How To Be A Good Teacher & Still Practice Self Care with Alexis Shepard from The Afro Educator [episode 87]

Kelsey Sorenson [00:00:00]:

You are listening to episode number 87 of Wife Teacher Mommy. The podcast how to be a good teacher and still practice self care with Alexis Shepherd from the Afro Educator. How has social media impacted educators? Do you want to know the difference between self care and self indulgence? We are answering these and so many other questions on today’s episode of the podcast. Hey teacher, it’s all you gotta do someone gotta take care of you whether it’s time or resources you have. Why? Teacher mommy. They have got your back they’ll bring the galaxy to mom they’ll break the galaxy between family in the place to be. Welcome to wife. Teacher. Mommy. The podcast. I’m Kelsey Sorensen, former elementary teacher and current homeschool mom. And even though I’ve been a resource creator since 2014, I’ve realized that printables alone aren’t all you need in order to thrive as a teacher or homeschool parent. That’s why I also created this show and got certified as a life coach to help you finally kick burn out to the curb and feel confident with whatever challenges come your way. With the right mindset, strategies and new teaching inspiration, you’re going to be well on your way to your best teacher life. Now let’s go. It has been quite a wild week over here at Wife Teacher Mommy. So I’m recording this not too long before this episode goes live and on Sunday we were hacked on our Facebook account. Somebody got into our Facebook account and got into our Ad account which we’re using to promote, Educate and Rejuvenate our big virtual conference and they spent $9,000 on my credit card. I mean, I bet you can’t imagine the look on my face when that happened. It has been wild. Like working with Facebook trying to figure it out and in the meantime being like, I need to get the word out about this event to all the teachers and homeschool parents who could benefit so much from it. Luckily, we have been refunded already and we got a second ad account set up so we’re able to promote it and everything. But I just appreciate a lot of you were willing to share about the event with your friends. And that just means a lot, because my team and I, we’ve been working on this event since January, and we are so excited that it is finally coming to fruition and seeing all of the amazing people, all these presenters, come together, watching their sessions as we’re getting them ready. It is good. This is good content that we’re putting together and I’m so excited that so many of you are joining us and I hope that you listening today are joining us at Educate and Rejuvenate. It’s going to be a great time. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, be sure to go to Educateimrejuvenate.com to learn more about the event. But basically it is our big, huge, gigantic virtual conference that we are doing and the main days are on the 27th and 28 June. Those are when the live keynotes are. Our keynotes are Joe Dombrowski and Christina Kuzmich. And then I’m kind of like the second keynote each day. I’m also doing some live teaching each both days and I have a pre recorded session and then there are tons of different pre recorded sessions that you get to watch. You have ten full days to watch them with your ticket. We start each day with a workout. The first day it’s a strength workout, the second day it’s a yoga meditation. We have live coaching happening in the afternoons and live panels with teachers. It’s so much fun. Last year it was fun, this year we are just leveling up. So I cannot wait. And as you’re listening to this, on June 13, the Facebook group, the pre party has started. We are doing giveaways leading up to the event. We’re going to be posting a new giveaway pretty much each day. I think, if I remember right, lots of awesome giveaways. We have some lives going on. On the 13th when this airs. I’ll be going live, kind of sharing how you can get into the event and sharing how everything works to make sure everybody knows. So you will definitely want to join the Educate and Rejuvenate Facebook group. If you purchased a ticket or if you’re in the club and you haven’t yet, be sure to join that group. And if you have not purchased a ticket yet, consider doing it now instead of waiting until last minute because you’ll pay the same price now or later. But if you join now, you’ll get to join the pre party and all these additional giveaways and all this fun. It’s kind of like the tailgate before an event, like a Taylor Swift concert or I mean, that’s the first thing that comes to my mind. But of course, that’s usually used for sports. I’m not super sporty. I know a lot of you are, though. So anyways, I would love you to join us at the event and the pre party. Now, today, what we’re talking about on the podcast I am actually talking with Alexis Shepherd, who is one of our amazing speakers at Educate and Rejuvenate. And we are talking all about self care, how to be a good teacher and practice self care, what self care really means and how it impacts educators, and what it really means when somebody’s saying don’t forget about self care, but they don’t say what that actually means. So we’re talking about that and our episode is actually really tied together well. So I interviewed her and then she interviewed me right after to be on her show, which is the Afro Educator podcast. So be sure after you’re done listening to this one, to hop over to her show and listen to her interview with me, where we chat about the Sunday scaries as well. We kind of referenced this episode in that one and vice versa. Before we dive in, I am going to read Alexis’s bio for you so you know a little bit about her, and then she’s going to share some more about herself as well. So Alexis Shepard is a former veteran teacher and forever educator with a gift of gab. She empowers educators at all stages to step into more confident, conscious, and authentic versions of themselves inside and outside the classroom. She champions teacher wellbeing through coaching, consulting, and interactive workshops that promote radical self care. Alexis uses thought and identity exploration to help educators reframe internalize narratives that contribute to burnout and overwhelm. And I just love talking with Alexis, and I could tell that she was so knowledgeable in this area. My work and her work, there is some overlap in what we do, and I just love seeing that others out there care so much about educators, wellness and self care. There could not be enough people who help teachers with this because it is such a need right now. So I’m so excited for you to listen to this episode. So let’s dive in, okay? Hi, Alexis. I’m so excited to have you here on Wife’s Teacher Mommy. The podcast today. So fun.

