How to Love Teaching with Jamie Sears 

How to love teaching when you’re feeling burned out, stressed, overwhelmed, and underappreciated can be challenging.  Many of us start our careers bright-eyed with the possibilities, but the weight of the lack of resources, behaviors, and unrealistic expectations can quickly extinguish the love and joy of being in the classroom.  But what if - even though you’re struggling with teacher burnout - you know that your place is in the classroom? What if you find yourself wondering and searching for how to love teaching again? 

I’m so excited to share my interview with Jamie Sears of the Not So Wimpy Teacher and Not So Wimpy Entrepreneur! She is a podcaster that I have listened to on and off for years!

Jamie is a former third-grade teacher and the creator of Not So Wimpy Teacher and she has an education blog with half a million community members! She is so extremely helpful and her work is centered around letting teachers everywhere know that if they're struggling, it's not because they're ineffective in their role or meant to do something else. Jamie will soon be releasing her book How to Love Teaching Again: Work Smarter, Beat Burnout, and Watch Your Students Thrive which releases on April 4, 2023. Naturally, I was drawn to this book because I think that it would be an amazing companion read to my book Hacking Teacher Burnout. 

In this interview, you'll learn that she was a teacher for several years and, due to health reasons, she had to leave the classroom. But you're going to hear her tell the story of how she saved herself from burning out of teaching and quitting by creating her own resources to keep things super simple in her third-grade classroom which led to a booming business on Teachers Pay Teachers. Now, this episode is not about how to create a TPT store or how to sell products online. This is all about her journey as a former substitute teacher, while she was lobbying in Washington, DC, and how all of these things came together to ignite her passion to become a teacher in the first place. She's going to share her story of burnout, how she became a Burned-In Teacher, and what it is that she does now and will continue to do to help teachers from around the world. 

Without further ado, I want to introduce you to Jamie Sears. Let’s dive in!

Amber: Hi, Jamie, thank you so much for joining us on the Burned-In Teacher Podcast today. 

Jamie: Thanks, Amber. It's really a pleasure to be here.

Amber: It is so nice to meet you in person! Before I have you introduce yourself, I just want to let my audience know that I’m an avid listener of your podcasts. Your podcasts have helped me both as a teacher and a teacher-entrepreneur. So first of all, thank you so much for letting me fan girl a little bit because I've learned so much from you.

Jamie: Well, thank you, I am so glad. With all the hard work we do to create the content, it always feels good to know that it helped somebody out there and that we weren't talking to ourselves.

Amber: Yes, absolutely. 

Now that I got that out of the way, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jamie:  I became a teacher as a second career. When I started teaching, I was teaching third grade after substituting for quite a while, I did not have any resources in my classroom. The Common Core was just introduced and my district didn't want to put any money into the curriculum until there was something better created. So while they were waiting it out,  I turned to TPT for my resources just to teach. 

As a first-year teacher, that was really overwhelming, and I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to afford all the resources my students needed, but I thought if I could sell a couple of resources, I can make a little bit of money to buy more resources for my students. And so I started Not So Wimpy Teacher and it just took off from there.  As they say “the rest is history”.

We create and sell resources for teachers in grades second through fifth, but we also create professional development and I’m excited to have published a book this year, How to Love Teaching Again,  because this was something I was passionate about, and I feel honored that I got the time and the space to be able to finally make a bucket list dream come true.

Amber: We are so so excited to hear about the book. I in particular, because I've also written a book about burnout, and I think these two will be perfect side-by-side summer reads because we talk about burnout in different capacities.

But before we get into your book, can you tell us about how long you taught? Did you only teach third grade? And then how long did you end up teaching? 

Jamie: So I did substitute teaching for 10 years. And then I moved into long-term subbing towards the end of my substitute career where I would long-term in second grade exclusively, and I loved it. 

After doing that for a while, I came to this decision, I was going to teach second grade, and I asked the principal for that position and she said, I'm going to give you a third. At first, I was like, No because I was so passionate about teaching second grade. But once I started teaching third grade, I loved it, I love that age group.  For the most part, they can read and you get to introduce fun new books and authors to them. And they still love school and crayons; they're super excited about school yet. So it's just the perfect age group for me. I came a long way because, in the early days, I did not want to be a teacher at all, it's just something where it just grew on me. 

