Stop Grading on the Weekends with Chrissy Nichols [episode 3]

0:26
Hey, teachers. I’m so excited for our first guest episode today and we have an amazing guest. Her name is Chrissy Nichols. And I’ve just met her recently. And she is absolutely amazing. And we have a very exciting collaboration going on, which we’re going to talk about in episode. But first, let me just tell you a little bit about her. Chrissy has been teaching for over 20 years in both independent and public schools in the US and Europe. She is the founder of the coaching group, the Chrissy Concept, where she serves smart, dynamic teachers who want to feel better about their lives and relationships at school. Chrissy specializes in helping teachers who feel overwhelmed and burnout with tools to master time and improve challenging relationships. So I’m so excited to have her on the podcast today. So let’s get to the interview. Hey, Christy, I’m so excited to have you on the show.

Ah, Kelsey, I am so excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Before we really dive into today’s episode, I want to tell our audience how we met because I think it’s a really awesome story, don’t you think?

I think it’s pretty awesome. I think it’s pretty great. We got to tell everyone how we did meet.

Because I mean, it was really basically me stalking you on the internet.

Never. Never. I love the stalking.

But really I kind of did. I’m glad I didn’t freak you out.

I love that you stalked me I really do. And you found my coaching website. And you saw the crossover because we are both teachers, have both been teachers, and I love teachers. That’s who I want to serve.

That’s right. I mean, I’m just really glad I didn’t freak you out, you know, and that you had that reaction and not like why is this chick like messaging me on all the platforms? And then I actually like booked a consult because I hadn’t heard back yet. It was like okay, I’m going to talk to Chrissy.

You know, you say gentle stalking but I say tenacity that was fantastic. It really felt lovely to be gently stalked by the great Kelsey Sorensen so thank you for that.

Yes. So as you know, the reason I was talking Chrissy, this probably sounds kind of weird. I started Wife, Teacher Mommy Club this past September. And my mission with the club is not only to give teachers all the resources they need, but also all the support they need as a teacher, because with the club, our teachers, they get access to every resource we’ve ever made, like over $4,000 worth of resources. But there’s also the whole mindset and all the stress that happens as a teacher like the resources can help with that, but we want to give more support too. So I just need teachers they needed support beyond just teaching resources. And then I thought back a few years about how coaching has changed my life. And I really just wanted every teacher to have that. So we’re adding to the club and so I needed to find a coach.

Yes, I love that. I am a coach, you and I understand the power of coaching but can you just speak a little bit more to how coaching is in your life right now or how it’s changed your life? I think there are so many teachers out there Kels that might think about an instructional coach like a math coach, a pedagogy coach, professional development, a building coach that is in your school, but that’s not what this is. We’re really talking about life coaching. For some of you as woowoo as that might sound, but life coaching for you, meaning all of you, your brain, inside the classroom, outside the classroom, on the drive to work, when you get home, this is really all about your mindset as a teacher and coaching to help you see your brain look inside your brain. So tell me a little bit about your story there what sort of has coaching brought to you how has it changed your life because but the gently stalking I could tell that it was really important and I love that.

Yeah, like you said life coaching is for you and your mental health. Yeah, me I actually found my first flight coach when I was in a pretty dire situation, after I had my third baby who was born in October 2019. And to go back a little bit, I always struggled with anxiety a little bit, but it was never to the point that I felt like, you know, I needed to do anything about it. And I feel like this was my wake up call. So after he was born four days later, I had a major panic attack. My son, he was only four days old. And the crazy thing is like, you know, when you have a newborn baby, and the stereotype is you’re not sleeping because of the baby, right? I mean, that usually is how it is. This is my third baby. I mean, I, my first baby, he didn’t sleep like at all, Peter, my third child, he slept really well. But I could not sleep I went almost two whole days without even sleeping a wink. Because my body the moment I would try to wake up that would jolt me awake. Like it was just I was in this constant state of panic. Wow, I thought it was dying. I thought I was having a heart attack. Sure. I’m gonna try to close my eyes. My body would jolt me awake. So I was scared to go to sleep, which is part of why I didn’t. I thought it was dying. I couldn’t stop crying. It was really scary.

