Trauma Informed Practices with Lee Johnson Part 2 Ep 124

July 9, 2025 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Season 8 Episode 124

Listen to today’s episode to learn what trauma informed practices look like when they are implemented in the right way!

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

Today, we are sharing part two of our conversation about trauma informed practices with our guest Lee Johnson. There were so many import ideas that we couldn’t finish in one episode.

If you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, don’t worry you can always go back and listen to it. Feel free to jump in today, because today we’re going to explore what trauma informed practices look like when they are done well, what it looks like when it goes wrong, and what it looks like in individual practice and in connection to self-care.

In this episode:

This is not a word-for-word transcript of the show. Here, we give you the main points of discussion. For the best experience, we also recommend that you listen to the episode.

Introduction to Lee Johnson

Welcome, we’re glad you are joining us today for part 2 of. Our guest today is Lee Johnson.

Lee is driven to help educators and organizations create environments and interactions that meet the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of all in the educational setting. Lee draws from a wide variety of experiences and perspectives. Lee has worked with children and their families in the juvenile and family courts, a residential treatment and private special education school setting, and in public schools. Prior to working in higher education his path in education has included being a paraeducator, special educator, behavior strategist, and strategist teacher leader. Lee is currently pursuing his doctorate in trauma-informed educational practices to fuel his work of doing right by humans.

What do trauma informed practices look like when they are done right?

What does it look like from an organizational and school level?

It is a school wide initiative, and a school wide culture
It aligns with your school’s mission
It involves safety, trustworthiness, collaboration and empowerment
Administrators are invested
It is systemic, it is part of the policies and procedures
It is implemented at tier 1, for all students
There may be different tiers and procedures that go along with it
We look at everyone on board, beginning with the staff
We recognize that trauma is very prevalent. Students who have experienced trauma become adults. That assumes that staff members have also experienced trauma.

Numbers suggest that 1 in 4 students have experienced trauma, which may also point to 1 in 4 adults who have experienced trauma.

Understanding Our Own Stress Response

We need to understand our own stress response. We all have a stress response. This is where regulation and dysregulation come in.

Regulation is the ability to handle stress and calm our nervous system.

If we have dysregulated adults, they will not be able to help a child regulate. We can’t teach what we don’t know. They may have difficulty creating practices that are aligned with safety and trustworthiness. Students are always assessing adults in terms of safety.

We need to have adults understand themselves so that they can help students. Unfortunately, we can’t just turn on positive stress response or turn off negative stress response.

Trauma is physiological, we experience it in our body.

Adults need to help students with trauma by helping them through by coregulating. In order for this to happen, adults need to be able to regulate themselves first.

The Need for Ongoing Professional Development Around Trauma Informed Practices

Training helps you to understand the things that cause dysregulation, but it is not a one and done professional development session.

Behavior is a symptom of dysregulation. A lot of our students do not have the skills to cope. It is a stress response or a way to get a need met. This is why we need skill building in both social and emotional well being and trauma informed practices.

When it goes right, adults recognize student’s trauma and the symptoms they are exhibiting and are able to help them through the dysregulation. This is part of building strong relationships with students and getting to know what their triggers are. Schools can be trained to survey students to help them understand student trauma and triggers.

Then, when teachers can recognize a student’s symptoms or stressors early, they can be proactive in addressing the issue before it escalates.

There needs to be ongoing professional development and that starts with understanding and moves toward actual practices. If we don’t continue with professional development we are reinforcing that this is just an initiative that will end at some point.

Trauma informed practice isn’t an initiative, it is part of a culture.

Trauma Informed Practices vs Punitive Practices

In schools that are successfully applying trauma informed practices, there is a clear line that the former practices no longer are allowed to continue. When we know something doesn’t align, then we don’t continue to use those practices.

For example, discipline often pushes students away, or retraumatizes them. If the first action is to resort to punishment, they draw students further away. A trauma informed practice approach is one that pulls students in.

This is a part of the school’s values. A school can and should make their beliefs and practices known and those who work in that school should understand and accept the practices. One school even informs applicants of their practices and asks them in they can agree to move forward with the hiring practice. If a school’s values and beliefs don’t align with yours, you may want to consider working in a place that better aligns with your values.

Intersection with Social and Emotional Learning

Social and emotional learning should be happening all day every day, not just in a set aside time to work on those skills. They are integrated into everything. This is especially true in the use of language. Teachers are always modeling the social and emotional competencies they want students to use.

Individual teachers can be curious about this- how do I fit into this? I can I be open to this?

Dr. Bruce Perry says in a short video about the power of connection, “It’s not what you know, it’s how you are.” You don’t need to know everything. How are you when you are interacting with students? What is their experience when they are interacting with you?

Be curious. Get to know students. Ask them about their life. What causes them stress? Who helps them? What do they do to get rid of stress? That level of relationship is important in understanding and supporting them.

