Struggling with CI teacher burnout? Learn how to stay sustainable with Comprehensible Input strategies that actually work.

👉 Grab your free CI Survival Kit here: https://imim.us/survival

In this episode of Comprehend THIS!, Scott Benedict sits down with guests Tracey Collazos and David Rice to talk honestly about the not-so-magical side of teaching with CI: burnout. From the early mistakes that made it worse, to the boundaries and routines that keep them sane now, Andy and Pat share real-life strategies, encouragement, and a few laughs along the way. If you’ve ever felt the pressure to be “CI perfect” but secretly just wanted a nap, this conversation will remind you that you’re not alone — and that sustainability matters more than perfection.

#ComprehensibleInput, #worldlanguage, #languageacquisition, #CISurvivalKit, #Spanishteacher, #Frenchteacher, #worldlanguagepodcast, #teachingspanish, #teacherburnout, #CItips

Hosts:

• Scott Benedict - https://www.instagram.com/immediateimmersion
• Tracey Collazos
• David Rice - https://www.facebook.com/DavidScottRice/

Resources & Links:

• CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/survival
• Webinar Club: https://imim.us/club
• Spin Wheels and other Resources: https://flippity.net
• YouTube Videos in various languages:
• French: Alyce Ayel https://www.youtube.com/@aliceayel
• Easy French: https://www.youtube.com/@EasyFrench
• Spanish: Dreaming Spanish https://www.youtube.com/@DreamingSpanish
• Easy Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/@EasySpanish
• Easy German: https://www.youtube.com/@EasyGerman
• There are many different languages available in the “Easy” format. Just do a YouTube Search for your language and see what’s out there.
• Easy Assessments and Activities: https://imim.us/formative

Join the Conversation:

Got thoughts or your own story? Share it in the comments or tag us @ImmediateImmersion!

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Connect with Scott:

Host: Scott Benedict — Immediate Immersion

🌐 https://immediateimmersion.com

📧 Scott@immediateimmersion.com

Youtube: https://youtube.com/immediateimmersion

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Good morning, everybody. How's everybody

doing this morning? Welcome to the

Comprehend This podcast this morning. I

hope everybody's having a great Sunday. I

am joined today by the

excellent

Tracy Cuyathos and David Rice is back

with us this week and we

are going to be talking about

CI burnout been there done

that I don't know about you

But I certainly have and

that's gonna be our topic today

Let's go ahead and welcome our guests

right after these short messages

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Survival and let the survival kit do the

heavy lifting for once

Welcome to comprehend this real talk for

real language teachers. No drills

No dry theory just honest stories

practical ideas and a reminder. You're

not alone in the CI

trenches. Let's dive in

And welcome welcome miss Tracy and mr.

David. How are we doing this morning?

We're doing great

So happy to be here. Thanks. Awesome. I'm

so glad to have both of you

Right and early for at least me on the

East Coast. I forgot

Tracy. Where are you from?

I'm in California. So you're the same as

you're saying with me

Yep, and then David is out there on the

East side. So it's a little bit later.

Yeah central. Yeah. Yeah

It's 10 a.m. Here. So we're good 10. Yeah

Yes, so

It's hard to work out when you do the

different time changes it works

differently for you know

We do it too late then it

interferes with everybody else

So it's not the we on the West Coast

always suffer always suffer

all that kind of stuff. So

So today we're gonna be talking about CI

burnout and I know Tracy you've got

something special that you

want to talk about especially

So let's just go

ahead and get started here

When was your first CI burnout wake-up

call like when did you first realize

That CI can burn you out just like any

other approach that you do and what did

the burnout look like for you?

Whoever would like to start?

Did you want to start David?