So I taught third grade for four years until my physical health made it challenging for me, and it got to the point where it was really hard for me to leave, honestly, because I was at my best when I left. And maybe you know, maybe that's a good thing because I left well and I still have really positive memories of what I was doing in the classroom instead of leaving angry and burnt out and frustrated. I was sad to leave because I was finally getting my classroom systems in place, but I have epilepsy and I was starting to have a lot of seizures in class. It felt unfair to my students at this point, and I was unable to drive. So I had to make a really difficult decision that ended up being so positive because it gave me so much time and space to continue to make resources that save other teachers tons of time. And generally speaking, if I can save them time, then maybe they can cut back on the number of hours they're working and avoid some of that burnout. I feel so privileged to get to do what I do, even though it wasn't the plan in the beginning.

Amber: I did not know that was the reason that you left the classroom. But wow, what a gift that you're able to give teachers as a teacher who lacked her own resources but saw an opportunity to not only help yourself and your students but to help other teachers as well. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Jamie: Absolutely. I love to be open about what experience I have and don't have because there are so many teachers in my audience who taught for a really long time, and then there's a bunch of first-year teachers too. It's important that we learn from each other's strengths so we can help improve the areas that are weak. The reality is, every single teacher has strengths. And for me, it was always systems and making things simple. That's just a strength of mine since I was young, and I took that into the classroom and so many teachers were coming to me asking, What are you doing here? That's when I realized there was a need.

Amber: I love that. I feel like we're sisters from another mister because I am the same way. I love simplifying and love creating systems. I'm totally a systems and logistics girl and I think that's one reason that I love teaching kindergarten so much and have continued to love teaching is that I'm able to simplify, see the most important things, and create systems for those things. 

I don't know if you know this about me, but I taught second and third grade. I taught second grade for two years, and third grade for three years, and I share your love for third grade. I loved third grade. So I thank you for sharing that!

Jamie: I feel, when they get to fourth grade and I would see them in the hallways, they would almost snub me off like, We're too cool to talk to you. There is just something about a third grade where they weren't “too cool” yet and it’s just so much fun. In my book, I talk about how it was the only time where you'd get asked, Hey, what's your third favorite Reindeer? I just love that they make you laugh every single day, and that's why I wanted to be a teacher because I really liked spending my days with kids. 

Amber:  You said that teaching wasn't your first career. Was substitute teaching your first career? What did you do before that?

Jamie: I started substituting in college, and I kept doing it as a part-time side gig and just took little pieces of time off. I actually went into politics, and I was a lobbyist for the Arizona State Supreme Court, which is what I thought I really wanted to do with my life until I started doing it. I realized that working with adults is not that much fun and that I actually enjoyed my days with the kids more. 

So I went back to school to get my teaching certificate to focus completely on education. But I do think that my experience working as a lobbyist, my experience with politics, has helped me because it gave me another lens to view things because the problem is the system, right? The educational system needs to be changed: the testing, the pay, the funding, and the class size. These are things that we have to use our vote in order to change, but the teachers in our audience can't wait for that difference to be made, so the strategies we provide help them to make tomorrow better. But I am 100% committed to using my voice my vote and my platform to help ignite bigger change because teachers are desperately in need.

Amber: Yes, 100%!  You're speaking my language! We don't have time to waste waiting for somebody to come in and save us because who knows how long it will be, right? We have to save ourselves.

Jamie: Absolutely. As a teacher who really wants to be a teacher, I want to help teachers figure out how not just to stay at school, but to stay at school and love it. 

Amber:  This is a perfect segue, but before we start to talk about your book, can you tell us about feelings of burnout during your four years of teaching or even when you were you were substitute teaching? This is the Burned-In Teacher Podcast, and we love to share stories of burnout and how we came out on the other end even stronger. What did your burnout look like and feel like for you?

Jamie: I nearly burned out my first year, and I see this happening a lot in my audience with first-year teachers too. During my first year of teaching, I had four kids at home and I really went into teaching scared because I had someone tell me that I couldn’t be a good teacher and a good mom at the same time. So I went into teaching fearful because I didn’t want to suck at either. I'm passionate about being a teacher, but I am a mom and I love my children. 