Home and Life Connections

How does all of this come back in our individual life outside of school? How do we bring this into our personal life?

Focus on your values and what you can control. Make sure you are doing the work in your 20 square feet.

Even if your school isn’t involved in trauma informed practices, you can align them to your beliefs and bring them into your life and work.

Hold unconditional positive regard for students, no matter what the students have experienced. Have high expectations and discipline through the context of relationships. You can carry out discipline and still leave with the relationship stronger. That should always be the goal. Discipline means to teach. If we are reactive with behaviors and we skip over the understanding and just go to punishment, that is where it goes wrong.

Consider the Big Mac analogy. McDonalds had a famous jingle- two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles onions on a sesame seed bun. If you order a Big Mac, you know what you will get. But if you get it on rye bread, with cheddar jack cheese and chipotle, it isn’t a Big Mac. They just picked out part of the things, the ones they wanted.

Similarly, some schools will say they are doing trauma informed practices, but they are just picking out a few pieces to include. That is usually not successful.

Your personal self-care has to be a part of this. Do that thing that you use to love to do. That is a part of self-care.

Conclusion:

If people would walk away with one main idea from today, what would you want that idea to be?

Look at yourself, your own stress responses, and how it aligns with you. Be a good human and do awesome things.

Quote:

“Be a good human and do awesome things.”

Lee Johnson

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Lee at leejohnson.net

Episodes Part 1 &2

SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach: (Driving work that is often used as the framework in research) https://library.samhsa.gov/product/samhsas-concept-trauma-and-guidance-trauma-informed-approach/sma14-4884

Creating Cultures of Trauma-Informed Care (CCTIC):

A Self-Assessment and Planning Protocol (Fallot & Harris 5 Values of Trauma-Informed Care) https://children.wi.gov/Documents/CCTICSelf-AssessmentandPlanningProtocol0709.pdf

Self-Assessing Educator Social-Emotional Competencies (Mentioned at the end…Great for creating personal learning plans) https://www.air.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/GTL-Educator-Self-Assessment-Refreshed-2014-508.pdf

National Child Traumatic Stress Network Educator Toolkit: (Dated but the facts of impact and what we can do have not changed) https://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/files/resources//child_trauma_toolkit_educators.pdf

Episode 2

The Heart of Learning and Teaching (Great resource all around and often cited as influencing work in research…Chapter 2 is Self-Care and activity) HeartofLearningandTeachingManualRewriteMay2016.indd

Stress, Trauma, and the Brain | Insights for Educators (Dr. Bruce Perry series of short videos. [“It’s not what you know but how you are.”]) https://iowa.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/stress-trauma-and-the-brain-insights-for-educators/

Not Mentioned on the podcast but recommended:

Dr. Nadine Harris- How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime (Excellent “seminal” explanation that helped raise awareness of ACEs and trauma) https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime?language=en

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction-Trauma Sensitive Schools Online Professional Development (These have evolved over the years, but very helpful to me early on. Wisconsin deserves HUGE props) https://dpi.wi.gov/sspw/mental-health/trauma/modules

Recommended Books

Venet, A. S. (2023). Equity-centered trauma-informed education (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Brummer, J., & Thorsborne, M. (2024). Becoming a trauma-informed restorative educator: Practical skills to change culture and behavior. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Brunzell, T., & Norrish, J. (2021). Creating trauma-informed, strengths-based classrooms: Teacher strategies for nurturing students’ healing, growth, and learning. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Forbes, H. T. (2020). Classroom180: A framework for creating, sustaining, and assessing the trauma-informed classroom. Beyond Consequences Institute, LLC.

Forbes, H. T. (2012). Help for Billy: A beyond consequences approach to helping challenging children in the classroom. Beyond Consequences Institute, LLC.

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Trauma Informed Practices with Lee Johnson part 1, Episode 123

Real Self- Care Episode 16

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

Website: https:www.inspiredtogetherteachers.com

Instagram: Inspired-Together-Teachers

Facebook: Inspired Together Teachers

Inspired Together Teachers Network Facebook Group

Linked In: Inspired Together Learning

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?

If you are dedicated and caring but often overwhelmed and exhausted, join us at Inspired Together Teachers. We’ll give you inspiration, strategies and tips that help you navigate life’s challenges as a stronger, more confident, and more joy filled person, both in and out of the classroom.

Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.

Co-hosts Paula Schmidt and Michele Vosberg are award winning educators with the experience and skills to help teachers thrive in life and work. They’ve taught at all levels, worked with thousands of teachers, and conducted workshops around the world. They are also the authors of the #1 best-selling book The Inspired Teachers Journal: A Weekly Guide to Becoming Your Best Self.

Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to live inspired lives.

