, energy, and magic are real. The administrative burnout isn't a character flaw; it’s a system mismatch.
Imposter syndrome feeds on isolation. The reason I felt like a "fraud" for so long is because nobody talks about the hidden executive dysfunction behind the cute bulletin boards.
We have to build infrastructure that protects our magic. We cannot rely on adrenaline to plan our weeks anymore.
I don't have all the answers yet - but that's exactly why I'm building this space. We are going to figure out simple, low-friction systems together so we can keep the magic without burning out.