Hi Tracy

Okay. Um, so let's see

Uh

It was probably the second year I was

doing CI where so the first year

I was training and I found

that extremely exhausting

Um, it just kind of trying to make it all

work in my classroom trying to

learn how to circle questions

Trying to learn what each new fabulous

tool that I was going to

use in my classroom was

and

My second year I thought oh my gosh

I don't know if I can give this much

energy every single day every single

period for the rest of my career

What am I going to do? Um

And so yeah, it looks like

Yeah, so I thought uh, okay

And what did it look like it looked like

me coming home and

wanting to lie on the flowers

My husband happens to work at

the same school where I work

so, uh

Sometimes he would jump in at the end of

the day before he thought it was hard to

go home because we leave separately

And I would just be sitting in my chair

kind of like slumped,

you know like this staring

And he's like are you okay? And i'm like,

uh, just another day. We'll

see. Yeah, i'll i'll be okay

Give me a half an hour

So

Yeah, it looked like you know me looking

totally exhausted like i've been run over

by a math truck and um

Then I needed a good half hour to just

let my brain rest because I found that

the mental acrobatics that are required

For responding to students in real time

the entire period are exhausting. Yeah

Absolutely

How about you david?

So as as we talked about last week my

story is I started uh

Pprs and ci

about

2019 they're in the fourth

quarter of our school year

um

And our district is a ci district, but I

came from a textbook background

So that wasn't unique experience because

I had to learn fast how to teach ci

with no prior ci training

and so

Yeah, um, so spring break came up right

before some fourth quarter spring break

came up and there was

blaine ray's little green book

um, and I decided to

sit down and read it and

to learn them as much as I could about di

and tprs and all that and

And that saved me because I was burning

out quick. I was like, okay. I am

overwhelmed. I don't know what to do

um

and then

so

That fourth quarter I thought my first

um

And I I enjoyed it. It was it was it was

awesome. I enjoyed the interaction

staying in the target language

Uh the entire class period it was great

Um

Then we you know summer gets here. I go

to training in chicago

Come back. We have

You know start the year off i'm doing and

everything and it's great. It's great.

It's great. I am coming home. I am tired

Yes, i'm tired, but

i've had it's a good time

It's like, you know, I just left the dim

time. I feel good. I feel energized

um

My moment of burnout pain because I am

the type of person

who put what I'm saying

I have into what i'm doing.

Um, i'm just so driven and

So that year

Covid hit

And so we took a break and unfortunately

covid hit and so we took

a break in spring of of

2000 yeah 2020

And we came back and we

had to go we were virtual

We came back for the next school year. We

were virtual and I was teaching

Same stuff, but via online platforms and

that was a unique experience. I'm

learning to be to teach cci

virtually

Each stories and that was a challenge

that was stressed. It was

a new experience and then

Then

Blaine ray

He contacted me and asked me to come

teach with them teaching

stories in the afternoons

The adult learners or a group of learners

and it was at that point that I had hit

my limit and I was overwhelmed

I was I was burning out on ci because

there's only so much you can say the same

story over and over again

Asking the same questions

and yeah, that was my moment

Like I was like it's overwhelming

It just matter

Yeah

Mine is a little bit different for

um

Different reasons my first experience

with burnout was my first year of

teaching and it wasn't ci

I was the first semester. I was doing

traditional and you know

You have all those workbook exercises and

the book exercises and I was bringing

those stacks of

things home and I was like

I can't keep up

They're having all this work to do and I

have to grade it every time every kid and

i'm like they're doing five or six

Exercises a day in class and oh my gosh.

I'm not going to keep this up. So I was

glad when I found ci

and

I when I started ci it was only tprs.

There was nothing else.

We didn't have movie talk

We didn't have picture talk. All we did

was originally there were seven steps to

tprs. That's what we did

And so because it was so

prescribed and what you did

It wasn't so overwhelming for me and I

taught levels one and two

So I had enough variety that I wasn't

doing the same thing

over and over and over again

So I did that at that school for four

years and then I went to move to vegas

um, and I did I was in

vegas for seven years and

We started which was I used the tprs

curriculum that went with um

Pasta la pasta, which was

the predecessor to reale dades

So I had those stories when I went to

vegas we started we used blaine stories

from look I can talk

So I didn't get burned out because it was

new stories new ideas

And then we moved schools in vegas

We had an opportunity to

open me and my department chair

Moved to a new school when they opened

the brand new school

We thought it'd be a nice thing to try it

opening a new school

And we didn't use blaine's rate

curriculum. We used um

Carol gobs curriculum quentimemas. So we

use that one. So again

after four years

I'm now on a new

curriculum. So it wasn't so um

So much repetitive for me at that point

and by this time we were starting to have

Um movie talk was starting to come in and

picture talk was starting to come in

So we had some other alternatives to work

with then just doing the same old thing

Then I moved to look back to california

and i'm teaching now middle school and

i'm using my own curriculum

Which already felt old to me because I

wrote all the stories. So, you know, it's

It's a little bit different when you

write the stories and

then you're doing them

And that first year

because we were just starting

The language program that

first year I went to that school

Um, it was all level ones. So we had

Eight there kids had seven periods and we

taught six out of seven

and I had six level ones

That killed me

No variety. I didn't know if I was coming

or going did I already

say this to this kid?