Trauma Informed Practices with Lee Johnson Part 1 Ep. 123

July 2, 2025 by Inspired Together Teachers 2 Comments

Season 8 Episode 123

Check out this episode to strengthen your understanding and implementation of trauma informed practices in the classroom.

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

Today we are diving into an import topic, trauma informed practices. There are a lot of misunderstandings about this topic, and about what trauma informed practices actually are (and are not). We are not experts in this area, so we called in someone who is. Our guest, Lee Johnson will share his knowledge and experiences in helping others in this work, which he calls, “doing right by others.”

Whether you have had a lot of training in this area, and your experiences both personally and professionally are deep and wide, or whether you are new to learning about trauma informed practices or just muddling through trying to figure it all out, today’s episode will give you some new insights. We also know that if your district is working on trauma informed practices, this is an episode you will want to share with others.

In this episode:

In this episode, we provide a summary of the conversation and a list of related resources. For the best experience, we recommend listening to the episode.

Introduction:

Welcome, we’re glad you are joining us today. Our guest today is Lee Johnson.

Opening:

Lee opens up by sharing his experience in moving from being a para-educator to being a teacher. He was working in a residential school system. At his interview, he was asked what he knew about trauma informed practices and he realized he knew nothing. That was the beginning of his learning about trauma informed principals. From there he went into special education and was able to build a behavioral education program from the ground up. It was a success and the district decided to implement the program system wide.

In the midst of this work, his doctor accidentally found that he had a brain aneurism. He had open brain surgery. This led to introspection about his life and meaningful work.

He discovered a quote by Picasso, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away,” He was determined to positively impact as many people as possible in doing work that matters. This became is focus and he became intentional about trauma informed practices. He was put in positions to help others understand these practices as well, and that continues to be his focus today.

The Inspired Life

Lee’s experience comes from the same place as something we often talk about on the podcast and a goal for us, to live an inspired life. It means being very intentional about what we do and why we do it. it is also about understanding our values and working with intention to live and work with our values. His work in intentionally focusing on trauma informed practices is connected to his ” inspired life”.

What is trauma informed practice?

Lee shares the definition of trauma informed care by sharing the definition from SAMHSA, which we link to below.

Trauma affects physical, mental, social, emotional, or spiritual well being.

It is important to remember that trauma is subjective to the individual. It is how the person and their body experiences trauma. It also affects learning and school behavior because of the neurological changes caused by the trauma.

4 assumptions

Program organization or system that is trauma informed, realizes the widespread impact and understands paths for recovery
Recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families and staff- and others involved with the system, it includes everyone involved
Responds by fully integrating the response to trauma into policies, procedures, and practices, it is with a universal approach, an entire school setting, not just identified by a special teacher or room.
Seeks to actively resist re-traumatization, this included understanding which practices are detrimental to trauma recovery

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network suggests 1 in 4 students have experienced trauma.

Follett and Harris 5 values

Safety: Safety may be physical, social, and emotional.
Trustworthiness: Build trust with students, families, and coworkers. Follow through with what you say, and build consistency.
Collaboration: Have a student centered focus, understand students perspective, and use discipline within relationships.
Choice: Offer students choices, for example giving some autonomy about work, seating etc.
Empowerment: Teach them to advocate for themselves, teach SEL skills, culture and gender, and embed student voices. Power has often been taken away, think about ways to give them back some power.

Consider those values and compare them to your own values and the values or mission statement of your school or district. You can see how they do or do not align.

Understand how students get their needs met. It is a relationship approach, bringing your values into your interactions.

What do you think people misunderstand most about trauma-informed practices?

Misconceptions live in the gaps of knowledge.

Misconception: We should identify students who experience trauma and then give them programs. This is incorrect, we need to go back to the universal support idea. In educational terms, think of this a Tier 1 process. It is not just a discipline issue. Many times, students with trauma withdraw, they are not acting out or causing behavioral issues. They may have learned to become very compliant to survive. A disciplinary program will not meet the needs all students with trauma.

Instead, we should approach everyone with “do no harm” skills. We don’t start with a discipline program. We start with understanding.

Misconception: “Students have no consequences.” This response from people is often about punishment. Punishment and accountability are different. There are different forms of accountability. Skill building is a part of the accountability. When students feel safe in their environment, they may not move to negative behavior patterns.

We aren’t looking to excuse behavior or lower academic standards. We are looking to understand where students are. Students can recognize that something was wrong and work to make it right. That is learning of a skill that is a form of accountability, not just punishment. Schools who have found success with trauma informed practices do not have excessive behavioral issues.

We can’t lower expectations, because students will feel that they are not worthy and not capable. Students with trauma may already feel unworthy or uncapable. We can’t reinforce that idea. Students need to know that we have high expectations for them.

Your Own Assessment Around Trauma Informed Practices

We always talk about work life and home life on this podcast.

Assess how this conversation aligns with you. What kind of human to you want to be? Assess your own trauma. Assess your SEL skills and your own personal values and align them the ideas of trauma informed practices.