Yeah, for those folks out there have never had any kind of panic attack or a fight flight freeze response that kind of goes beyond? That is a big deal.

Yeah, for me, and that was definitely postpartum. You know, I just had my baby four days ago. And I think I was already like I said, prone to anxiety. But I’d never really sought help for it. Like, no medication, no therapy, I’ve never even heard of life coaching at that time. So of course, I hadn’t sought that out. And at that time, you know, I got some medication and therapy, which I think those things are great. You know, those are the things I found first, and it kind of got me to like, where I wasn’t having panic attacks, you know. But then a few months later, I had a situation where I was pretty just stressed out. And I posted in a Facebook group, about that particular situation. And I also mentioned the whole panic time story, I just told that, you know, my baby was still only like two or three months old at that time. And somebody was like, you need to reach out to Lizzie Langston. She is a life coach with the Life Coach School. And she specializes in postpartum moms. So I was like, well, that sounds interesting. I had never heard of The Life Coach School. I hadn’t heard of coaching, I had heard of therapy but not coaching. So I reached out to her, I actually listened to her podcast first. And I reached out to her, booked a consult, I did one on one coaching for a year and a half. And it basically changed my life. I learned how your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings, create your actions and your actions create your results. And it basically was mind blowing to me. Also, the big thing was that circumstances are neutral. It was just crazy. Like that’s too much to get into in just a podcast episode. But really just coaching and the model changed my life. Like I’m in the best state like, you know, a few years ago, I was in the worst state mentally I’ve ever been. And now I am in the best I’ve ever been.

Well, and what you just said there is so important coaching changed my life. I think you you hit on something there that is so important when potential clients who have never done coaching before maybe come from a therapeutic background. And they’ll say, Oh, so you’re a therapist, and I said, No, no, no, I’m a life coach. I’m a mindset coach. I only work with teachers. And I think therapy is really great. I’m with you, Kelsey, I’ve done some really wonderful times and years really with a therapist to really look at my family of origin or to understand why I do some of the things I do. So I think therapy is great. I have clients that do both. But what we say the differences is that therapy is for you, if you’re in bed, and you just cannot get out. Coaching is for you if you’re in bed under that gorgeous duvet, but you just don’t want to get out.

I love that. And I agree, I think they’re both so important. They’re just different.

Yeah, they are different. And, you know, as a coach, I’m also trained to see when perhaps, you know, a different approach, or different skills might be better at helping the client at that time. But what I love so much about coaching, and you hit on it too, with your work with Lizzie, and your own life coach is that it’s very active, right? Like, you can bring, of course all your past thoughts. But as a coach, we deal with your human brain right now. And teachers really need that right now we need to just kind of look at what kind of brain do I have today? You know, what am I bringing to my fourth period? What’s happening with my third graders? What do I need right now in this conversation with my principal. So that’s why I really love your story about coaching. I think it’s awesome. And then I know you also found Jodie Moore, who’s an amazing coach. Tell me a little bit about that. And that sort of, I think prompted some of this gentle loving stalking we’ve been talking.

Yeah, so I ended up joining Jodie Moore’s group coaching program. I’m still in it. It’s amazing. Jodie’s great. And one thing that she does, I really loved it, she brings different coaches in to help her. So she’s not the only coach in her program. And that kind of made me think I’m like, I’m not a life coach, you know, I want my members to be able to get this coaching. I think it’s so important, like you said, for teachers. I have no time to become a life coach, though, like, absolutely not. I’m so busy with my kids. And I’m homeschooling them currently, running Wife Teacher Mommy. But I was like, I could hire a life coach to come in and help support the teachers in my future mommy club. So that’s when I started searching on the Life Coach School website. I typed in the word teacher and tried to find somebody who I thought would have a good background. And then I found your website, and you had a video on there that I watched. And I was like, okay, Chrissy gets teachers and what specifically teachers need with the life coaching that they already know and love? Yeah, it’s a perfect combo. It really is. So that is the story of why you’re here on my podcast today. But I want to hear what is your story about, how you became a coach?