Did I already ask this question?

I couldn't remember if I asked this

question to this class or

last class or next class

It was so I used to have to have as a

job. I used to give kids i'm like, okay

These are the things i'm supposed to be

doing. Please check them off

as I do them for each class

So I had a little checklist because I

couldn't keep it straight

Because it was the same thing. It was

just like, okay, just

reset myself and rewind

I felt like I should just record myself

and just play the recording because it

was so then I started feeling

Very overwhelmed at that point and I

started going if I tell one more story

I am going to lose it because I was just

you know, and I was always on

always on because I

hadn't thought away because

Ci and tprs were on more than were not

We don't give a lot of independent work

because yeah, it's like giving a baby

You know, oh two babies go

ahead and talk to each other

They can't yet they don't have that

ability and that just causes frustration

So you are on much more than a

traditional teacher

would be and it started

hitting me

and so

my

What and it's funny because

it didn't even happen until

Last year so my 23rd

24th year of teaching

The first time it dawned

on me. I don't know why

I now have we do our readings on

thursday. We do two readings a week

thursday's and friday's

We do a class reading

of a story that I wrote

about the kids in my class and then

They have a listening activity that they

have to do afterwards on their own

And then they have the reading activity

comprehension questions that go with the

reading that we just did

As well, so the last 10 minutes of class

I can sit down and go

Because I don't

believe in giving homework

so

Giving these activities in

class in the last you know

10 15 minutes of class for them to do

they have to listen to a

story that i've already recorded

And it's on formative.com i'm telling you

that is the godside everything. I do is

on formative.com. You

know their work their

Um

Warm-ups there their exit

tickets. Everything is there

So it makes life so much easier for me to

go right through and do

And then they can record things if I want

like an exit ticket if

I want them to record

Um, you know

Answer a question in spanish or tell me

this in spanish, you know,

they can do that all on there

So I just love that app so

much. But anyway, they um

With it they can

Work on their own so i've recorded and

i've uploaded the recording

so they can listen on their own

With their headphones and then they can

go ahead and answer the questions

And then they can go do the reading again

And it's the second time reading for them

and i've glossed the words in this

reading when I do it live

I don't gloss the words i'm the glossary

But i'll gloss some of the words that I

don't expect them to know

in the um

In the stories i've

told you before I am the

Worst when it comes to staying in bounds

because my stories can't stay in bounds.