There are many activities to do personal values assessments. It is valuable to do a value assessment first, and then realign your practices with your values. When your practices are not aligned with your values, there is often stress. Many of our recent guests on the podcasts have talked about the importance of values alignment.

Conclusion:

Lee, if people would walk away with one main idea from today, what would you want that idea to be?

It is really important to understand how trauma informed practices are defined and that there are principles that drive it. Misconceptions live in the gaps in knowledge. When they are shared, it can promote incorrect ideas and practices.

Focusing on the values of safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, choice and empowerment is always a good focus. Understand how those things align with your values.

Recap:

We hope our conversation today has clarified some of your ideas around trauma informed practices. We know that this is a deep topic and that we barely touched the surface. We are diving this conversation into two episodes, so stay tuned next week for trauma informed practices Part 2.

See the notes below about Lee’s recommended resources!

Quote:

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

Picasso

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Lee at leejohnson.net

Episodes 1 &2

Creating Cultures of Trauma-Informed Care (CCTIC):

A Self-Assessment and Planning Protocol (Fallot & Harris 5 Values of Trauma-Informed Care) https://children.wi.gov/Documents/CCTICSelf-AssessmentandPlanningProtocol0709.pdf

Episode 2

Not Mentioned on the podcast but recommended:

Recommended Books

Venet, A. S. (2023). Equity-centered trauma-informed education (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Brummer, J., & Thorsborne, M. (2024). Becoming a trauma-informed restorative educator: Practical skills to change culture and behavior. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Brunzell, T., & Norrish, J. (2021). Creating trauma-informed, strengths-based classrooms: Teacher strategies for nurturing students’ healing, growth, and learning. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Forbes, H. T. (2020). Classroom180: A framework for creating, sustaining, and assessing the trauma-informed classroom. Beyond Consequences Institute, LLC.

Forbes, H. T. (2012). Help for Billy: A beyond consequences approach to helping challenging children in the classroom. Beyond Consequences Institute, LLC.

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

Website: https:www.inspiredtogetherteachers.com

Instagram: Inspired-Together-Teachers

Facebook: Inspired Together Teachers

Inspired Together Teachers Network Facebook Group

Linked In: Inspired Together Learning

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?

Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.

Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to live inspired lives.

Time Shift Takeaways Ep. 122

June 25, 2025 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Season 8 Episode 122

Check out this episode to learn some of our favorite time shift tips from our guest episode with coach Teresa McCloy!

Show notes:

Episode Summary:

How can we align our use of time with our real selves in order to not only make the best use of our time, but do it in a way that allows us more fulfillment and happiness? Last week we had a chance to sit down with business and lifestyle coach Teresa McCloy, who shared how our use of time connects with our real work, real life, and real self. There was a lot to talk about and a lot to digest, and today we’re sharing our insights and takeaways from our discussion. We’re going to share 4 powerful words that can affect everything in your life. You don’t want to miss this!

In this episode:

This is not a word for word transcript. For the best experience, we recommend that you listen to the episode.

Recap/ Introduction

Last week we sat down for a discussion with business and life coach Teresa McCloy. Teresa isn’t an educator, at least not in the traditional sense, so perhaps you are thinking that this is an odd choice.

We’ve talked about our experiences with personal development and how corporations pay to send people to events and workshops for personal development. They understand that in helping people to be their best, they are also increasing the value that they bring to the workplace.

As we’ve sat in these rooms, or attended masterminds or workshops, we’ve often been the only educators in the room. We’ve often thought, why isn’t anyone bringing this to teachers? The skills that are often shared in these “business” personal developments are useful in both your personal life and in your work lives.

In schools, you get professional development, usually related to a new curriculum or some kind of district educational initiative. There isn’t a lot of focus on you and the rest of your life, or skills to help you in both school and home.

We thought it was valuable to take a look at some of the strategies people in businesses are using and bring those to educators.

We do that regularly, bringing you topics that help to enrich you in ALL parts of your life. We’re choosing to focus on your personal development not your professional development.

3 Time Shifts We Takeaway From Our Guest, Teresa McCloy

Time Shift: Real Work, Real Life, Real Self

This aligns almost perfectly with our tag: Work Life, Home Life, Best Life. We know that all areas of our lives are important and that our work life is just one part of our bigger picture. It’s what we call “The Inspired Life”.

Teresa shared how our real work, real life, and real self look when they are aligned and unaligned. She used the image of an inverted triangle.

In the first image below, the real work, real life, and real self are out of alignment. That is what it looks like when we are spending all of our time and energy, the largest part of our ” triangle”, on our work. We are putting our real self last, and it is a very precarious and unbalanced position. The triangle is overly balanced on work. This is often where the chaos lives, the dysregulation, the feeling of being out of control. Your life is unstable.