Yeah, thank you. And your story is super inspiring, because I know that there are so many teachers out there who are new moms and new dads. And I think the other thing that coaching does is it allows us to speak these things that which before had been private, or that we don’t talk about how to process our feelings, talk about all the stuff that we need to but yeah, I’m going on 23 years now in education, which is pretty amazing. I’ve taught everything from grade two, all the way up to seniors to 80 year olds, because I teach French is my main language. I’ve also been an AP English teacher and a history teacher. But what I love so much is teaching has really allowed me to go all over the world, to four different countries, but mainly US, UK and France. I started teaching in an independent school, that’s sort of the bulk of my experience, but then kind of in 2013, converted to public school. So I love all my independent school and public school brothers and sisters out there listening. I was teaching in an immersion program, French immersion, which means I was teaching everything, science, math, all the things in French, with a co teacher as well. And I just started feeling super burnt out, I would get a pit in my stomach driving to school. I mean, in this is in the pre pandemic, before times, peeps, I just felt so down. I felt like a victim of my own life. Talk about confusing circumstances with my thoughts. I felt like I had toxic parents, and an admin that didn’t understand me. And I thought, wow, what is going on? Almost like you mentioned, sort of this idea of almost nervous breakdown, but it was more felt like burnout, but a very sort of slow moving, maybe if I could just get some tools.

So as we all do, I popped into the classroom of my favorite colleague, mentor, teacher, and she said, Look, sure, you could kind of go to therapy about this, but why don’t I just give you my coach, she’s going to give you a transformation and help you get through this twice as fast. And I was like, what’s a coach, and she explained the whole thing to me, and I worked with her coach also found Brooke Castillo at this time. And she was so honest with me, which is what I love so much about teachers. You know, teachers are smart, we are driven. We know what we want, we know how to teach. So no BS I didn’t want someone just to use some toxic positivity. Like, you got this girl. And that’s really not my style either. For other teachers out there, I think teachers don’t have time to be talked down to. So anyway, this coach said before you leave your job, you have to fall back in love with it. I love that. And I was floored. I was like no you don’t you know, I went through all of my resistance and defensiveness. You don’t understand. You don’t know what kind of district I teach in. You have no idea how much is on our plate. What standardized testing they’re asking us to do. Blah, blah, blah. She goes, No, we’re gonna figure that out. And it took about a year and I fell back in love with teaching. And I did I learned to love it. I during that time I also loved coaching so much. I thought this is really what I was meant to do, and I went to the Life Coach School, where your coaches have come from Brooke Castillo and trained to be a coach. Sometimes my clients ask Chrissy, you work with burnout and teachers, you want teachers to stay in the classroom. I also kind of just checked out of school that year right before the pandemic hit our shores, because my mom was sick with cancer. And so I wanted to wasn’t fair to my kids, it wasn’t fair to the immersion program to be leaving and going to help her. So I took a year out think it would just be one year, and it turned into my business, the Chrissy Concept, right, just coach teachers.

I love your story. Also, I love that your coach told you that you needed to fall back in love with teaching again. And I bet that was super overwhelming to hear at the time.

Yeah, I hated her.

But now that I’ve seen coaching, I’m like, Yeah, I totally see that. It’s like we need to change our perspectives. And then you can always make a decision to leave or whatever.

Right. I think the biggest thing she told me you just hit on was choice, we all always have a choice. Always. I think as teachers, we sometimes feel that there is so much that we’re not in control of, we’re not in control of our schedule, or the daily bells. We’re not in control of you know, who comes to class and who doesn’t. Who’s sick, who’s mean, everything that happens in our day, we sometimes feel so, you know, there’s so many things that we don’t control. But you just said that so beautifully. She showed me that I did have a choice. And she also showed me that I was in control of a lot more than I thought she showed me like it only takes one person in a quote unquote, toxic relationship. I had a really difficult colleague at the time, she said it only takes one of you to change that relationship. And she was 100% right. I mean, I was going to fall back in love with teaching. But the sort of side effects of that Kelsey were amazing, I lost 26 pounds. And I did that with all the stuff we have in our faculty rooms all the time, like cupcakes and cookies. What is up with always the brownies in the faculty the room. I have a great blog about that.