They don't know anything

So I just gloss things that they don't

need to that they need to know for the

story and they can

throw them away afterward

But they were they're able to then work

on that story and do the reading and do

the comprehension questions

And I have 20 questions for each activity

and that takes them about 10 15 minutes

Then they do the exit ticket and then the

class is over and it works really well

because I get that reset

before

The next class and I

feel a little bit different

And now that i'm not just asking a story

every time because asking a story is very

Stressful in a way because you're always

having to come up with cute ideas and

listen and it's a lot

more work for the teacher

But then when you do

picture talk, it's the same thing

It's still asking a story, but I have a

picture to work with so

it's a little bit easier

It's scaffolded a little bit more and

then a movie talk even more

So I don't have to come up with the

story. I don't have to make it funny

I just have to tell the story that's

already there. And so those things

although it's the you know

Filling the listening part of language

where kids have to listen to language and

interpret what's being said

It's all three things

fulfill that same task

But they're slightly different

On the perspective of the kids and on me

So it's a little bit less of a workload

if I need oh, I can't

tell another story today

I'm gonna go ahead and do a movie talk or

I can't do another story today. I just

can't it's just not in me

Today. I don't have the energy

I'm gonna do a story listening today

Or i'll just throw a funny picture up or

a meme and we can talk about that

You know, the kids are always talking

about whatever the meme of the week is

and so those things are

But i'm telling you I don't know why I

didn't think of this one in middle

school. We only had three minutes

A passing period so it was like teach

teach teach teach teach three minutes

teach teach teach teach

Three minutes teach teach teach teach

teach three minutes and we were expected

to be in the hallways in

the three minutes greeting

The kids they walked in the door

So you didn't have a break until your

prep or your lunch was

the times you had your break

You didn't have a p-break

in time for all of that. So

um

Now that I have five minutes i'm like

luxury five minutes between

classes like a luxury for me

But now I have that 10 15

minutes at the end also to kind of

regroup myself

And and center myself so I don't get that

so I highly recommend

Doing some of that some activity because

the only other

downtime I had before this was

The sustained silent

reading that we did every day

So, you know, that was my only time my

piece, but i'm reading as well and

walking around the

clue. So I really wasn't

off

But now that I get that 10

15 minutes at the end of class

On thursdays and fridays only but it's

off. It's my off time and I

like that and it allows me to

reset myself

So let's talk about

um

Well, I thought so much up if anybody has

any questions, I want

to put that out there

Please feel free to put them in the chat

or if you have a problem or a burnout

Thing that you want to know how to get

around let us know as well.

We're happy to answer that

but let's talk about um

Oh maria says can you say the program

that you use? Absolutely.

It's called formative.com

Um

There it is I love this

There is a free version, but you're

limited in the types of questions you can

ask in the free version

Um, I use the paid version and I think

it's like it's 15 a month

But if you buy it for the year, it's like

120 or something like

that. I buy it for the year

Um, I because I use it so much and it

comes out of my own pocket. My school

does not pay for it for me

Um, but what I love

about it, there are so

Many activities and the standards are

already built in so whatever you teach

you can search your

standards IB standards

They're there California standards.