In the second image, on the right, the real self is the largest part of the triangle and work is at the top. Beginning with our real selves, we can find a better balance. Starting with our real selves, we can better align with our real life and our real work. This is much more stable.

Focusing on your self first allows the rest to be in better balanced. You will feel more grounded. Then you can focus on the rest of your life and everything else will come easier. It impacts your life and your family.

Time Shift: Time Blocking

Present Block– This block is about being present for yourself first! It is being present to your health and soul. A present block might look like going for a walk, cooking a nice meal, meditation, playing with the dog, anything that you enjoy and that keeps you in the present. A present block feeds your soul. This is the one that is often the first to go when you are busy, but the one you need the most. We need to pre-plan for this type of activity. Put it in your planner or on-line calendar.

People Block– With a people block, you are purposefully planning time for the special people in your life ahead of time, rather than leaving it to chance. For some people, like Paula, this is a priority and they prioritize spending time with people. For others, such as Michele, who are generally happy being alone, they may need to spend more time and intentionally plan time to spend with people. Again, you preplan this and put it on your calendar!

Project Block– This is time you plan for projects. You don’t have to complete the whole project at once, it can be part of a bigger project. You look at your calendar, and carve out a couple of hours a week to work on your project. Project blocks are great for those house type projects that you know you need to do but never get around to doing. It also works for school projects such as writing curriculum. It is less about how many hours you put in on the project, but that you prescheduled time to work on the project. That is how your “to-do projects actually get done.

Prep Block – These are the routine things, such as your emails, phone calls, or errands. Think of your prep time at school. You can plan for what you will do in each of your prep times. Without planning, time might get away from you and you don’t get anything done. This is a good category for grouping like items together. For example, you can make a list of all the emails or phone calls you need to make and then polish them off at the same time. Or you can plan do all the errands on Saturday morning rather than one here and there.

Time Shift: The Four Powerful Words that Can Change Everything

The four most powerful words: “ I get to choose.”

Teresa says, “If I let life happen TO me, it will.”

We talk about living with intention, and that involves making choices. If you don’t make choices about your time or what you want to do in your life, someone else will. Others are happy to take control of your time! You get to choose what you put into your life or how you will spend your time. If you don’t choose what you want to do in your life, there will be busy work that will fill the spaces.

When we realize that we get to choose, we recognize that we can control more of our lives than we may at first think we can. We make choices that will create our lives- both small choices and big ones.

We can’t control everything, but we can choose where we can. We can choose to be happy or sad. We can choose busy or we can choose calm.

You can choose to “Live From Rest or Rush”. You get to choose.

Pre-decide as much as you can and as far in advance as you can. That is where goal setting comes in. You get to choose and make plans and set the schedule. You can do the projects and you can choose to spend time with people. If you pre-plan, you are more likely to follow through and get things done. You will likely then spend more time on things that you choose to do. It leads to greater fulfillment.

You feel better when you decide to pre-decide and schedule. When you make a commitment to yourself you will be much more likely to follow through and stick to a plan. It is a simple but powerful strategy.

Conclusion:

As we wrap up today, we hope that you have taken away some value from our episode with Teresa. Remember her words, “ I get to choose”. If I do nothing and let life happen to me it will. Who do you want to control your life? Choose wisely.

Quote:

“I get to choose.”

Teresa McCloy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Find Teresa: https://www.therealifeprocess.com

Podcast: The Drive, Optimizing Life for Maximum Fulfillment with Bill Perkins

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Inspired Together Teachers Podcast Episode 16 Real Self Care

Inspired Together Teachers podcast Episode 115 Mindfulness is Magic with Molly Schreiber

Set Priorities to Take Back Your Life

Do What Makes You Feel Alive

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

Website: https:www.inspiredtogetherteachers.com

Instagram: Inspired-Together-Teachers

Facebook: Inspired Together Teachers

Inspired Together Teachers Network Facebook Group

Linked In: Inspired Together Learning

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?

Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.

Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to live inspired lives.

This post may use affiliate links. If you purchase an item through our link, we will receive a small portion of the profit with no extra cost to you. This helps us to pay for the costs of bringing this free podcast to our community.

Time Shifts for Busy Teachers with Teresa McCloy Ep. 121

June 18, 2025 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Season 8 Episode 121

If you’re doing all the things—but still feel like you’re running out of time, check out this episode as we sit down with Teresa McCloy to talk about time shifts you can make to reclaim your schedule (and your peace).

Show Notes

Episode Summary

If there’s one thing every teacher wishes they had more of—it’s time. You’re juggling lesson plans, grading piles that never shrink, back-to-back meetings, and the endless demands of the school day. Then you head home… and the second shift begins—family, errands, maybe even a needy pet or two. Sound familiar?

If you feel like your life is a constant sprint from sunup to sundown, you’re not alone. But what if there was a better way? What if you could take back some control over your time—without dropping any of the balls you’re juggling?