But yeah, I was perennially single I had been single for so long, I met the man of my genes who’s now my husband, we just got married. And that’s what I want to help teachers see is that they are so powerful. And we need them so much. And our society needs them so much. So the work that you did with your coach is the work that I do with my teachers, sort of three main things that we work on are time power. So I help teachers find 20% more time in their week, and stop grading on the weekends, how to improve challenging relationships with the parents of their students, admin, a relationship, even the email relationship to grading, how to reach those hard to reach kids how to feel like a bit more free around toxic colleagues, how to sit in a faculty meeting and speak your mind and not feel like you’re going to get fired, right? Today this is so important because whether teachers out there, you’re in hybrid, still teaching situations or back in the classroom, or whatever you’re returning to, have returned to this past years, all of this is just so important right now. Teachers are superheroes of our society, we just need them so much.

And they really are. And like for all those reasons and all those ways you’re able to help our members. I’m just so excited to have you as our coach in Wife Teacher Mommy Club because you know, teachers, they have so much on their plates, all those things you talked about with teaching, but also so many other things like they may also be parents or grandparents, a spouse or community member. So put that all together. And it’s so much to juggle. So I’m glad that we now are able to offer a coach to our members in the club. But also I’m so excited to have you here on the podcast today. And you had a great idea for today’s episode, and we’ll dive even more on our club coaching call later this month, which I’m so excited about. So can you tell our listeners what we’re going to be talking about today?

19:30
Yes. And I am just so excited to be there in continuity for both ask a coach where teachers are going to be able to type in a question or problem or challenge 24 hours a day and we get back to them online and in the club, but also doing some live coaching and really helping people with that. But yes, today we are going to talk about grading. It’s such an important topic. And thank you so so so much Kelsey for bringing this to teachers, I think, at one time or another, every single teacher in the history of teaching, like I even think probably Socrates and Plato, they had to be in relationship with grading or evaluation of some kind. I know if you’re out there, my high school peeps, Socratic Method is all about questions, but you got to find a way to grade those questions. So this is a great topic. Thank you.

20:28
It’s so true. It’s such an important topic. And I’ve heard from our members that grading can be one of the biggest challenges, like you said, so do you have any wisdom for how teachers can deal with grading?

20:39
Yes, of course, you do. Get ready for the wisdom. I’m teasing. But no, I think there are some steps that teachers out there can take. And the very first thing I want you to know, if you’re listening in your car, or if you’re on the go in a prep period, just listening to us, if you don’t have a chance to apply this, I really want you to go back coaching really only works if you apply it and not just listen to it, that kind of passive learning model, but really get your hands dirty in this. So the first thing I want us to talk about is awareness. We’re going to talk about just being aware of what’s happening. And then we’re going to move on from there. But yes, as we know, just gaining awareness of our behavior is so important. I want every listener out there to think about your relationship with grading. And just even if you’ve never thought about this, about even being in relationship to grading to your evaluations, just think about papers. Do you have a paper stack that’s a mile high to space? Do you know, find the bottom of your stack? Get it in Canvas or Power School or whatever, you know, grading book? Maybe you have an OG physical grading book? Do you get that done? Do you put it off? Do you use your time at school to really tackle it while it’s fresh? Like kids just took a quiz, I grade the quiz, or does that linger and stay with you? And also do have a belief that you have to do it at home? I used to have that belief like it’s just too busy at school. I can’t even concentrate in my classroom. I have to do it at I mean, I was drama drama. My brain loves Tella Novella drama.

22:34
You don’t even realize those are thoughts. You think they’re true.

100%? Yes. Yeah. You think it’s the truth, right? Pre coaching. I just thought all this stuff in my brain was the truth. Did you have that Kelsey?

Absolutely. And this biggest eye opener with coaching. And even still you know, you never stop doing that either. It’s just the coaching you then build that awareness of oh, look, I’m doing that again.

22:57
Right, exactly. The fact that we are not our thoughts is incredible awareness right there. So that’s the first step. Let’s just get curious. And again, really get curious, not from a place of now judging yourself or evaluating yourself or grading yourself, right? Just want to get curious here like, huh, what do I do with grading? It’s neutral.