They're there national standards. They're

there so I can attach my

assignments to the standards

So I can see what my kids are doing. It

has true false multiple choice

um video responses

Audio responses I can ask

questions like I can have

I don't have time to have

a dialogue with every kid

But I can record questions and then they

can record a response in a form of a

dialogue as they go along

Works really really well. I can do it as

a video so they can see my

face as i'm talking to them

They can watch the video and I can say go

And then they have to record a video. Oh

Scott and they can go through and do all

those kinds of questions

I can do that. There's

Re-sequencing where you can put a story

and then they've got to re-sequence it

So if we've read a story in class

I can put it, you know,

give like 10 statements

It will scramble them and then they have

to drag and drop them

It has fill in the blank where they can

drag and drop answers into

the blanks that go in there

Um short answer essay questions. You can

create rubrics with this

It is I use it for everything and I even

We um, I got in the habit since covet

like david talked about

Um, we were required to do

what's called a week at a glance

So it was kind of just for

the it was student facing

So we had to create like a little graphic

put what we're doing

What the main activity is every day of

the week and then what was

due for every day of that week

And give that to the kids so they had

some kind of idea what

to expect for the week

I never did that before I always put my

agenda for the day on the board, but

never for the whole week

So now I have this week at a glance. I

also post that on there so

they can go ahead and see that

And then I have them check off when

they're done with it. They click that

they're done with it

Um, because they've done everything that

week that was supposed to be

done. So it really really works

Well, it's what great for um when their

apps and they can check kids can work on

these activities when they're absent

because they're digital

They can access the you know, the the

website at home and you

can turn it on or turn it off

So if I if it's a quiz i'm doing I lock

it so they can't access it

Until i'm ready to have them access it

and they can type in their accents french

german and spanish accents are built in

Automatically in there. So it just works

really really well. It's so versatile

And um, our school uses canvas in google

classroom and i've

replaced both with formative

Just so they don't have

they only have one place to go

They know everything is informative for

me and it really really

works really really well

So thank you for asking maria

It's my go-to and it has saved my sanity

because if it's a true

and false or multiple choice

It will grade it automatically for me

And then I don't even have it grade the

warm-ups because the warm-ups for me

We go over them. So I don't need I just

grade them if they did it

So I don't even put answers in the

warm-up so it won't even grade it

We just go over it together because it's

not necessary for it to grade it

So I don't want to type in all the

answers that say it takes up more time

And then the exit tickets are so nice

because I can have them

Tell me three things you learned today in

english or answer the following questions

in spanish and they

can record their answers

It works so so well. I love it and it's

worth the 120 bucks that I pay a year

For for my sanity plus I can see what

they're answering the questions live

which is really good

And I forgot the other feature

They can ask you questions

privately right on the chat

They can click a chat on a question and

ask a question that comes on your screen

So you can answer it privately instead of

a kid going number four

I think it's this answer a but it might

be b and you're like you're giving away

the answers to the whole class

You know how that always happens

So they can ask the questions privately

and you can give feedback privately like

at the end of an assignment

You can give feedback and it records the

feedback. So you don't once you type it

once you can just click it

For the second time and third time so

don't have to keep writing, you know

This needs to be written in spanish click

and I don't have to keep

typing that over and over again

And they can see their feedback and their

private feedback and I can see as I said

They're answering the questions as they

go. I can see right away

And if there's a mistake that was always

a problem with regular quizzes when they

had a mistake on the on the key

And you already graded them now you had

to go back and regrade all of

them and readjust the scores

You don't hear you fix that thing and it

regrades them all and

updates the grade right away

So it's really I can see right away that

like number four everybody got it wrong

So I go back to the question and I see

well, was it their

problem or was it my problem?

Was it a key error or was it they didn't

understand something in that question?

I can see it right

away. The data is there

I can see the data on individual students

based on the standards and then also how

they perform on every assessment in there

So it's just great and if you know your

administrators like mine

require us to have data

I get the data right here right away. I

can always tell them

exactly based on an

assessment based on a class based on a

Individual student. So sorry, it was a

big I have no affiliation. I

don't make any money with this

um

With this sponsored. Yeah, I'm not

sponsored. Yeah, not sponsored at all

But I love it so much that it is very

worth it for me for um

To use that so thank you for asking maria

So let's go ahead and continue here

Are any of you

perfectionists

and how if so

How did that put pressure on

you and make your burnout worse?

I know david didn't use the word

perfectionist, but he said driven

He's very driven to do the best in there.

So, uh, I can see

exactly how um, you know

That I think that's that's a problem with

probably all of us to some extent

Yeah, i'll take it. Um, I am i'm driven

And i'm not gonna call myself a

perfectionist, but yes, I am

um

that

Every every like as I went my interview

was uh with scott a couple weeks ago. Um

I talked about like fourth quarter for

me. What quarter of the school year is my

experimentation quarter?

it just it kind of

helps me avoid burnout and

um

So i'll take things and

experiment with them. So

In and over the summer I

continue it if it worked well

Well if it worked out well

And so i'll take the same story like and

that part of the ci

burnout is that same story

You're telling it over and over again. If

you've got if like this year I have

I I don't know if i'm

mistakenly asked my principal for it or

Or for it, but I looked at her and I said

please I only won't say I

just want students to here

So i've got six

classes of about 35 students

Uh, i'll space one and hell in the same

story class after class after class

um

Which I kind of enjoy in a way because I

don't I don't stress it says this year

but I will take that

story and I go home and I

Edit it I make it available for myself to

follow in the next coming year

So like that first story that I always

teaches board george

wants that coca-cola and

That story

Has gone through so

many changes since 2019

That it's

I went and took the

story and I put it in 10gpt

God bless chat gpt and I asked can you

give me some images for this story?

um

And chat gpt created images of george and

their life life and it makes it much more

enjoyable than the drawings

No offense to the draw to the artists of

the original george story. Um

But the kids connect much

more with the with that guy

Uh the guy that they see on the screen

now and that makes it

more enjoyable for myself

um, and it saves that

That burnout there. Um

And then yeah, so yeah

perfectionist is taking that story

How can I make it better for my kids

anytime I tell the story? What could I do

different? It's like, you know as

teachers were always

Reflecting on each class like as soon as

first period is over

i'm thinking about okay

What did I do in first period that I can

do differently in second?

