Why Slowing Down as a Teacher is So Ridiculously Hard

(If you couldn't already tell, this is going to involve some venting)

First off: my apologies in advance this morning.

Somehow what I intended to be one of the shorter of these reflections became a quite-long one that not only centers the 7th chapter of

Alex Shevrin Venet

’s Becoming an Everyday Changemaker but also Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (what a trifecta!)—along with me venting for a considerable while under the facade of “authentic reflection.”

(There’s also a baseball analogy as well, by the way.)

Yes, this is another post in our book study of Becoming an Everyday Changemaker, following

Adrian Neibauer

’s very-timely reflection on relationships with Chapter 6 last week. 

But it also was a space I needed to get some frustrations off my chest as a teacher in this moment, too, through the lens of this once-again-remarkable chapter and what I’m recognizing is as challenging for me right now as it ever has been.

Honesty is the best policy, they say, so if you’re willing to go for the ride, buckle up!

As always, though, let’s begin with a quick summary of what this chapter was about:

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Chapter 7 Summary: this chapter begins with the obvious question about slowing down in a book about change: “Doesn’t slowing down mean delaying justice?” (127)

Venet acknowledges the paradoxical nature of this chapter straightaway, insisting on the value of slowing down as not just beneficial but necessary in the work of change—particularly if we are “fully engaging in the work of justice and care” (129).

Along with offering some specific examples and strategies, Chapter 7 ultimately provides four separate, thoughtful intentions to make slowing down as an educator and changemaker more purposeful: (1) to dream and vision; (2) to wonder; (3) to be relational; and (4) to feel.

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So unlike previous chapters in this book, which felt like just what I needed to read at that given moment of my school year, this one was something between Brussels sprouts and broccoli for me. 

I know I need to slow down. I just don’t really know how. Especially right now.

While everything in this chapter resonated as meaningful and persuasive—as has been the case every single chapter, Venet is right—I found myself a bit more frustrated with every page I turned.

Mostly with myself.

So to honor that emotion rather than avoid it, I am going to use this space today to do something a bit different than what I normally do here: vent. 

Specifically, about three reasons why I believe it is so challenging to hit the brakes for me as a teacher and, as a result, why this chapter was so challenging for me.

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The School Year Isn’t Designed for Slowing Down

As I’ve shared before, one of the quiet, ongoing joys of 2024 for me has been joining Simon Haisel’s slow-read group of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace: one chapter a day with a reflection and discussion of that chapter amongst all the other slow-readers across the globe. (Highly recommend in 2025 for others, by the way!)

Thinking about this experience with War and Peace, Venet is 100% right about the value of going slow intentionally: I get time to wonder and I get time to be relational with other readers and, more than anything, to feel this incredible book one chapter at a time. It has been a sublime journey as a reader.

It has also been exactly the opposite of how the school year is experienced by most teachers. 

Let’s see if any of this sounds familiar: at the end of the summer, teachers stumble back into the building with classrooms to set up and required meetings to attend, so at any given moment they are doing one thing they have to do and thinking about another thing. Toss in any new courses they’ve been assigned, district mandates, new policies to prepare for, etc. 

Then an absolute sprint commences over the next nine months or so, with only a handful of days to catch their breath until the last week of school in May or June—when, even if time is allotted to plan and prepare for the next year, the energy is very much not there for that work and the potential unknowns that can take place over the summer render most of that planning and preparation rather futile.

Rinse/repeat. Year after year. 

Again, what Venet writes in this chapter about the need to slow down intentionally to make change happen successfully completely resonates with me. When she notes that educators “can get lost in the logistics if we don’t slow down” (141), I found myself nodding so hard I had to make sure after that I didn’t tweak my neck.

This is what’s needed, after all, if change is going to be successful not only in outcomes but also processes. 

This is also what we don’t have. 

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“Slowing Down” Becomes Another (and Impossible) To-Do

Of course, Venet names this utter failure to provide teachers with adequate time to do their work in this chapter: “the workload of their jobs is simply not possible to achieve in the amount of time specified in their contracts. This is an exploitative pattern in schools across the country” (136).

Naming the problem does not remove the reality, though, and not only does this reality for teachers impede successful widespread change at a systemic level in education, it likewise makes challenging the “slowing down” on an individual level for teachers, too.

When, exactly, am I supposed to slow down?

I recognize that slowing down can be framed as a choice. Tuesdays With Morrie to this day remains the book I’ve reread most frequently, and I’m very aware of Morrie Schwartz’s immediate rebuttal to his interviewer Mitch Albom when it is observed to him that slowing down is difficult once you begin metaphorically running. 