Alexis Shepard [00:06:31]:

Thank you so much, Kelsey. I know we’ve been trying to make this happen for a long time, so I’m really excited that we get to chat outside of email and also bring that conversation to the listeners.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:06:40]:

I know, I’m so excited about this too. I’ve just thought you’re so awesome ever since I got introduced to you from last year’s event and you were present there, and I’m like, oh, yeah, Alexis, we need to have her on the show at some point. Now it’s like a year later and it’s finally happening. So very happy about that.

Alexis Shepard [00:06:56]:

Awesome. Same here. Same here.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:06:58]:

But some of my listeners might not know you yet. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself, about your teaching, what you do to help teachers now, and just something fun about yourself too?

Alexis Shepard [00:07:08]:

Yeah, absolutely. So I’m Alexis Shepherd, also known online as the Afro Educator. That’s also where you can find me on all platforms, including my website@thearoeducator.com. And I am a former teacher and forever educator, as I like to say. Education has always been in my heart and will always be in my heart. I taught in the K Twelve public school setting here in upstate South Carolina from 2012 until the end of 2021. And my experience ranges from second grade to fourth grade to 6th grade, which is actually the middle school setting here. And fun fact was my favorite grade to teach, which was a shock to me because I had always said that I was not gifted enough or patient enough to teach middle school. I used to meet middle school teachers and I’d say, oh, man, you’re really doing the Lord’s work. And it turns out I actually loved that middle school age and just how I was able to engage with them on a different level. And so back in 2018 is actually when I started the Afro Educator, and it was really just meant to be a way for me to connect with other incredible educators outside of my local school and district. And from there I grew this passion for talking about teacher wellness and teacher self care based on my own burnout experiences. So throughout my career, I burned out twice. Each time was very different, but each time I recognized the need for me to take action in order to make something different. Even though the burnout was not my fault, we know there are lots of systemic issues and certainly we can get into that. But even though it was not my fault, I did feel a responsibility to also help myself through those experiences. And that’s exactly what I did for myself through the Afro Educator and what I’ve been able to do for other educators through this platform as well. So I primarily just provide tools and strategies and also just a space for connection and community for other educators who have experienced burnout or who are just in that K Twelve setting and need that support so that they can teach and live well.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:09:32]:

I just loved hearing your story and how you mentioned that you kind of hit burnout twice. And I feel like that’s something that so many teachers can relate to and you’re able to use that experience to help other educators. So I love how you took that and you used it in a way to help not only yourself, but other educators to be able to figure out how to navigate it all as well.