As I mentioned, I started the year with no resources and I got my job right before school started. I was working there at night, every weekend, and over every holiday break.  I even took lesson planning and grading with me on a family vacation. I was working myself up to a breaking point, and I remember just sitting at my kitchen table in tears and my husband telling me that I needed to call someone at school and figure out what was going on because he didn’t know how to support me because it had gotten to be so bad. I even reached out to my principal and at one point she said, If you want me to, I will go ahead and nullify your contract if that's truly what you want. There was a time when I really considered leaving and that I was not cut out for this as a substitute. It was hard as a substitute, but resources were given to me and I got to leave the classroom at the end of the day and not really worry about the classroom at night. And I realized as a full-time teacher, that's not what was happening. I had no resources, and I worried about my students, my lessons, and everything all the time. I quickly realized what I was doing wasn't sustainable.  I'm so glad I realized it as fast as I did because I think a lot of teachers start to have those feelings of burnout and they just keep sucked in deeper and deeper. I realized my burnout pretty quickly and I was stuck between leaving or staying and losing myself, neither of which were good options.  That's when I started to ask myself, How can I make this easier? And I realized, I've always had great skills at simplifying things, so I just needed to lean into what I already know how to do well. 

In my second year of teaching, I made huge adjustments and teaching got so much better.  Teaching will never be easy, teaching is so hard, right? Other than being a parent, it’s the hardest job out there, but there are things that can make the day a little less chaotic. There are things that can cut back on the workload. Honestly, there were a lot of things that were happening in my brain telling me whether or not I'm good enough, and that was a lot of pressure. 

I nearly gave up after one year and we actually see teachers generally leaving between years one and three, that's extremely common. And these are great teachers who wanted to be a teacher since they were five and would have been sensational if they found some tools/strategies or if the educational system had not been failing them.

Amber: So true. The type of burnout that it sounds like you, Jamie, was experiencing was Burned and Unbalanced - working all hours of the day and night, all weekend, etc... As for my story, my burnout story started my first year of teaching too, but not because of being Burned and Unbalanced, I was Burned and Over-It - I was really burned out by the negativity and the toxicity of the team that I was placed with those first two years of teaching. It was miserable. I can totally relate to that feeling like you were being thrown to the wolves and figuring out how to navigate all of it.  It was very difficult.  

Jamie: Yeah, I talk about it in my book, I called them the “Negative Nellies”. And even if they're not your team - which I hope they're not -  the Negative Nellies are out there in education. They might be the teacher across the hall from you or it might be an administrator, but there are so many Negative Nellies that can bring you down. 

I also never felt good enough. I had these super high expectations for myself and I would tell myself that, because I was a new teacher I wasn’t doing things right or that everyone else knew how to do things better than me.  And I was scared to ask for help because I didn't want them to know that I was drowning. I thought they'll think I was a terrible teacher. And when I found out later that they're all struggling in their own ways, even teachers who've been there a long time, it was a little bit comforting but at the same time a little terrifying because things weren’t going to get better.  

Amber: Exactly. So you have to make it better for yourself, right?

So how long have you been doing Not So Wimpy Teacher and Not So Wimpy Entrepreneur?

Jamie: We just celebrated our 10-year anniversary actually! It flew by so fast because we've been so busy, and really from most of it, it was just me like barely treading water trying to create the resources I needed for my classroom the next day. I would be staying up late into the night creating resources, but so many of the resources I created I never had time to add teacher directions or password-protect them so they weren’t violating copyright, and I couldn't put them in my store.  Then later, when I did leave teaching, I was like, You know what? My heart is so dedicated to education so now I'm going to switch my focus to what can I do to make other teachers' days a little easier, and lives a little easier by saving them a little bit of time. 

So, I went back and started really working on what resources would save someone time. And that's huge. We're always looking for what's simple, and that's really been what our brand is about. How can we simplify something? What subject are teachers really struggling with? How can we simplify that subject? What's a time of year that's really hard for teachers?  Simplifying things for teachers has been a huge part of our brand, but we always knew that teachers needed support because they were always asking us for help and for more, and I knew in my heart of hearts, I had to write a book.

So I started writing it during the pandemic, so it's been a two-and-a-half-year project. Finally, the book is available! And I think that it just feels like a little bit of a whole that was always missing.

Amber: So the book is about how teachers can love teaching again. Can you give us some insight into what teachers will learn when they get this book? 

Jamie: I wanted the book to be really practical. I wanted teachers to be able to read a chapter of this book and take that strategy to their classroom the next day because I know time is of the essence right now.

In the first chapter, I get into what it means to be a “good teacher” because, usually, teachers haven't actually thought about or decided that for themselves, they let other people tell them what it means to be a “good teacher”. We listen to society, or maybe even our administration, and to them, being a “good teacher” means working long hours, getting high test scores, having a Pinterest-worthy classroom, and having all these fancy activities every day. The “good teacher” is always working because she does it “for the kids”. 