23:24
I agree with what you said. And just to add, it is so important. When you learn these coaching tools a lot of times the natural thing is to be like, Oh, no, I’m the one causing this. And you put so much judgment on yourself and beat yourself when you realize that. And it’s like, no, that’s not what this is about at all. Coaching is just a way for us to bring awareness but you never judge yourself. You always come from a place of curiosity rather than judgment.

23:49
Yeah, I love that. You said that, thank you. We never want our teachers out there to be listening to your podcast, Kelsey, and saying now Oh, I’m so messed up, you know, now I have an even bigger problem. That’s not what we’re doing here. Everything about coaching is an awareness tool. So the way I love to do this, too, is just really to think about my thoughts about grading is I’ll grab the back of an old quiz, something that’s in the recycling box, and I’ll just write them down. You know, I think, okay, what is my relationship to grading? And just, you know, see, see what’s in your brain? See what’s in there. Some of the thoughts could be things like, I don’t want to do it. Why do I have to do it? I know it’s a part of the job, but I just don’t want to do it. So without even knowing those thoughts are there, right? That’s gonna of course, have us put it off. I call it buffering, buffering it away. Delaying task, procrastinating, waiting until grades are due to do it all the night before. You know phoning the secretary madly at the end. Who’s ever done that? I have. I’m raising my hand on the podcast to say Can I just have one more day? I just need six more hours, can I just have an extension? Right? So sometimes it feels like self sabotage. But when you really just start looking, my belief is our brain is never trying to sabotage us. Our brain is always just trying to help us. But it’s interesting because sometimes it can feel like we’re working against ourselves. And just being aware of all this is the step first step to just understanding your behavior.

25:29
Absolutely. So it sounds like you know, that first step is awareness. So what would be the next step?

Yes. The second step is just having a conversation with yourself about why grading is so important. And this is a tool that I like to take my clients through. It’s an exercise called Finding Your Hard Why. What do you mean by finding your hard why?

Yeah, so let’s do it right now. Okay, if you don’t mind, just kind of playing with me here. Imagine yourself back in the classroom, Kelsey, and I want you to just think about why grading is important. What are some reasons that you could think of that grading is kind of necessary for your job as teacher?

Well, so we need to be able to, you know, track our students progress. So that’s one of the reasons why we grade things and you know, choose the most important items to grade.

26:21
Yeah, absolutely. So you just got it, it’s seeing our students progress, right. So figuring out like, okay, and sort of micro level of each student, but a macro level to have our classroom. like, okay, they’ve got this concept, but they don’t have that one. So I need to go back and reteach. So helps with our planning. Yeah, exactly. Grading helps us understand what lessons really landed for them. And were amazing, and what lessons didn’t. And we all know two different lesson plans will work with some sections, and not others. It’s like the amazing magic of our chemistry of the classroom. Grading is also really important to just help me see if there’s something going on with a student, if I have a, you know, an A student, for lack of a better word, a high achieving excelling student, who is just missing it just not present, spaced out has not done well on a few quizzes or tests, I’m going to start asking some questions about what’s going on for them. What is home like for them, did something just change. And sometimes grading for me is that first flag, that first little moment of awareness, where I’m like, Okay, what’s going on for my students? You know, we didn’t talk about parents yet. But it’s also really important to be able to use parents as allies to really sort of link them into their child’s development, their students work.

27:52
Absolutely, because teachers and parents, you know, they really are a team, like, both teachers and parents want what’s best for the kids. And, you know, as a parent, since I’m a parent too, you know, like grading helps me see where my child is like during the course of the year, like knowing what they still need help with, or even, not even just educationally. But seeing if my kids are learning just like lessons following through with turning the things in, they’re supposed to turn it.

28:18
I love that you said that, because grading is also such a good teaching tool to help them with time management, deadlines, accountability, self trust, self accountability. So we’ve talked about awareness. And we’ve talked about not judging the fact that you hate grading. Now, we’re starting to see the hard why of grading and you mentioned all those great ones. It’s kind of that way for all of the stakeholders to see all those different metrics on the student, we know that sometimes our admin, for better or for worse love their statistics, they love their data, they have to sometimes present it to their stakeholders, Head of School, or a district or even at the state or federal level. So getting to a true hard why of why grading is important, could be something that sounds like this. Grading is a tool to help me understand my students, or grading is essential to my teaching. It’s like part of that relationship that we have with our students.

