One picture speaks a thousand words. In the heat of the moment feelings of extreme intense physical, mental and emotional agitation, frustration and moodiness as if I was losing control would trigger my next response. My school environment felt like a war zone and like a competent solider on the battlefield, navigating daily high negative energy and life's stressors, at some point I felt devalued, and abandoned by my own sense of good judgement. In that moment, I concluded that I was unwilling to spend or sacrifice another drop of my emotional energy given the unsatisfactory teaching and learning conditions of my classroom. Instead, I made abrupt, immediate and drastic changes to protect what was left of my sense of professionalism and my person. But for the grace of God, it could have been me instead of my friend, who self-reported that she suddenly slapped a student in front of the entire class. I heard about it on the local news because she was hand cuffed, arrested and taken off campus in the back of a police car like a common criminal. But was she?

Teachers if you are going to thrive as a high performing career educator you must change. Identify your classroom stressors and work to eliminate them within yourself. Identify and problem solve a proper defense against your own personal triggers. Practice emotional mindfulness and prepare to deescalate yourself first before you do or say anything else. Anchor self-expectations by spending some emotional energy on yourself before you go to work. Make use of props to check your emotional temperature like snaping a rubber band around your wrist. Use instrumental music to establish a fixed mental focus point above the noise of the classroom. Establish and implement self-respecting parameters and stick to them no matter what happens. Simplify as many duties as possible with automaticity. Spend the time to train your students about classroom rules for teaching purposes only like Roberts rules of order. Your classroom belongs to the students and administrators so design it to work that way. Retain your voice for the execution of your profession in other words, talk to teach your curriculum and nothing else. Remember you are a teacher not a glorified babysitter, nor a physical, mental or emotional punching bag for students, parents. coworkers, administrators or yourself. By learning and implementing these proactive pieces of advice you will find your way and begin to restore a sense of dignity to the profession that you love so much. Teaching!