I wanted to challenge teachers to write their own definitions of what success is. I also challenge them to work fewer hours because I'm noticing loving teaching works hand in hand with having a life outside of work. Whether it means spending time with family, hobbies, church organizations you care about or just sitting on the couch watching Netflix, if that's what brings you joy, it allows you the opportunity to come back the next day rested and happy, and healthy.

In the book, we dig into strategies to save you time, work fewer hours, set and feel good about boundaries, and even just how to make your day in the classroom a little bit less chaotic, because when you go home, I don't want you to be so exhausted that you can't enjoy your life. It’s about simplifying some things because it's teaching will always be hard, but it’s important to think about what things can we simplify and just make a tad easier that will make a big difference for teachers.

Amber: I am so excited about this book! I love that in the first chapter, you - again speaking my language - are about tackling our beliefs. We have to tackle our mindset because nothing is going to change unless we change that first.

Jamie: I love that you say that. I don't like things to be too “fu-fu”. When I’m reading a book or at a conference and someone says, We're going to talk about the definition of success, I tune out, but I've come to realize that as long as we think being perfect is what it means to be a “good teacher”, as long as we think being a “good teacher” is working all the time, then it doesn't matter what strategy I'd give, you're always going to feel like it's not enough. It's when you decide what success looks like to you that you, for example for me it means helping students find a love for learning, then every day, you can measure/assign value to what you were able to get that day.  For example, you can ask yourself, What did I do to help even one of my students fall in love with learning? Then, you can put a checkmark on it and feel successful. But if your goals are all my students pass this test or I work 60 hours per week, you're always going to be unhappy.  It's going to be difficult to find the love for your career if you're basing it on things you don't have any control over.

Amber: Yes!  Absolutely!

If you could pick your favorite chapter  (I love asking you this question because so many people have asked me that about my book) or your favorite topic that you tackle in this book, what would it be? 

Jamie: Chapter Four for me is my bread and butter. Chapter Four is about tips and strategies for making your classroom less chaotic during the day. I love this chapter because it is so actionable, I put so many tips and strategies that became the longest chapter!

I am a very practical person, so I want to share things that aren’t too full of fluff.  I think about how to make things happen, like how are we going to make sharpening pencils easier? How are we going to take bathroom breaks easier? How do we make centers easier (they can be so exhausting)? How do we make differentiation easier? These are all things that can weigh on our shoulders or make our day a little bit more stressful. 

One of my favorite strategies is just it's so simple, but it really changed things - it's falling in love with your least favorite subject. If you have a subject that you don't care to teach, you might even just hate teaching it, then it's hard to enjoy your day because you have to teach that subject every single day, I just hope it's not the only subject you teach! But for me, I taught every subject and I love to teach math, which was kind of crazy because I wasn't good at math as a kid.

I think I love teaching math partially because there's always a right answer, and I love the way kids are being taught now - it speaks to me because it was easy to make engaging. So my math instruction was going really well. Now I love to write, so I always thought I’d be the best writing teacher because I love to write, but this was not the case. I found that just because I love to write does not mean I am good at teaching someone to write. And so I quickly started to despise writing, and I would purposely take longer with reading groups and math groups might be like, Oh, no, we ran out of time for writing. Tomorrow. We'll do it tomorrow, guys. I feel terrible about it, but as I talked to my audience, they're all like we do the same thing. 

So I started to ask myself this question - and I really encourage your listeners to do the same - What am in the subject that I love to teach that makes it work? This is no time to be humble. Get out a notebook and write down what you are doing that makes it so great. I did this for myself; I wrote down what's going well in math and I realized that I teach in units of study, I’m not just teaching a fraction for less than one week and not talking about it for three or four months.  Instead, we teach fractions until we feel comfortable with them and then we move on.   I also realized that I taught in small groups and this structure helped me differentiate for learners.  I also used centers for math and provided choices, and the list kept going. 

Then I said, What of these things can I bring over to writing?  Remember, writing wasn’t going so well, so I needed something.  Now not all of these transfer over. We don't have writing centers in my classroom - there's no time for that. I also wanted students to be writing most of the time and there are so many skills that carry over, so I realized that I should teach in units of study instead of doing weekly writing topics.  I decided that we were going to stud a writing concept until students feel competent. Also, for me, small groups work really well in reading and math, I asked myself, Why the heck am I not using them in writing? And as soon as I made these changes, my writing instruction improved and I just felt better because I was now teaching writing the way I love to teach math. I'm already having more fun. And then I see my students start to have more fun and then their writing gets better. 

