Ep. 235: Diane Manser — How to Make Peace with the Joys and Pains of Being a Teacher

Think Act Be Podcast

My guest this week is Diane Manser, a long-time high school teacher with an important message that she shares in her recent book, I Didn’t Sign Up for This: One Classroom Teacher’s Journey Through Emotional Fatigue to Personal Empowerment (affiliate link).

Topics we discussed included:

• What led Diane to become a teacher
• The best and hardest aspects of teaching
• The point at which my guest started to wonder what she had signed up for
• Aspects of teaching that can lead to frustration and burnout
• Some of the needs and expectations that teachers can bring to the classroom
• Embracing organic developments while teaching
• Teaching as a both/and experience that is both rewarding and challenging
• Experiencing of meanness from students
• The emotional elements of being a teacher
• Learning to recognize the familiar reactions we have to certain types of people
• How being a teacher can force a person to grow on a personal level

Diane Manser is a devoted high school English teacher in the Philadelphia suburbs, focusing most of her teaching career in the ninth grade.

She is the founder of Teaching is Emotional, which encourages educational leaders, current teachers, and emerging teachers to support teachers’ emotional strength as they navigate a challenging profession.

Diane loves to be the sunshine in people’s days and to find joy in the simplest of moments.

She relishes summertime at the beach, self-discovery podcasts and non-fiction books, TV watching with her husband, and playing with her kids.

Find Diane online at her website and join her private Facebook group Teaching Is Emotional.