29:22
Okay, I see that this way of thinking about grading is a great way to get perspective and to help the teachers brain understand their objective, you know, kind of just like the objectives on the board. Okay, so we have awareness and we have finding our hard why but what specifically can teachers do to help them have a better relationship with grading because yeah, we know why. And we know that we need to do it, but I have some friends so they would just wait and wait and wait to get it all done. So what specific advice do you have now to actually you know, yeah, they know the why, but how do they actually do it?

29:54
Yeah, actually do it is the theme of the day so again, as you said you want to get aware, that’s always the easiest way for me, the fastest way is to write down what’s in my brain around grading. You want to just let it go, if you’re having any judgments, I’m bad, or I’m not a good teacher, just not true to just normalize those thoughts. And then, you know, you really want to get to your hard why. So once we have our hard why the last part of this are four questions I want all teachers out there to ask yourself about grading. So don’t do it now, especially if you’re doing something active, but really come back to these questions. And I’m going to read them all and then I’d like to just go back and kind of explain what I mean. Okay, so the four questions I want everyone to ask themselves about grading, number one, what do I truly want when I think about my grading? Number two, why do I want to have this results? Number three, what will it cost me if I don’t achieve this result with my grading? And then number four, what do you have to believe like a sentence in your brain, Kelsey, to achieve this result with grading?

31:09
Well, those are some really good questions. Very thought provoking questions. So let’s unpack them a little bit more. Can you give some examples?

Yeah,great question. Okay, we’ve got our hard why. But now we actually have to sit down and do it. Like you said. The first question is, what do I truly want when I think about my grading? Like, what result do I want, and my results I’m going to put in there is no more grading on the weekends. I don’t want to even allow my brain to think that it’s going to grade on my sacred Saturday and my amazing Sunday.

That is a great point. Like you can do that we can not really on the weekends.

31:49
Well, I would just allow a sneaky thought come in on a Friday afternoon, like ope well, there’s my entire bucket for the weekend. Oh, I’m gonna maybe watch a show and grade at the same time up. I’m going to be spending all Saturday grading. So the first answer that question what do I truly want when I think about my grading, no grading on the weekends.

32:12
So then we go to that second question. Why do I want to have that results? Kelsey, why would you not want to grade on the weekends? I’m just curious.

I mean, I think kind of like I say a lot of times, it’s we love teaching, but we don’t want to spend all of our time doing it. We have so many other things that we want to do like for me, I want to read whatever book I’m reading or listen to podcasts that’s completely, you know, not related to work. So I just think it’s making time for those hobbies and making time for our families. Yes, people like those meaningful relationships outside of teaching.

32:48
Yeah. So you’re, you’re number two of why do I want to have this result of no grading on the weekends is perfect here, right? Because you want to spend time with family, you want to spend time with your little one, you want to spend time with friends, you also want to improve that relationship with yourself. Yeah, I too, do not want to great on the weekend because I love nature, I love being in my beautiful mountains. I love powder skiing. I love hiking. So I want to improve and increase, you know, fill my cup up on the weekends, so that I have more to give at school, I’m full by the time Monday comes.

33:27
And I feel like you know, if you have little ones at home, like for me, I’ve got three little ones. Like you know, spending that really quality time with your family and finding that time for yourself is like already finding time for both of those things is, you know, quite a bit. So let’s not add grading on top of that on the weekend, you know.

33:43
Yes, that’s a great point. So then question number three, what will it cost me if I don’t achieve this result? So for me, what will it cost me, if I don’t get my grading done during the week and I have to grade on the weekends? Well, the cost is going to be I mean less time with family and friends, as we discussed, so there’s less closeness with them let you know less time to really be with them. Our families understand as teachers, we kind of have a school self and our summer self. I remember a lot of my friends saying, Okay, well, I’ll see you after June to pick up our friendship. And I just really decided for myself, especially after coaching, I wasn’t going to be that kind of teacher. I wanted to be more even keeled all the way throughout the year and not just school, school school. So the cost is huge. The cost is relationships, relationship with yourself and just not really feeling like you get to do what you want to do. So there’s that kind of, you know, powerlessness we talked about not really feeling like you’re in the driver’s seat of your life.