What I learned was that when I take what I'm doing well in one area and implement it in another area, I’m going to see growth. It's simple to schedule 30 minutes to sit and brainstorm what's going well in one area and how to carry it over to another. You have to have the guts to try a few new things because if you don’t, there’s always going to be that portion of the day that you’re dreading and disliking. I knew that If I want to love teaching every single day, I can't have like a part of my day doing something I dread.

Amber: Absolutely. I think taking ownership is important.  If you’re saying, I dread teaching math, what can I do about it that’s within my control to love it? No one is going to find a magical PD that’s going to make you love that subject area. I had to go and find those answers myself, and really, every teacher is so different. What might be inspiring to one teacher isn't to another and that's okay. It takes a village and takes all kinds. But we have to be willing to go out there and find those answers for ourselves.1

Jamie: I wish that I had a magic button for teachers, because they don’t have a lot of time to go out there and find the answer, but I'm hopeful that the simple solutions are really close to you already. This book is all about finding things that you already have within you.  It’s about making quick, simple adjustments, that might make something easier for you in the classroom and save you some time along the way.

As long as you dislike teaching a subject, it's going to be really hard to lesson plan activities for that subject because you don't feel as competent. Amber, when you go to teach reading and writing, you probably feel very confident about what your students need and what comes next, but when it comes to teaching math you might feel a little less confident because it's not the subject that you feel strong in. And it's okay to have a favorite subject, but you don't want to go on dreading a subject because it takes the love out of teaching. You're going to have to teach it every day, and if every day you dread it, then it's hard to have fun in class and your students will sense it as well. A

Amber: I was just going to say that! Your attitude affects student achievement. Having a teacher who's burned out is going to affect student success. It really does. I have so much to say about that, but I want to focus on you. 

Is there anything else about this book that you'd like to share with the listeners today?

Jamie:  We talk a lot in the book about saving time. And something that I wish someone had taught me earlier in life is how to better plan my time and ditch the to-do list. 

We all have a to-do list. I used to keep a sticky note on my lesson plan binder and just keep adding stuff all day long and by the end of the day, I'd have this huge list. And when it came time for my planning time, whether it was a prep period or after school or before school, I’d take a look at my to-do list and have no idea where to start because it was so overwhelming. And I always felt unproductive because there was no way I could get everything done. If I was only able to complete 3 of the 15 things, the fact that I didn’t cross everything off the list would signal and tell my brain, You failed.  You did not do a good job. You didn't get it done and you're never gonna get it done. It's hard to sleep at night and feel good about your job when your head is telling you stories like that. 

A big change that I made, and I still use this in my home and my professional life now and it makes a huge difference, is scheduling when I'm going to finish something. NOT when I will work on something but finish something. Every Sunday, I lay out my planner, and I break down the tasks into micro tasks and assign a spot on my calendar for that microtask. For instance, maybe I have writing samples to grade, if I write: Work on grading writing samples, you don't know when to feel good about it. So, your head is going to tell you that can't feel good about this until you write you finish every single one of these writing samples.  But that can be a lengthy task, and I don't always have a big enough chunk of time to get through them all at once.  Therefore, I'm probably going to have to come back to it a few times, which causes my brain to want to tell me that I’m not getting anything done, which is a crazy story!

Instead, I break that task into microtasks.  For example, if I have 24 writing samples to grade, I’ll decide to grade six of them from 3:00 to 3:45. Now I can celebrate and feel productive when six of them are graded even though I still have more to grade because according to our brain, we just completed a task.  This actually provides momentum for the next task on your calendar.If the time slot is not large enough to finish the task, break the task down into even smaller tasks, and that's okay. 

Just writing in my calendar “work on work” never works out for me, but I still sometimes I'll find myself going to write on the calendar “work on this slide deck” and I’ll have to tell myself, No, and instead write “create 10 slides”. When I do that, my brain knows exactly when it gets to celebrate.  If I make 11 or 12 slides during that time slot, I'm going to feel like a superhero and my brain will get it’s hit with dopamine, which causes me to feel good and will motivate me to continue to work through the rest of your calendar. 

Amber: I love that! Reframing and rephrasing a lot of the things that we say can make a huge difference.  My friend, Molly, and I, both listen to you, and that is one big thing that we've taken away from one of your episodes is saying “I'm going to finish it” doesn't mean finish the entire task or the entire project, but finish a part of it.  So thank you so much for sharing that with us. That's such a great takeaway.