And we all know that by the end of the

day, whatever your

last class is for the day

That lesson will be the absolute best

lesson you have ever taught in your life

I mean, it's like you pray for your

administrators to come into that last

class you do your observation

Yeah, please come to the period I want

you to see that class

this will be a great lesson

Yeah, because first period is always the

guinea pigs first periods

are always the guinea pigs. Oh

bless their hearts, I mean

That was really

seriously bless their hearts

Um, and it's and and also first period

you know, it's that

morning class we start class

at 7 15 here and

We've got to motivate those kids to wake

them up to get them

ready, but we're out by 2 30

so that's great, right, but uh,

Yeah, we start early get out early. We're

good, but it's motivating those kids and

getting them energized and

My kids always accuse me let me ask you

constantly why are you so

Hyper every day and I

always am because if I don't

I will burn out. I have to get stay

motivated. I have to motivate myself to

energy. I have to be energetic

Absolutely

Yeah, absolutely. My sister. I didn't

learn. I didn't know this. I did it

naturally. I didn't understand it

my sister teaches elementary school

And elementary school teachers are very

conscious of what i'm about to talk about

and middle school and high school

teachers. Not so much

But they call it the ebb and flow

Because they they have

the kids all day long

And so they have to always

um

Manage the energy in the room

so if the kids just came back from pe

Then what they first the first activity

they do when they come back from p is a

calming activity when

they sit down and relax

A little bit or if they just came back

from time in the library

where they were quiet and calm

They need some kind of an energizing

activity to get them

up and and moving again

So they're constantly playing with this

ebb and flow and it's

the same kind of thing

I never understood, you know, um

My first period teachers talked about a

sleepy first period i'm like

I have never experienced that

I have never

experienced a sleepy first period

And I didn't understand why until my kid

my sister said about

this ebb and flow like

That's it because I am loud and obnoxious

from the moment the bell rings so they

don't have it. They can't be i'm like

When does the s class say first thing

they're like what the hell

is going on? I am you know on

150 from the beginning of

class to the end of the day

And so that was that's how I controlled

it my I did that naturally by

Being so energetic they had no other

choice but to be energetic back because

it's just the way I did

And luckily they changed I used to teach

vegas. We started at 7 a.m

And we were out by 1 15

because of the heat situation, but

California changed

the law a few years ago

That the high schools had to start later

The earliest high schools can start at 8

30. They can start between 8 30 and 10

To start the day for high school because

it kind of goes in with the way their

body rhythm works where they are not

They do not perform very well early in

the morning and they move middle school

To where high school hours used to be so

middle school can start

in that 7 to 8 30 period

And high school is the 8 30 to 10. I

think is the time that they can do

So that the kids it kind of syncs up a

little bit better with their

The way their sleep habits work and the

way that their bodies work along the way

But the kids take advantage of that

because then they sleep in longer and

their grog year longer

because now that they know

I don't have to be up for 7 o'clock

class. I have to come in at 8 30

They change that but california made that

a loss that happened a couple years ago

where they swapped that out

Yeah, and actually, uh, I think I must

still have high school

brain because I still

Still struggle to wake

myself up in the morning

but uh, but I know exactly what you're

talking about in terms of

bringing the energy to your class so that

your students are up

and ready and moving or

You know paying attention or listening or

doing whatever they um, you're asking

them to do for the day. Um, I was

Thinking as you were talking scott one of

the things that i've noticed about you

over the years and kind of following

The different iterations of an immersion

and things that you have done

Is how well you manage a routine?

and

I'm wondering if there are people out

there like me who tend to flounder with

a set routine, um, I both have the uh

I don't know. Should we say well you use

driven david i'll use

commitment to excellence

You know for trying not to be a

perfectionist, right? Um, so I have I

have I have that as well and um,

So I do find that there are certain

things that I need to put into a routine

in order for my students to achieve

And for me to be sane

But um, I am not as routine

oriented as I would like to be

And so whenever I see someone great

routine that works for them,

you know, I just kind of like

Like that's pretty amazing

um

But I tend to that ebb and flow that you

were talking about scott. So my first my

first teaching job was two hour blocks

And that was probably the best thing for

me because I got a really good idea of

How much time you can work with students

when you have to stop when they need a

break when you have to stand them up

So of course like tpr tprs those kinds of

things early on were really helpful

You can stand them up move around you can

do actions. I had them

out on the football field

singing

like

I look like

The sound of music with the kids behind

me and like we're walking around and

singing because I didn't

know at that point in time

What else can we do to get them moving to

keep their brains

flowing everything that?