34:48
Absolutely. And now is that final question. Yes. Final question.

34:53
So, the last one is just what do you have to believe to achieve this result with grading and I really like to simplify that question with what is one sentence in my brain that I know I have to believe, to have no grading on the weekends. And the sentence that I love. I mean, just around time during the week for grading could be something like, I have enough time. I use all of my free planning periods to grade and focused at school. And I just get my grading done. No negotiation. It’s not like a rigid mean, beat yourself up. But it’s just like, my thought they actually helps me stay here is I just won’t grade on the weekend, no matter what.

35:39
I love that no matter what. Yeah. Okay, so let’s go through those steps again. So, first awareness, we’re seeing what we’re doing or not around greeting. And we’re giving forgiveness to ourselves. Like we’re looking at this with curiosity and grace, we’re not beating ourselves up. That’s right. And then we’re getting some perspective by being able to see the value of grading, and why it’s important in the educational process. And finally, those four questions that you shared with me, which I just think are so amazing, so I want to read them one more time. So what result do I want when it comes to grading? Why do I want this result? What is the cost if I don’t obtain this result of grading? And what sentence in my brain do I have to practice to get this result?

36:22
Yeah, you got it. And I love that you said like, what sentence do I have to practice? We all know, as educators, this is about application, our brains love the familiar, our brains love to go back to old tapes of thinking, we’ve got up to 80,000 thoughts a day of those 80,000, it’s been proven that at least 60% are negative. And the thing is, we get to choose the thoughts in our brain, like we get to choose our lesson plans and what we’re going to put on in the morning. So choose those thoughts really well, but practice them, it’s not enough just to think this work, you’ve actually got to do it. So it actually means sitting down, even if you’ve got two seconds left in your planning period and writing down the answers to those questions. And then just practicing that sentence, I’m going to practice it by writing it at the top of my paper, maybe if I’m the first one in my classroom, another strategy is writing it on my whiteboard. So I’m the first one to see it. And I can erase it before the kids come in, of course, but just like, I’m not going to grade on the weekends, no matter what, period.

37:32
And remember, if you are driving or on the go, make sure to come back to this episode and write down those questions and your answers. Because when you apply this in your life, it’s going to be absolutely magical.

37:44
Yeah. And, of course, when you first start applying this step, it might feel a little wonky. I feel a little strange. That is 100% normal. You know, we we never look at our kindergarteners and say, Oh, I just don’t know if they’re ever going to be able to make that cursive B. No, of course they will, right. They just need practice. So really come to all of this with a kindergarteners mind with curiosity, and really just with learning and come to ask a coach, you know, club members and really put in whatever you’re struggling with. It doesn’t have to be about grading. You know, I work with clients all the time. Just about I give so much to my kids at school, how can I give to my biological kids at home. And just I help with all of that how do not yell at your kids in the back of the car, how to get it all done, how to just feel free, you know, a little bit better at work.

38:39
And for those of you who are members of Wife Teacher Mommy Club, or if you’re not, you can always join and get access to Chrissy in our ask a coach and our live coaching calls that are going to be starting this month. Ask a coach is already going. So if you join you can start typing in whatever questions you have right now.

That’s right. And Kelsey has done the stalking for you everybody. So you don’t have to yet already done the hard work. But I’m here. It’s never been a better time to find me and get coached up.

And also don’t forget Chrissy I don’t know if I even told you this. We are giving away an entire year of the club to one listener who leaves a review on the podcast. No way. That’s amazing. So that goes through April 1. So I mean, if you love this episode, if you’re still listening at this point, that means this resonated with you.