Jamie:  And it works for your entire life. If you have two hours to do chores around your house, then go ahead and write out exactly when you're going to work on what instead of taking this huge list.

Amber: Or not having a list at all! Talk about having squirrel syndrome and bouncing around from task to task to task! I remember when I was a younger teacher, I would come in happily on a Saturday morning or Sunday morning, at the time we lived not even 10 minutes away from the school, and I'd say I'm going to go “get some stuff” done. Do you what that turned into? I’d end up doing something unproductive like rearranging my classroom library and I would be worse off than when I showed up in the morning. Honestly, it would have done me better to not be there at all! So not being intentional and disciplined with what it is that I was actually going to do while I was there was problematic. 

Jamie: And your brain probably told you before you went in and this was really good and you were going to be so productive, but then when you went home, you probably felt like you wasted your time.  And why even bother to go in at all when you go home feeling even less productive than when you left? 

If you want to go on and on Saturday because it’s quiet and you’re being intentional about your time and someone isn’t telling you that you have to, I’m all for it. Work when you want to work but be intentional.  You don't have to work weekends, but some people like that peace and quiet, or they want to rush home on weekdays because they have softball games, dinner, and all the things. But if you decide to go in on a Saturday, and you've got two hours, make a plan. For example, decide at 8:30 you’re going to finish grading math assessments, that at 9:00 you’ll answer emails that piled up, and at 9:30 you’ll change out your bulletin board.  Whatever it is, be rigid and set timers, and when time is up, you move on to the next task. 

You can train your brain, but it needs a timeframe.  Sticking with a time frame is important so you don’t find yourself scrolling through Instagram, because you know you only have so much time to get something done. And you feel so good when you get something done that you’ll be really excited to tackle the next task because the brain loves that feeling of completion.

Amber: I cannot wait for this book to come out. Can you help us to know what date we need to get on the calendar so we can get this book in our hands as soon as possible?

Jamie: You can preorder anytime from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Target.com. But the book will officially launch on April 4, 2023.

Amber: That’s perfect. This is the perfect time of year to build our summer reading list. I'm so excited for teachers to get their hands on this book.

Jamie: Thank you. We tried to make it super fun. Actually, my publisher kept kind of trying to make it like sound more like a textbook and I was like that's exactly what I don't want it to be. We do not need another textbook. I want it to be fun. The book is peppered with stories that help you remember the different strategies but also just get a good laugh because that's good for you too. 

I hope that teachers will be able to read right through the book. But even if they don't have time for that, you can pick and choose a chapter that fits with something you want to work on right now. Either way, you’ll learn new strategies that you can take with you and apply tomorrow. 

Amber: I love it! So Jamie, where can people find you if they want to learn more about you before this book comes out?

Jamie: You can find me at www.notsowimpyteacher.com  and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram also under @notsowimpyteacher.

Amber: Jamie, thank you so much for coming on to the Burned-In Teacher Podcast and gracing us with your knowledge and wisdom, and sharing your story. We really appreciate it.

Call to Action: Things You Can Do Tomorrow

1. Ditch the to-do list! Instead of writing what you’ll be working on, write down what/when you’ll finish the task. 
2. Decide to love your least favorite subject. Start by brain-dumping a list of what makes your favorite subject so great.  Then, review the list and see if there are things you can apply to the other subject. 
3. Be open to new ideas and possibilities.  Ask for help, inquire about resources, and find others to reach out to.  The solution is sometimes closer than you think. 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Order a copy of Jamie’s book: How to Love Teaching Again 
• Check out Jamie’s TpT Store
• Check out Jamie’s Podcast: Not So Wimpy Teacher Podcast

Find our Guest 

• Website: www.notsowimpyteacher.com 
• Instagram: @notsowimpyteacher
• Facebook: @notsowimpyteacher
• Also, check out her resources at www.notsowimpyentrepreneur.com 

Guest Bio

Jamie Sears is a fun-loving mom, wife, entrepreneur, and forever teacher at heart. She is also the author of How to Love Teaching Again. After several years in the classroom, her passion to make teaching fun and effective for students and teachers alike inspired her to start Not So Wimpy Teacher. Now she has the honor of serving hundreds of thousands of teachers around the world by providing easy-to-use, hands-on resources, and engaging professional development that help students to love learning and teachers to love teaching.