Um, you know there like you said, there

was no movie talked at that point in time

I think this is your 26 maybe 27 for me

teaching. I don't know. It's

been a long time, right? So

And just like you said, you know, that's

it's you know, you have different

iterations of

yourself as a teacher as well

and

I only came to ci about 10 years ago. So

I was having and my school actually still

Still uses the textbook quite a bit. And

so I don't have a ci like you david

Me neither

Well, I mean it's the district so it's

and that's one of the reasons

I

That and it was more money

But uh to come up here to learn something

new and to embrace a

different way of doing things

And I think that's one

thing that goes a long ways

Towards avoiding burnout is is it's

change is doing something different and

that's part of my being driven

um is is is

I don't want to become

complacer because if I do I tend to

burn out and

But I have to be very

cautious about that in that if I go

If I if I go too fast

with my kids and it's like

in in one of Blaine Ray's uh

Feminards to use that word. Uh, one of

his classes he talked about getting too

much too fast too soon as a killer and

um

I was thinking about that and reflecting

awesome reflect on my lesson for next

week and start the second quarter and

I don't want to

Give my kids too much information that

they become frustrated

Because it's so much ci coming at them

why a ci is great and it's wonderful

But too much too much input

and they'll be overwhelmed

and

They'll get frustrated

And I will feel that i'm you know, i'm

not being effective

and i'll feel burned out

And and by not giving so much to them is

a little bit that I can control that

Control that ebb and flow and I know what

i'm putting out there and I can pull back

And push a little bit

further pull back, you know

And just that nice, you know

um

That nice flow right,

you know in and out. Yeah

And now a couple things as

you guys were talking that um

Brought some kinds to mind

I'll tell you just a couple things that's

still on the burnout thing because it

made me think of a couple things

I remember when we did readings

Those novels we didn't have very many we

had all the bling ray novels and that was

all that we had we

didn't have the variety

That we had now and for like the first

eight years of my career.

I taught pobriana every day

You know every level one

and especially, you know

I'm like if I I can't

even look at pobriana

The same way anymore. I know it by heart.

I can tell you that exactly, you know

going through I know

the whole story, you know

That would just drove me crazy after a

while. I couldn't and the original way we

were supposed to teach it

Which was the worst way no offense bling,

but this did not work.

We were supposed to teach

one

chapter

A week. So just on

fridays we would do it. Well and

Go as far as you could and so I was

teaching pobriana the whole

Year because it took the whole year to

get through it if you

did only once a week

um, and it was like oh my

I am so tired of pobriana

Can she become rich now and just move on

and move on to a new life? I was like

I just I drove me crazy

now. We have such a variety

So I have like three or four go to level

one and level two novels that I did. I'll

rotate them for my own sanity

out there

And then the other thing I

did who my kids had burnout

And I know why bling does this and why

everybody advocates for this,

but my kids didn't like it. So

um

The way when you work from a curriculum

usually the oral story

you do with your class

Is the same as the written story that you

have the kids read just more

words with it and more details

And my kids didn't understand that

It was actually something different

because reading is something different

than listening. They didn't understand

they're like we just

did this story yesterday

That's what they kept asking me. So when

I wrote my curriculum

I made sure that we had five different

stories because we had a

A story you did with actors you had the

reading then you had one with pictures

and then you had a reading

activity and a listening activity

Which again, I did those in

my curriculum way back in 2013

Never thought to actually give the

listening and the reading activity as

classwork never never never thought that

But I had five

different stories every time

To combat that for the kids and then it

also was different for me because

I'm like I did this story

when I only had level ones

I did this story already six times

yesterday and now i've got

to read it six more times

So I work really hard and all my reading

stories use the same vocabulary that

we're working on the

same grammatical structures

But then I write them about the kids in

my class. So that's my homework every

week is to come up with a new story

Based on that vocabulary with my kids. So

that helps me a little

bit with that burnout

But the perfectionism

And I know donna tatum johns

was one with me like this too

when we started tprs

And scripted we scripted everything

So I was like I

channeled my oprah wind free

and I made um

Cardstock half page and

I printed them at 16 font

so I would type up the first sentence

And then underneath that I would type up

10 questions. I could

ask about that sentence

And because it was so scripted I was

trying to be a perfectionist making sure

did I do my yes questions?