Today’s guest, Teresa McCloy, has helped countless people do just that. She’s bringing time-saving strategies and time shifts that could change the way you approach your day. So if you’ve ever said, ‘There’s just not enough time,” this episode is for you.

In this episode

This is not a word-for-word transcript. Here, we highlight our topics of discussion. For the best experience, we recommend listening to the episode.

Introduction to our guest, Teresa McCloy

Hello, we’re very happy to welcome Teresa McCloy to the show today. Teresa is a business and life coach and CEO of The Realife Process. Teresa lives on a farm in Central Illinois, where in addition to running her business, she is an author, speaker, wife, mom, and grandmother.

Teresa’s motto is live from rest, not rush, which sounds like something we can all benefit from.

Teresa has been in a Mastermind group with Michele for many years. Both Paula and Michele belong to Mastermind groups, where they meet regularly to share strategies about our work and our lives. We highly recommend being a part of a group of likeminded individuals that can help you live with intention.

Living Like Your Hair’s on Fire

On her web page, Teresa writes, “ I had tried it all–every book, every software, and every calendar/planner—to help me be more “productive.” She tells us how she was addicted to productivity and self-help. After years of living life with her hair on fire, she had to make a change.

She was in a place of thinking that if she just learned that one perfect thing, her life would be different. She didn’t find that. There is no magic formula. What is required is to do some deeper work to discover what really matters to you. Then there are frameworks and processes that we can follow, but it has to begin with aligning to our inner real self.

You need to understand that if you say yes to one thing, you are saying no to something else. We want to do all of the things.

Teachers are givers they want to do everything for everyone. It causes a lot of stress.

The Realife Process and Aligning Time with Values with a Time Shift

Teresa is known for The Realife Process- real work, real life, real self.

This is very aligned with our work at Inspired Together Teachers, where we use the motto, work life, home life, best life.

She discussed her inverted triangle model. When we are out of alignment, we are like a tipping triangle. Our real self is perched at the bottom, in a very unstable balance. If we flip the triangle over so that the triangle is stable, we start with our real selves, then focus on our real lives and then our real work. The key is aligning with our real selves rather than building our identity and life around the work first. When the triangle is flipped upside, that is were burn-out happens.

We need to do some hard work with self-reflection. Do we know what we want and what we need? We might need a shift in our thinking.

The question is not what do you want to do, the focus should be on who do you want to be. That is a mindset shift.

The hard part of this is that nobody can do the hard work of aligning with values for us. We need to do the work. If you are burned-out, you need to make it a priority to work on yourself, and take a deeper look at what you need.

This is not just giving yourself permission to take care of yourself; it is a necessity. You can not help others when you are exhausted. The self-care piece makes you able to take care of someone else.

Education today is in need of a lot of help. No one is coming to save education. We have come to believe that the only way we are going to save education is with the teachers, the people who are doing the work. In order for the teachers to be able to do that, they need to be healthy, strong, and grounded, doing work that matters in ways that are sustainable.

Time Blocking

One of the things that Teresa teaches is planning with time blocks. These time blocks include the following types of blocks.

Present Block: a daily block of time for self-care and or soul-care. This is where you rest, and renew. It could also be time for personal growth. It could be meditation, spirituality, a walk, whatever it means for you. This could be anything that brings life giving rhythms to your day. This is scheduled into your weekly calendar. For busy young teachers who have young children, it might be 30 minutes a few times a week. For others it might be daily. What’s important is to fit it into your life in whatever way is appropriate for the stage of life you are in.

People Block: This is a block that you schedule into your calendar where you can spend quality time with the people who are important to you. We get to steward time, and most of us would always chose to spend time with the people we love most. That might a be a spouse, a friend, or anyone who is special to you. Yet, the time for that doesn’t always happen. We can pre-decide to schedule this time. This is approximately 60-90 minutes and could be scheduled 3-5 times a week.

Project Block: This is time scheduled to do projects, whether work projects or home projects. It can be any kind of project, like cleaning out the garage. We don’t always find time to do these projects. The project block is focused time to work on your plans. You can schedule 30 minutes to work on your garage, or whatever so that it actually happens. Schedule 2-4 project blocks a week.

Prep Block: This 30-60 minutes block of time is set aside to do errands, make phone calls, or everyday tasks. For your prep blocks, try to group like items together such as making all your errands in on trip, or planning all the phone calls in one block. Pre-deciding how you want to spend your time will help you make sure the things that matter most to you get done.

Blocks can help you control how you use your time. If you let life happen to you, it will. You can also choose how to spend your time. When you choose, you control your time rather than letting outside things control your life.

Paula discusses a podcast she listened to with Bill Perkins, who talks about not saving your special things for later. You can’t get your time back, so spend it now with people and things that matter. We’ve linked to the podcast below.