Alexis Shepard [00:09:53]:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, too, at least in my experience with burnout, it can be a very isolating experience because you feel like you’re alone going through it. And even though I know I mentioned earlier that burnout is not necessarily your fault, but you do internalize a lot of what’s happening because you don’t know that there are other people out there who are going through that. And I know for me, I think for a lot of educators, you feel like, well, I guess this is what I signed up for. I guess this is what I get for being passionate and being willing to work hard is this is just something that I have to tolerate. And so the work that I’ve done has not only, I think, been empowering for others, but has also been really empowering for me. I especially love when I get messages from people who are just like, thank you so much for encouraging me to really look at my wellness in a different way or to just even prioritize my wellness. And it’s funny because a lot of times when people say that, I don’t feel like there’s anything significant that I’ve done, because my primary point of contact with folks is just really in sharing my story and being vulnerable and transparent with people. And I think it just resonates because it gives them permission and space to be that as well.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:11:16]:

I love that. And really it is like a lot of times I just need to hear that story and learn from other people. And an amazing thought that I heard from another coach. She was talking about how when somebody’s like you changed my life, it’s really like, no, I didn’t change your life. You changed your own life. You took what you learned and you applied it and you were able to make something amazing out of that. So a lot of times they’re giving like you were I credit, but really they did it. They figured it out, and we’re just here to cheer them on and be so proud of them.

Alexis Shepard [00:11:44]:

Absolutely. And I think that speaks a lot to why that works. People really ultimately, I think at the end of the day, just want permission and connection. Not that they need that permission or not that that permission is required, but when you see someone else who’s going through something, who’s willing to be open and transparent about it, it allows you to feel like you can do that. And then it also gives you that opportunity to connect with them and with other people around that as well. It’s kind of like this ripple effect.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:12:19]:

So true. Because when one person, it’s like you with what you’re doing, you kind of are able to help other educators, then they help other educators, and it’s just sharing our perspectives. And that permission, which, like you said, is not required. We don’t need permission to do any of these things in our lives or what we’re talking about today is self care. We don’t need permission to take care of ourselves, but a lot of times we might feel like we need that connection or inspiration of how do I even do this or all of that which we’re going to talk about today. And I’m so excited. So one of the things you mentioned is we were kind of talking about this conversation and this is a very like, I’ll let everybody know that this is the least prepared I’ve been for an interview. Not Alexis, she’s amazing, but she gave me questions. I’m going to be on her podcast, which you should definitely subscribe to her podcast. She had these questions for me, and I usually have the same, but we’ve had some crazy stuff happening this week and I’m like, okay, let’s figure out how we’re going to have this casual conversation. But I think it’s going to be amazing. And one of the things that she said is there’s kind of the pillars you were talking about. A lot of times people think, what does it mean to be a good T shirt? And what they make that mean maybe prevents them from self care. Is that kind of what you were saying.

Alexis Shepard [00:13:31]:

Yeah. So one of the things that I’ve talked about and I had a post, I want to say it was several years ago about it, but I’ve done several conferences as well as some blog posts around this topic and some podcast topics as well, about what it means to be a good teacher. And it’s not necessarily me or anyone defining specifically what that means, but more so, exploring the idea that we all come to the profession with these internalized narratives about what it takes to do the job well. Obviously, there are, like, the technical aspects of it, but even beyond that, you look at social media or you look at Pinterest. I know when I started teaching, Pinterest had just exploded. So it was around 2011, 2012, and we were all pinteresting these idealistic classrooms and all of these kind of projects that we were doing in our dorm rooms to create for the perfect classroom sort of thing. But we all had these internalized ideas from Pinterest or social media or TV or other folks that we see about what it takes to do things well. And with those internalized narratives, we end up creating these beliefs, and our beliefs become our actions. And those actions can sometimes lead to burnout. I was telling you, Kelsey, before we started recording that, like, the example I always give is that I identified as what I call the hardworking teacher. So in my kind of concept of the good teacher narrative, there are four what I call teacher types. And actually, if you go on my website, there’s a free quiz where you can find out your own teacher type and what that may mean about your own internalized narrative. But those four types of teachers are the dedicated teacher, the caring teacher, the hardworking teacher, and the dynamic teacher. And each one of those types has, like, a mantra of sorts, like an Mo, a way that they operate that drives what they do. And so for me, I was really the hardworking teacher. And the narrative that I internalized was, well, if I’m hardworking, it means I need to show up early, stay late. If I have extra time, I need to fill it with extra things to do, because that’s what will make me a hardworking teacher, not just for myself, but for other people who are perceiving me. So for my colleagues, for my principal, for the families of my students, for my students themselves. And so I ended up doing a lot of things the first few years of my career that actually kind of sped me towards that first encounter with Burnout that I had right around year four or five, I think it was. And it was because those narratives for sure prevented me from taking care of myself, because I believed that taking care of myself was the antithesis to being hardworking. Yeah.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:16:34]:

And it’s so fascinating because it’s kind of what you were thinking about what does it mean to be hardworking? A lot of times I try to turn that into a question because what you think is hardworking might look different than what somebody else thinks is hardworking. And what you thought was hardworking was leading you down this path of burnout like you were probably expecting so much of yourself.

Alexis Shepard [00:16:55]:

Absolutely. And I think you just hit the nail on the head with talking about or alluding to reframing the idea of what hardworking means to individuals. And then I think in general as well, and I’ve read a lot of articles recently about just work culture in the US. And how a lot of us really kind of internalize that piece about what that means. And there’s this very, I think literal, very legalistic interpretation of what it means to be a hard worker that oftentimes leads us down this path of burnout and all of the things that come with that. So I think if we think of hard work really in terms of or at least the way that I think of it is in terms of how effective am I at accomplishing my essential goal. And for me as a teacher, it was thinking about my impact for my students and what is most important to me at the very end of the year. What is the one thing or the two things or the three things that I want my students, without a shadow of a doubt, to be able to know, be or do? And for me personally, I was really interested in helping my students be more compassionate, empathetic humans. And so being able to shift that idea of hard work from am I writing songs and making dances and using all of my time for lessons to how is what I’m doing contributing to that impact that I really want to accomplish at the very end of the school year?

Kelsey Sorenson [00:18:33]:

That is such a good way to think about it. And it’s like, how is it contributing to that? And a lot of times we put things on our plate that aren’t necessarily contributing to that. We’re putting way too much more on there than we really need to to get that end result that we want.

Alexis Shepard [00:18:45]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:18:47]:

I love this. And I think this is so important to talk about because so many teachers just don’t realize how that is impacting it. And like you said, there are a lot of things we can’t control. We can’t control a lot of what’s going on, like how our students are behaving exactly in that moment and different things like that. But there are things we can control, like our thoughts and beliefs about what is going on and how that makes us feel and then what we do from that point.

Alexis Shepard [00:19:14]:

Yeah. And it makes sense, Kelsey, that when you talk about self care and I can already feel people wincing through the podcast because I know a lot of educators are on this hamster wheel. I know that that may not be every single person’s experience. Some folks are in districts or in scenarios where they genuinely feel really supported, and they might not necessarily be able to fully connect to what we’re talking about. But I think in general, when you’re talking about accomplishing certain standards and you’re thinking about standardized testing and all of the things that are put on teachers plates, as you referenced earlier, self care feels like this. Herculean ask to stop the hamster wheel. That is necessary. In order for me to do all of the things that you want me to do in order to take a bath or have an expensive dinner or get a manicure that I maybe can’t or shouldn’t afford, instead of all of these things that I’ve been asked to do that I want to do for the sake of making sure that I can show up for students. And so I always like to clarify that when I talk about self care, whether it’s here on a podcast or in a conference session or just in regular conversation, I like to make mention that when I talk about self care. I’m really talking about the messy, hard work of serving your future self and of pouring into the person that you want to become. And the reality is that that does take some investment upfront, which may mean, yes, stopping that hamster wheel that in the immediate now feels really hard and feels like, quote unquote, not the right thing to do. But that is going to generate dividends in the future as far as your overall satisfaction and long term well being in the profession and in your life as a whole. And so self care is not the same as self indulgences, which are the chocolates, the baths, having your favorite coffee. Like those things have a place, but those things aren’t going to serve your future self in the way that they are setting you up for that long term satisfaction and well being overall.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:21:56]:

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Alexis Shepard [00:22:33]:

I’m Angela Watson, creator of the 40 hours teacher workweek program. We’re kicking off the next cohort of 40 Hours this summer, and I want you to join us. Over fifty five thousand k twelve educators have already used the 40 Hours program to maximize their contractual hours and stop working endlessly on nights and weekends. Visit fortyhtw.com to learn more, including how to attend our free online summit on July 9 and 10th, where you can learn time saving tips from other classroom teachers. That’s 40 htw.com.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:23:08]:

I love this. And Alexis, I love that you had a term for this because I did like a podcast episode about self care and everything and it was like those things are great, there’s nothing wrong with them. But there’s this other side to self care, but actually calling those things self indulgences. And not that indulgences are bad, but it is a different thing than what we are talking about when we mean like self care.

Alexis Shepard [00:23:27]:

Yeah, I like to say fortunate and unfortunate thing. In the last decade we’ve all seen mental health habits come up and how there has been more emphasis placed on not just mental health awareness, but on taking steps to address our mental and emotional well being. And in that self care has also had its moment, I would say for the last few years. I remember when I started the Afro Educator in 2018 and I was running the word self care into the ground, it seemed like I was one of the only few people who were doing that because it really hadn’t quite made it into the mainstream yet. And then I want to say a year after that, which would have been 2019 and certainly into 2020, self care just explodes. And you hear it and see it all over the place. And it’s great in the sense that there’s all of this knowledge and awareness around just self care from a general sense and from a hey, this is vocabulary that people now have since on the other hand, though, I have found that sometimes when something becomes really popular in mainstream, it becomes diluted. And there are all of these kind of various interpretations of what it is and depending on what you, I think, consume the most and what you hear the most really influences what you think about that specific thing. And a lot of teachers have gotten those newsletters from their principals or from their districts and are in staff meetings where they’re being told and don’t forget self care and don’t forget self care, all while more things are being heaped onto their plates. And so it feels like this really passive way for administrators to say that they care without putting action behind it. Not that I’m saying that’s exactly what’s happening, but that certainly is the sentiment and the feeling of a lot of educators across the country, I think.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:25:33]:

Yeah, that totally makes sense because if you feel like you’re being told one thing but then it’s kind of like showing versus telling, right? It’s like you say one thing but then you do another. So I can kind of see how teachers but interpret that to mean that does my self care matter? Does it really?

Alexis Shepard [00:25:50]:

Exactly. At the end of the day. It’s just lack of authenticity. I read the book. Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:25:59]:

He also has a great oh, he’s amazing.

