Processing an overwhelming amount of advice is an important skill as a teacher.

It feels so important to get this right.

And much of the advice you receive is pretty solid.

But not all advice is worth taking right now, and some is not worth taking at all.

Here are a few reasons that teaching suggestions can seem positive but have a toxic element to them.

Advice that is so general that it doesn’t contain much substance.

Some examples of this type of advice might be: Set high expectations for students! Or, Be organized!

I mean, sure. . . I guess.

These are both things to aim for as a teacher.

They’re basically true statements.

But if someone is struggling with a specific teaching issue in their classroom, the chance that what they need to hear is be organized or set high expectations for students is very unlikely.

Advice that has hours of hidden steps.

Some examples of that might be: Why don’t you set up a classroom website! Or, here’s a list of child psychology books that you should read!

The problem with a secretly work-heavy tip is that it ends up on a to-do list that you just cannot motivate yourself to get started on.

This growing to-do list makes you feel overwhelmed and inadequate.

Why haven’t you started your classroom website yet?

Well, you haven’t started it because you don’t even know what program you would use to make a website, and you know there’s going to be troubleshooting involved, and you forgot your password, and who knows what else, because there are just so many steps involved that this really isn’t one to-do list item.

It is a whole project.

If you can at least recognize this as a project, you’ll put it in its proper place, which is . . . maybe on a list of things that you might want to consider working on over the summer.

Or something to cross off your list entirely. (You can do this!)

Cinematic classroom win stories with the details left out.

Every teacher likes to share a good classroom win story—especially if it’s dramatic, or if they shut down a rude student or snarky parent with a perfect, argument-destroying one-liner.

But these stories are not to be treated as instruction manuals.

There are generally background details missing from these stories, so if the listener is a teacher who’s hoping to mine these stories for teaching strategies, it can backfire tremendously.

Good advice might tell teachers that it’s okay to slow down, but it never tells them to stop.

Even when someone is overwhelmed or needs reassurance that they’re not a complete failure as a teacher, they don’t need advice like, “If you can just keep these kids quiet, it’s fine. They’re never going to learn anything anyway.”

Advice should never give the impression that it is okay for students not to be learning at all, or that they are unteachable.

Otherwise, why are you here?

Beware of rhyming or poetic expressions.

They may not capture the nuance of this complex profession!

If you can conceive it, they can achieve it!

I mean, maybe? Depending on what you have conceived?

They don’t care what you know until they know that you care!

Um, except in certain circumstances, where they just need to know the thing you know?

Rhyming phrases may sound nice, but that doesn’t make them real advice!

To recap…

There are a lot of different ways that seemingly good advice can be anywhere from dangerous to just not that helpful.

Or sometimes it can be a perfectly good well-meaning comment or piece of advice that you just don’t need right now.

So, how do you know if the teaching advice you’re getting is good? There are three things that can definitely help.

First: try to visualize putting this advice into practice.

Try to actually picture what it would be like to put this advice into practice. Mentally pull on the thread and see where it leads.

Then, if there are details you can’t picture, ask follow up questions. Take the potentially overwhelming suggestion to start a classroom website:

• What website service to you use to host your classroom website?
• How long did it take you to set up?
• How many students use this website?
• What do you put on there?
• How many hours a week do you spend updating it?

As you ask these questions, a clearer picture will start to emerge.

What you may realize is this person put up a website at the beginning of the year and hasn’t updated it in months.

Or maybe this person just started the process of setting up a website and they have no idea if it’s going to work out yet. They’re just excited about it, and that’s why they’re sharing it.

Or maybe they have a site, but it just has very minimal detail and doesn’t require much updating. Maybe it’s just one paragraph plus their email.

Which is fine!

But that was probably not the level of commitment you were picturing if you ran out and decided to take this advice.

As a side note, you don’t have to tell the person if you decide their advice isn’t for you.

Just say, Thank you. That was very helpful. I’m going to consider that.

Then, privately, think about whether this advice is for you or not.

Second: seek out unofficial mentors.

Try to ask more than one person the same question. The mentor teacher assigned by your principal should not be the only other teacher you’re turning to for help, even if they’re good, even if they’re great.

You want to ask casual questions from teachers that teach the same grade level, the same age of kids. You want to just constantly be taking in information and not only will that help you kind of get a second opinion on the advice you’re getting, but over time you’ll realize that there are a few people out there that you really, really enjoy talking to about teaching that make you better, that make you feel better, and that you really do trust their opinion. And even then you need more than one of them because sometimes those people are unavailable or tired.

Finally: listen to your gut.

Pay attention to your own emotional reaction to the advice you’re getting.

If somebody says something that gives you stomach cramps or makes you not want to get up on Monday morning, this is either not the person you want to talk to or not the type of advice you need right now.

Processing an overwhelming amount of advice is an important skill for teachers.

It’s why one of the courses within the Maintain and Stay Sane Program for Teachers focuses on the fire hose of advice and information you receive and how to make it more manageable.

The course is called Processing Advice, Information, and Super-Important-Information because often among the overwhelming amount of information you’re getting is the sense that it’s all super important and there are definitely ways of sifting through that and getting rid of some of that overwhelm.