Most of us get more things right that wrong, we may just need a little realignment.

Conclusion:

If people would walk away with one main idea from today, what would you want that idea to be?

Teresa says two things. The more that you can pre-decide, the better. She sits down on Fridays and looks at her calendar and asks, “what do I need to pre-decide for the next week or two?”. This allows her to find more margin in her day while also planning the things that are most important to her.

Remember you get choose whether you live from rest or rush. Rest comes from inside of you, from a place of peace and your intentional decisions. Rush is what is coming at you from the outside. You get to choose.

Learn more about Teresa or her work:

Find Teresa: https://www.therealifeprocess.com

Book: Do What Matters: Live from Rest Not Rush available on Amazon or wherever you like to get your books.

Quote:

Live from rest, not rush.

Teresa McCoy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Find Teresa: https://www.therealifeprocess.com

Podcast: The Drive, Optimizing Life for Maximum Fulfillment with Bill Perkins

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Inspired Together Teachers podcast Episode 16 Real Self Care

Inspired Together Teachers podcast Episode 115 Mindfulness is Magic with Molly Schreiber

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

Website: https:www.inspiredtogetherteachers.com

Instagram: Inspired-Together-Teachers

Facebook: Inspired Together Teachers

Inspired Together Teachers Network Facebook Group

Linked In: Inspired Together Learning

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?

Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.

Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to live inspired lives.

AI in Education: Our Takeaways from Guest Missy Emler Ep. 120

June 11, 2025 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Season 8 Episode 120

How are you using AI? Check out this episode to hear our thoughts on AI in Education and in our personal lives.

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

Are you using AI? Are you loving it or struggling with it? Like it or not, AI is going to touch almost everything in our lives. AI has the potential to change the way we live and work- both for the better and for the worse. In last week’s episode, we talked with learning advocate and early AI adopter Melissa (Missy) Emler about AI for educators and what it might look like at work and in our personal lives. It was a fascinating conversation and we barely touched the surface in discussing AI issues. Join us today as we follow up with our discussion of AI.

In this episode:

This is a summary of our conversation rather than a word-for-word transcript. We always recommend that you listen to the episode for the best experience.

Introduction:

When we initiated a discussion about the potential uses of AI with our guest Melissa Emler last week, we knew there was a lot to talk about. AI shows up in almost every discussion of educational issues. It’s fair to say that we are finding some powerful uses of AI, while struggling with practical and ethical uses of AI. Today we want to revisit some of our key takeaways from last week and continue exploring the issues with AI.

Discussion topics:

We understand the issues with students and AI are perplexing and divisive. School districts are grappling with how to teach students to use AI in appropriate and ethical ways. On one hand, many fear we have opened the door to massive cheating and that students will no longer learn, they’ll just use AI to do all of their school work. On the other hand, the genie is out of the bottle and AI is here to stay. Before we can make those decisions, we’re going to all have to understand what it is and what it can and cannot do.

That is where we are today. We aren’t going to talk about student use of AI, we want to talk about teachers using AI.

“I’m not asking you to change, I’m asking you to learn.”

To start framing this discussion we both took away Missy’s quote, “I’m not asking you to change, I’m asking you to learn.” That is simple, yet profound. We can tie many things back to that idea. It is especially important around this topic because most of us are still in the learning phase, there are no experts in AI because everything is changing so rapidly. We’re all figuring it out and exploring it. That is valid and it is going to take some time.

We can compare the use of AI to the early days of computers in education. There are people who did not want computers in education because it would destroy education. Others couldn’t wait to get their hands on the technology. Then the same issue was true of phones in schools.

AI in Education and Curiosity

Curiosity came up again and again. Missy talked about her curiosity, and how she was curious about AI and eager to try it. She has a curiosity mindset. She is not afraid to learn. She was an early adopter, which is a sign of a life-long learner. She is curious and trying it all.

Curiosity also speaks to being open. There are going to be changes. AI is going to change how we teach. It is important to be open to change.

Asking rote memory questions or regurgitating information is not going to be sufficient. Many teachers haven’t been using those kinds of techniques for awhile. It does require thinking of what education means and what it looks like. It is going to cause us to think about our purpose and what we want out of learning. We need to focus on thinking, especially critically thinking. We need to be able to use knowledge to know what is good information, reliable, correct, from a reputable source vs believing everything you see or everything you read.

Curiosity means that you are willing to try and experiment. It is a mindset that we could all use more of.

How to Interact With AI

At first, people used AI like they would a Google search.

AI is at its best when it is not used like a Google search, but when it is used to to interact with or manipulate data. Missy’s example of back and forth discussion with AI that helped her understand a problem from multiple perspectives and to consider issues she hadn’t thought of. You can examine a topic by asking questions and continuing to refine your search. You can manipulate data and keep asking to refine the answers you are getting.