Alexis Shepard [00:26:01]:

My gosh. If you’ve not read, start with Why, folks. Highly, highly, highly recommend. But he mentions early on in the book that authenticity is the alignment of words and actions. And in this day and age, that’s all we want. And I say we as just people in general, is we want actions and words to align. And I think especially teachers, educators are really the grassroots of the K Twelve system. They are the reason that the system works at all, especially with all of its flaws and deficiencies. And at the end of the day, all they want is realness, as I call it. All they want is that authenticity that comes from the alignment of the actions and the words. And I think that’s why self care has become kind of this term that educators roll their eyes at because of the fact that it’s so overused and misused, and then when it is used, it has no weight to it.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:27:04]:

There’s not necessarily direction on what they’re supposed to do. It’s just like, don’t forget self care. Like okay. Thanks. What does that mean? So if you were to recommend for a teacher who, let’s say they’re in that situation, they maybe feel like they don’t know what to do for self care or whatever, what are your recommendations for that teacher? To baby steps towards having more of a self care practice?

Alexis Shepard [00:27:23]:

Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing I would do is I want to encourage you to think about self care beyond things that happen outside of school, on your own time, in your home. I really want you to think about self care as something that you can integrate into your classroom. I want you to think about self care as something that is just a function of the way that you operate. And the root of that function is simply, how can I show up well for myself so that I can show up well for others? What is it that I’m doing in this moment? What is it that I can do in this lesson? What is it that I can do in this few minutes where I can show up for myself so that I can show up well for others? And let me give some examples. So for me, when I started asking myself this question years into my career, one of the things that I did was I implemented a Wellness Wednesday, and it morphed, and it changed over time, but essentially I committed to dedicating a certain chunk of time each week. It was just a few minutes each week, and it started small. So it started with, hey, you know what? I’m on this hamster wheel. I don’t think I can give 15 minutes, but I think there’s two minutes that I can set aside where my students are. Having quiet time. And that is my quiet time as well. It’s not time where I’m trying to be productive. It’s time where I am trying to sort of gather myself and have that quiet that I need to. At least for me anyway. For me, that quiet was necessary to feel recharged enough to make it successfully through the day. And then eventually that evolved into doing a wellness check with my students. And that wellness check was just it was a Google form with like two or three questions on it that allowed me to basically collect data on how it was that my students were doing. And while they were completing that, again, I was using the time that they were working independently on the wellness check to do something for myself. It also was time where I wasn’t teaching, I wasn’t necessarily having to support students actively during that time. And so it was space for me to also gather myself. So whether I was actively doing something like using the Calm app or listening to a quick 1 minute breathing exercise on headspace, or even if I was just sitting there, sometimes I would sit there and I would have two or three minutes of mindless Internet scrolling as my students are working on this five to ten minutes of wellness check. So I think the most important thing is really envisioning how you can bring wellness into spaces where you’re spending a lot of time that don’t just include your home. I think it’s hard to imagine self care as this integral part of your life when you’re only doing it in one space right then. It’s not a function of the way that you operate, it’s just another kind of checklist. So that’s one thing that I would recommend is think about how you can bring self care and wellness practices into your classroom in ways that benefit you and benefit your students. It’s the symbiotic thing. The other recommendation I would have would be to identify what your teacher narrative is so that you can start to address the unique ways that you may be unknowingly a catalyst to burnout or to overwhelm. So I referenced it quickly earlier, but on my website it is all over the website. Pretty much any page you go to, you can get to it. But if you head to www.theafroeducator.com I have my teacher types quiz. It’s very short, less than ten questions, and it will tell you what your teacher type is as well as give you some active strategies that you can go ahead. Simple strategies that don’t require any money or anything from you to go ahead and get started on that wellness journey. I also do have a free resource on my website that’s like a resource guide that has topically curated podcast episodes that I’ve done, as well as worksheets and blog posts and things that I’ve written that will also help support you in that as well. I’ve got a lot of content out there for you all to really help you move along in your journey, depending on where you are, whether you’re ready to integrate that journey into the classroom, or whether you’re still wanting to level up your practices at home.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:32:30]:

I love this and I love that you mentioned it not just being at home, it’s like integrating that practice everywhere and how you can’t just find those few minutes. A lot of times we feel like we need to be productive 100% of the time. Sometimes honest, the most productive thing is a moment of self care so you can have that moment to regroup and come back to your students. And I love how you are offering so much to our listeners to get started for free. So we’ll make sure to get all of those links added to the show notes for all of you so you can check that out on Alexis’s website. And we’re also really excited that you are presenting at Educate and Rejuvenate this year. So again, for the second year, we’re really excited. So glad you’re back. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re presenting about this year?