“Not so hard,” Morrie counters, before offering an inspiring explanation.

Look, I’m not going to pretend to be wiser than Morrie Schwartz (or Venet, for that matter!), but as a teacher, it is so hard. 

Way-too-large class sizes. The obligation of family contacts, both positive and for support. Out-of-the-blue district curriculum mandates. Technology requirements and, inevitably, technology failures. Ever-changing accommodations and modifications. Drills and assemblies, scheduled and unscheduled. Scaffolds and differentiations and chronic absences and those urgent sprints to the restroom and back before the next class walks in.

All important. (Well, maybe not all of those out-of-the-blue district curriculum mandates.)

Regardless, my broader point: in a landscape of under-resourced and over-burdened schools, teachers are the linchpin and teachers, most importantly, understand this.

That is why it is so hard, even when we name how hard it is. Even with the best and most generous intentions, as Venet and Schwartz both undeniably offer this advice to slow down with.

At the end of the day, “slowing down” becomes yet another to-do for teachers already with too much to do, and a gaslighting-adjacent guilt factor shows up as teachers have to choose between slowing down in the way we need to and meeting our own expectations for our classroom and students.

There’s no both/and solution for that, either. 

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I Don’t Really Know How To Slow Down Anymore

Still, especially once I get all of that venting out of my system, there’s an underlying truth that I arrived at this week while reflecting on these frustrations.

Which brought me back to all my time playing first base growing up and the immediate concern that would arise when I saw our pitcher pick up a ground ball.

One of the many ironies in the game of baseball frequently occurs when a sputtering ball is fielded by the pitcher, who then just has to complete the seemingly-simple task of making a soft, casual throw to first base for the out.

The only problem? After spending the vast majority of their training and practice rifling fastballs towards home plate, pitchers aren’t really conditioned for that type of throw—which is why far too often those simple tosses end up sailing into right field.

Teachers aren’t conditioned to slow down, either.

When I honestly reflect on my own pace of getting through a given day, if I’m really trying to tackle the checklist and remain at a place where I feel good about my classroom and the experience of my students within it, I cannot pause. 

I don’t sit down during my lessons. I’m teaching one lesson while considering three others in my head simultaneously. Almost every conversation with a student is had with an eye towards the next one I’m going to have. Time saved on one task is immediately reallocated to another task and, even with a healthy boundary between work and home, I’m the one as a teacher who has to set that boundary, rather than my job setting it for me, as should be the case.

Any wonder that, when I try to slow down, I end up flinging the ball into right field, too?

However, if I’m being really honest: that pace I live with is also sort of a coping mechanism.

Because in those rare moments where I do fend off the unavoidable and inevitables, when I do somehow manage to toss the metaphorical ball to first base for the out, and I manage to find space to seriously think and consider the stuff of education?

Like all the stuff?

Well, it’s not necessarily my favorite space.

Going back to this morning’s reading of War and Peace (on page 1189, to give myself some credit for being so near the end of this reading journey!), one of the central characters is described as throwing away the “mental telescope” he had “equipped himself with” in order to “find that great inscrutable infinite something.” He has been coping, in other words, with his reality by looking elsewhere—rather than finding peace and purpose in the moment where he is.

And without going into detail about my own why in regards to this, I will admit here: it’s not very fun to fully reckon with all the stuff of education that we really have no answers for, in the now and in the what’s ahead. 

Moving too fast is exhausting, but not necessarily as exhausting as facing and confronting the myriad systemic injustices that are ever-widening chasms we must traverse if we are to realize the education our students and communities and hopes of a better future demand and deserve.

Sprinting after the overthrown ball as it trickles into right field can be just the distraction we need to get through the day. So that’s what we do sometimes. 

Maybe a lot of the time.

No wonder slowing down is so freaking hard.

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What did you think of Chapter 7? Feel free to jump into the comments to reply and share your thoughts! Also, next week we are planning on not only discussing Chapter 8 over at Adrian’s Newsletter but also hosting a discussion on Bluesky for those who have been enjoying that new educator community—more information to come!

(Speaking of which: if you’re a subscriber to The Broken Copier and one of the many new arrivals at Bluesky, we are going to create a Broken Copier starter pack with not only Jim and myself, but also anyone who is part of this community who wants to be connected also over there—if you want to be on that list, just quickly fill out this two-question form with your name and handle!)

Note: baseball image for header and featured in post is from baseball-tutorial.com. (Highly-recommended for pitchers to read through, by the way, from this first basemen who had way too many close-calls on those throws.)