Paula’s example was connecting standards. She uploaded several different sets of standards and asked AI to combine them into one common set of standards. Then they refined the idea again and again, asking it for changes or additions.

We had a discussion of the importance of good prompting. We gave multiple examples of prompting in order to improve our results.

AI We Are Already Using in Our Lives

Alexa, Siri, Google assistant
Home security and monitoring systems
Smart appliances
Calendar and task management systems
AI photo manipulations, editing photos, headshots- things we used to need Photoshop to do
Map and direction finding programs

We can manipulate all of these things, by clarifying and asking for what we want and need. We gave a specific example of using maps and interacting with it to get better and better information.

AI can save time.

We can use AI to do tasks that save time. For example, Paula is interviewing teachers for several different jobs. She used AI to help her develop specific interview questions for each specific job. She used multiple different prompts to improve the questions. It saved her a lot of time.

We also talked about using AI for unit planning. You can upload standards, curriculum etc. You can get ideas and activities. Then you can ask for revisions and additions. One things that is possible is to ask AI to adapt for differing needs in your classroom. Designing adaptations can take a lot of time and this will help you time wise while improving instruction for students.

Universal Design Influence

Missy uses AI in much the same way as Universal Design works. You focus on the end first. You also focus on the experience for both teachers and students. She inputs the kind of experience and learning that she wants students to have, and then asks the kinds of questions that will get to the types of activities that will get to what they students want to know and what they need to learn. It is a very student centered way of teaching and planning.

It is not about what questions the teacher has, but what questions the students have.

Student Engagement and AI

One of the most common complaints of teachers is that students are disengaged, that they have “checked out” or are bored. or don’t care.

With AI you can ask, what is the student’s experience? What can they get out of this? How can this connect to their world? What questions do they have?

If you can get students to ask and connect to their questions, they are engaged. When they are engaged, motivation is higher. When motivation is higher, you have fewer management issues. This is a win for everyone.

Using AI in Your Life

You don’t have to do anything with AI. On the other hand, you can explore it. You can decide how much you want to do.

You could explore meal prep and planning grocery lists.

We discussed trying AI headshots.

Another example is using AI to plan a trip, giving you places to say and things to do.

Those are just a few ideas.

Conclusion:

We’d love to know how you use AI. What’s working for you ? What struggles do you have? Let us know.

Quote:

“I’m not asking you to change, I’m asking you to learn.”

Melissa Emler

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Episode 119 AI in Education with Melissa Emler

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

Website: https:www.inspiredtogetherteachers.com

Instagram: Inspired-Together-Teachers

Facebook: Inspired Together Teachers

Inspired Together Teachers Network Facebook Group

Linked In: Inspired Together Learning

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?

Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.

Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to live inspired lives.

Listen to today’s episode to learn what trauma informed practices look like when they are implemented in the right way!

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

In this episode:

Introduction to Lee Johnson

What do trauma informed practices look like when they are done right?

Understanding Our Own Stress Response

The Need for Ongoing Professional Development Around Trauma Informed Practices

Trauma Informed Practices vs Punitive Practices

Intersection with Social and Emotional Learning

Home and Life Connections

Conclusion:

Quote:

“Be a good human and do awesome things.”

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Trauma Informed Practices with Lee Johnson part 1, Episode 123

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Share this:

Season 8 Episode 123

Check out this episode to strengthen your understanding and implementation of trauma informed practices in the classroom.

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

In this episode:

Introduction:

Opening:

The Inspired Life

What is trauma informed practice?

4 assumptions

Follett and Harris 5 values

What do you think people misunderstand most about trauma-informed practices?

Your Own Assessment Around Trauma Informed Practices

Conclusion:

Recap:

Quote:

Resources mentioned in this episode:

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

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Check out this episode to learn some of our favorite time shift tips from our guest episode with coach Teresa McCloy!

Show notes:

Episode Summary:

In this episode:

Recap/ Introduction

3 Time Shifts We Takeaway From Our Guest, Teresa McCloy

Conclusion:

“I get to choose.”

Teresa McCloy

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Share this:

Season 8 Episode 121

If you’re doing all the things—but still feel like you’re running out of time, check out this episode as we sit down with Teresa McCloy to talk about time shifts you can make to reclaim your schedule (and your peace).

Show Notes

Episode Summary

In this episode

Introduction to our guest, Teresa McCloy

Living Like Your Hair’s on Fire

The Realife Process and Aligning Time with Values with a Time Shift

Time Blocking

Conclusion:

Learn more about Teresa or her work:

Quote:

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

More About Inspired Together Teachers:

Share this:

How are you using AI? Check out this episode to hear our thoughts on AI in Education and in our personal lives.

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

In this episode:

Introduction:

Discussion topics:

“I’m not asking you to change, I’m asking you to learn.”

AI in Education and Curiosity

How to Interact With AI

AI We Are Already Using in Our Lives