Teachers, Hold On to What You Know: Trusting Yourself During Testing and Evaluations

Send us Fan Mail Testing season and evaluations can make even confident teachers question themselves. In this episode, we talk about how to stay grounded, trust your professional judgment, and teach from your values when pressure and opinions get loud. The volume gets loud this time of year—tests, evaluations, and opinions from people who have never stood in your classroom. We’re turning that noise down and turning your inner voice up. This conversation is a reset for tired teachers who need both reassurance and a plan: you are already enough, and you can teach from your values without performing for every changing metric. We unpack why moving goalposts—like demanding a year and a half or two years of growth—strain both teachers and kids, and how to ground your practice in what actually works. From the realities of conferring versus small-group instruction to reading the signals students send when a plan isn’t working, we look at instruction through a humane, practical lens. Your eyes are data. Your calm is an intervention. Your choices, guided by experience and evidence, can outlast trends. We also challenge the tired myth that public servants should accept less. You are a whole person with a life that deserves margin and dignity. That’s not selfish; it’s essential for a stable classroom. Together we explore boundaries that protect your energy, routines that center learning over performance, and community support that makes the work sustainable when March brings testing and disruptions. Progress grows where pressure gives way to presence. If you’re ready to trade performative extras for aligned practice, to trust your instincts, and to remember that what you’re doing matters, this one’s for you.

You can listen to Teachers, Hold On to What You Know: Trusting Yourself During Testing and Evaluations online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Teachers, Hold On to What You Know: Trusting Yourself During Testing and Evaluations is an episode from One Tired Teacher by Trina Deboree.

This episode is 12:51 long.

This episode was published on Feb 23, 2026.

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