Alexis Shepard [00:33:16]:

Yeah, absolutely. So, ironically enough, my session for Educate rejuvenate is called three Ways for Teachers to Win at Wellness. And inside of that session, I’m actually going to be taking a deep dive into three specific ways that you can integrate your self care practices into your teaching. And so we’ll take a deep dive at looking at integrating those wellness routines into the classroom, as well as other ways that you as an educator can support yourself in showing up well for you, so that you can also show up well in all of the other roles that you play.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:33:55]:

I’m so excited for your session. It’s going to be amazing and just so happy to have you back. And I’m so excited for the event in general. We just have such an amazing group of speakers. Really excited.

Alexis Shepard [00:34:06]:

Yeah, you all really do. It’s honestly such a huge value for folks who are going to be engaging with those sessions. I don’t know how you pick which ones to sort of go to first because there’s just so much awesome content to consume.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:34:24]:

That’s why we had to extend the time this year because last time we gave them like two days, we ended up extending a little bit because we had some tech issues. But this year we’re like ten days because we have even more speakers this year because we have a teacher track and the parent track and we just want people to have time to watch whatever they need to watch.

Alexis Shepard [00:34:41]:

That’s amazing. Well, I love that. And the conference is self care in and of itself because it is really helping teachers in all aspects think about ways that they can serve their future selves. So it’s a win and I love the whole future.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:34:57]:

I feel like we could do a whole episode about the whole future self concept because I love that too. We’ll have to do another episode.

Alexis Shepard [00:35:05]:

I’m here for part two.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:35:08]:

Well, thank you so much, Alexis. This was so much fun. And where can our listeners connect with you? I mean, you shared a little bit, but is there anything else that you would like to share where they can connect with you online if they want to hear more from you?

Alexis Shepard [00:35:19]:

Yeah, absolutely. So again, you can find me at my website, www.theafroeducator.com. That’s where all the things live. I’m also on teachers pay teachers. I have free and paid resources there for you specifically geared towards teacher wellness. There’s also the Afro Educator podcast where of course, I take deep dives into all the things teacher wellness myself, as well as incredible guests, which Kelsey will join the lineup of here in just a little bit. You can also find me over on Instagram at the Afro Educator. That’s really primarily where I hang out online. I’d love to engage with you in any or all of those spaces.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:36:02]:

Amazing. Thank you so much, Alexis. And we’re going to go do an interview for her awesome podcast now, so be sure you subscribe and we will talk next week.

Alexis Shepard [00:36:11]:

Thank you so much.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:36:19]:

If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re ready to take the next step, come grab your ticket to join me at Educate Amber Juvenate, the education event of the year on June 27 and 28th, 2023. This year we have two incredible live keynotes joe Jamrowski, aka Mr. D, and bestselling author and video creator, Christina Kismich. We have over 60 incredible speakers speaking on topics such as math, language arts, reading, social, emotional learning, classroom management, homeschooling and tackling burnout. We start the day with a workout together each morning. We have panels with the presenters and you’ll even get to join live coaching with me and even raise your hand if you would like to be coached. Plus, we give away tons of prizes throughout the event too. It is the best PV you could ever attend. And all of this is happening from the comfort of your own home. It’s just $19 for a ticket. And past attendees have said that this is what finally lit a fire under them to enjoy teaching again and that it was well worth every penny. Go to Educateandrejuvenate.com to learn more about the 2023 event or if you’re listening to this later, that link will show you what’s up next. As we will continue to do events like this, I hope to see you educate and rejuvenate for me. Together, you will break the gap for me.