39:29
That is a true story. Leave a review people save some money,

39:35
Yes, somebody will get an entire year of access that’s worth $299. But if you join us before April 3, we’re actually doing a sale one last time now that we’ve added the coaching to the membership we aren’t going to be discounted anymore, but we wanted to give everybody one less time to get a discount on their club membership. So if you want more information on joining go to wifeteachermommy.com/club April 3 will be last day for that, so you can enter now. And then if you don’t win, you can join or if you join and you win, we’ll refund you if you know you want. If you have questions for Chrissy right now just join them leave a review and then we’ll refund you if you are chosen as the winner. I mean, just join. Yeah, just join because you want to be there no matter what. And just make sure when you leave that review, sometimes the names like on Apple podcasts like you can’t tell who it is. So to get your entry to count, make sure you either email it to hello@wifeteachermommy.com or DM it to us on Instagram @wifeteachermommy. And if you don’t listen on Apple, you can just write your review right in your email, or write in your DM and we’ll get you entered that way. Okay, so enough about me and the club. I could talk about it all day long. Where can people find you?

40:48
Oh, thank you, Kelsey. Yes, you can come to my website. My business is called The Chrissy Concept. I named my business that way so that I give you know teachers teaching concepts, and I want it to then become the Kelsey concept or the Sarah concept or the Matt concept. But my website is www.thechrissyconcept.com They can also just go to Instagram. My Instagram is @the.chrissyconcept. Facebook is also The Chrissy Concept. And the really exciting thing is I’ve got some really cool things happening this spring. Oh, can’t wait, what can we expect this spring from you? Okay, so teaser right here, just for those listening, I’ve got a podcast, my own coming out in May, which is exciting. May is going to be big month. But also in May, I’m going to be launching a pilot group for men in education. You can be a teacher, you can be an administrator. But it’s going to be a very small pilot, coaching group, very intimate. With men from all different schools, I’m really going to mix everyone up. So we can just talk about all things education for men, I think it’s so important right now, and we need so many male teachers, we need all teachers, but we really need our men, on our teams and in our schools. I think it’s just such a beautiful way to balance out our education.

42:20
We really do. And they’re so important. And I love this idea for creating a community and a group just for men in education. How did you come up with that?

You know, I just my own clients, I started to just see men coming to coaching and saying, You know what, I’m dealing with this as a principal, or I’m dealing with this as a school counselor, English teacher, even professors, I coach academics, and they’re dealing with, if you can believe it, similar things isolation, I think women, we tend to really find these spaces to connect and nurture each other, and to talk verbally process. But for our guys out there, you know, our society is hard on men. And we ask a lot of them, we ask a lot of our women too. But I just think there’s a need. And I’m responding to that need to just have men learn from each other, get some tips, understand the model, what they’re doing, what they’re not doing, and again, feel a little bit better. Sometimes we’re especially post pandemic, I’m finding losing men to graduate school, or a new industry, whether it’s pressure from family to say, when you’re going to get a real job, right. So that speaks to some of the the sexism and patriarchy that’s prevalent. So I just think, before you make a 40 or 50k mistake or choice, I will say to go to law school or get your MBA, if that’s your jam, go for it. But before you leave education, let’s talk first and just make sure that’s really serving you make sure that that’s what you really want to do. And a lot of my my clients do want to stay in education as men, they just want to do it in a way that feels a little bit easier. So that’s what we’re going to work on in May for men, men in May.

I love that. That is so amazing. I can’t wait to hear more about it. What I’m going to do is I’m going to put all these links to your website, Instagram and Facebook in the show notes so people can find you and follow you. And then when these new things come out your podcast and May for men, they’ll already be following you and they can hear all about that.

44:29
Also, I’ll just say the best way to when you go to my website www.thechrissyconcept.com that’s all one word, opt in for my newsletter. It’s called Teacher Talk, and that’s where I just give my best stuff free stuff. My jam right now is just giving so much free content. Let’s just love on our teachers you have been giving so much out there for so long. My teacher peeps we all have I’m still in the classroom, currently, and we just really need to give so much back to you. So yes, Teacher Talk is a brilliant newsletter. And that’s a great way to stay connected.

45:11
Okay, my listeners, Chrissy and I, we are here to support you. And stay tuned. We’ve got so many more great podcast episodes coming. I’m sure Chrissy will be on again sometime soon to since we have this ongoing collaboration with Wife Teacher Mommy Club that we are both so excited about.

Thank you so much, Kelsey. It’s just been an honor to be here.