Did I do my no questions? I do my either

or you know that pattern and make sure it

wasn't a pattern and did I?

Get my two for one. Did I ask did I

reconfirm my no to get my

yes and all that kind of stuff

I made sure all those

formulaic circling things were there

But they couldn't change

much. I had the variable name

You could add the name the color of the

hair but they were going to target no

matter what because I

wrote target in there

And I wasn't it was I couldn't

Change my script on the fly to now

replace target with the piggy wiggly that

they chose in the in the story

So I was a very

perfectionist and I know um

Don and tatum johns did it with

handwriting and she showed us her scripts

It was like little booklets that she did

I did it with typing it out because um

I'm a slow handwriter

And so I typed everything and then I

could reuse it much easier because if I

like copy got torn up or something

I could just um, you know reprint it and

be good and then I also um

Would put them on the

little rings little metal rings

So I put a hole in them

put a little metal ring

So if I wouldn't have to worry about

dropping them and then worried about what

order the cards were supposed to be in

So they were already in

that that ring on there

So it kept him thinking I always walked

around with my little ring of cards for

at least two years at least two years of

Scripting because I just I

couldn't think enough on my feet

To ask all the questions

and back when we started

We didn't even ask questions when we

first started we had to tell the story

three different times

in a row

So um, and there was no

circling or anything like that

But when circling came about I scripted

everything because I couldn't think on

the fly and and then I even

tried a little cheat sheet

in the back of the room

That's what I did

She cheated in the back of the room where

I would have a plus a negative

An or and then a question mark. So the

kids had no idea what I

was looking at back there

But I had that so I know oh I need to ask

a positive question. Oh, I

need to ask a negative question

I need to ask an either or question. I

need to ask a question word question to

get that now it comes naturally

But it didn't come naturally in the

beginning. So I had to train myself

and I made little um

I don't know if I came up with this or

someone else came with it

I'm going to give someone else credit

because I have no idea

But I when I would script too because my

scripting I always

scripted in the same order

But I would slide my thumb

Up and down my card and whatever my thumb

landed. That's the question I would ask

that's how I kind of randomized

The story a little bit so it helped with

that and I would list different

variables. So I was I am a perfectionist

I've always been a perfectionist

I'll notice a little error and I just

made a hundred copies with this error and

i'm like recycle bin

Fix the error and go make

the hundred copies again. So

I

Just did that with that class that um

building foundations for

success class. I had to make a

a movie guide because we're watching a

movie next week on um,

on the movie concussion and so um

The first part I forgot to put lines for

them to write the

answer to the first question

So i'm like, okay

Toss all those copies and then I

reprinted it with the lines and then made

a whole bunch of copies

I am a perfectionist and I do I that's

that's the wire where it

really showed me a lot was in there

printing everything out to make sure

everything was just the

way it was supposed to be

So that I would not

make a mistake nowadays

Um, as I said, I can do it naturally I

don't have to script everything but

that's where that perfectionism came in

and it was exhausting

To write all of those questions every

time we did not have chat gpt back then

So we had to do it all of ourselves now

Scripting would be extremely easy because

I can put in my 10 sentences of my story

and say now write me

you know

50

Questions about this particular sentence.

Give me some either ors

Give me some yes

ones. Give me some no ones

Give me some question word ones

Give me some inference ones and it will

spit them out and I go great copy paste

print and i'm good to go

But not you know, we didn't have that

back when I started way back in 2001

I mean that was I mean I was doing the

spinning wheel at the back of the

classroom or whatever

For my questioning as I

was learning the process

And making sure that I do the yes

question that either or

did I don't know and and

And it got to the point where one thing

and I brought this up to craig sheehy

uh

a couple years ago that

It got tiresome for me to constantly be

asking questions of my students

And and circling the question. Yeah, i'm

going to circle the class. I want to

circle the questions for the class

That's fine. And then triangle the

individual students. I'm gonna do that

But it got a little tiresome and so I was

getting burned out like

and the kids were like, okay

Yeah, this is the routine. This is what

we're going to do and you

can tell they were like, yeah

We know what we're gonna do today and