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40 Hour Workweek
Welcome!
ANGELA WATSON

Founder/Editor-in-Chief

Real talk and practical ideas from K-12 educators

Join over 92,000 teachers who receive our Sunday night emails, and get inspired + informed for the week ahead. Sign up here:
Welcome!
ANGELA WATSON

Founder/Editor-in-Chief

Real talk and practical ideas from K-12 educators

Join over 92,000 teachers who receive our Sunday night emails, and get inspired + informed for the week ahead. Sign up here:

What’s Truth for Teachers all about?

We’re a collective of educators who collaborate around a shared set of values and purpose.

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Diverse perspectives

We feature K-12 teachers with a wide range of identities, lived experiences, teaching experiences, and educational contexts. We seek to highlight voices that are often missing from the dominant narratives in education.

Sustainable workloads

We help teachers use mindset and productivity tools to create balance and find a sustainable approach to their workload. We prioritize energy-giving tasks to help teachers maintain their enthusiasm and creativity.

Teacher + student agency

We find the overlap between what’s best for educators and what’s best for kids, and support teachers in activism and advocating for positive change in their classrooms, schools, and communities.

Holistic wellbeing

We work to create schools that prepare kids to be informed, conscious citizens, and we value more than just the academic instruction, as the physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing of children and educators are interconnected.

Mission
Statement

The encouragement, motivation, and practical teaching strategies you’ll find here are grounded in these core beliefs:

  • We believe classroom teachers have a unique and essential expertise that must be centered in discussions about education. Decisions about teaching should not be made without teachers. So, we use our platform to amplify the voices of classroom practitioners.
  • We seek out a diversity of perspectives and honor the wide range of experiences teachers have in K-12 schools. We focus on teachers in the United States, but welcome and learn from the voices of educators around the world. We encourage them to speak openly and transparently about all they are experiencing.
  • We believe in the relentless pursuit of truth by uncovering history, facts, and experiences that have been obscured or whitewashed. We look to see whose perspectives are missing from common narratives and how that’s shaped what we believe is true. We are constantly learning and growing, and sharing that process with other educators.
  • We believe that who teachers ARE matters just as much as what they DO. Therefore, we focus not only on professional development, but also personal development. We delve deeply into topics of mindset, unpacking personal bias, habits for strong mental health, and overall teacher wellbeing. The goal is to provoke self-examination and help educators be the best true version of themselves.
  • We work to be inclusive but aren’t afraid to take a stand on divisive issues when needed. When deciding whether to tackle a controversial topic, our guiding question is, “Who benefits if we choose to stay silent about this?” We stand with folks in the margins and work for justice, accountability, and equity.
  • We believe in a humanized approach to education, addressing not only the needs of the whole child but the whole teacher. The physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing of both children and educators is our central concern, and does not come secondary to academic goals.
  • We believe the status quo is not best serving the needs of teachers or kids, and push one another to reimagine what’s possible. We do not believe in martyring ourselves to meet impossible expectations or overburdening students with irrelevant assignments and excessive testing. Instead, we support teachers in focusing on what makes the biggest impact for kids, and setting boundaries on how much time they–and their students–dedicate to less impactful tasks.
  • We believe there is a huge overlap between what’s best for kids and what’s best for teachers, and work to offer solutions that serve the best interest of both. Kids learn best from happy, supported, balanced teachers. So, we reject the tendency to pit teachers’ needs against those of students, and instead look for the alignment between them.
  • We believe teaching is inherently impacted by the larger political, cultural, societal, and institutional frameworks that our schools operate within. So, we don’t shy away from discussing current events, and work to inform and equip educators to navigate systemic challenges.
  • We believe that a free high quality public education is not only the right of every child, but essential for the greater good of a nation. We respect parental choice, and support teachers working in private and charter schools. We also have a deep passion for strengthening our public school system through equitable learning conditions for kids and sustainable working conditions for educators.
  • We actively look for solutions that make teaching more effective, efficient, enjoyable, and equitable. We seek to help teachers find a sustainable approach to their work in order to maintain their enthusiasm and creativity. We support them in identifying practices that make the best use of class time and help meet the needs of all students, without burning out.
  • We believe our mission is up for questioning but not up for debate. We invite healthy discussion initiated in good faith for the purpose of clarification. We encourage pushing one another’s thinking to include additional perspectives. And, we welcome all educators in this space. In the interest of cohesion and forward progress, we focus on the needs of educators who share our core values. We do not compromise the work of our community to center the perspectives of those who are disinterested in (or opposed to) our goals.

If you feel energized and excited after reading this … you’ve found your community of educators. We’re glad you’re here!

Sign up to be part of this community, and we’ll send you an encouraging message every Sunday night.

ENROLLING NOW

Maximize your contractual hours, so you’re not working endlessly on nights and weekends.

Our 40 Hour Workweek programs offer online personal + professional development for educators who want to focus on what really matters and simplify the rest.

Over 48,000 teachers have used 40 Hour to get organized, streamline routines, give kids ownership of the classroom, and be truly intentional about how they use their instructional, contractual, and personal time.

We also offer a 40 Hour Instructional Coaching program and 40 Hour Leadership for school administrators to help shift norms and expectations school-wide.

What teachers are saying

Angela’s podcast is my motivation each week! She has not forgotten what it’s like to be in the classroom. Every teacher will appreciate her words of encouragement.

A.Y.

What teachers are saying

I love how Angela simplifies things. I have not mastered that skill yet. Soooo glad to feel like I'm on the path to a normal life and schedule. Getting closer! (So not there yet, but I'm ok with that as long as I am making progress and not stuck in the same rut I've been in for THIRTEEN years!!!)

Abigail Sarmiento

What teachers are saying

Angela is not only an advocate for teachers, she is the voice of hope, a soundboard for truth, and the guru of positive thinking and practice in a challenging profession. Listening to Angela is like detoxing for the teaching mind and soul; a recommended prescription for anyone in the profession.

Ava W.

What teachers are saying

I have followed Angela for years through her books and website. She has a way of looking for the positive without denying the issues we face. I enjoy her practical solutions and pro-active ideas.

Christine

What teachers are saying

The topics Angela chooses to address are those matter to teachers. With so many struggles and challenges we face, she provides realistic advice. She’s that voice that reminds you of your worth and value as an educator.

E. Lopez

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Meet our Founder

Angela Watson, Editor-in-Chief

Angela is a National Board Certified educator and has a masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction. She created the first version of this site in 2003, when she was a classroom teacher herself. Now with 11 years of teaching experience and more than a decade of experience as an instructional coach, Angela oversees and contributes regularly to the resource collection here, and hosts the Truth for Teachers podcast. Angela also provides coaching and consulting services, creates online courses, and designs curriculum resources.

Angela believes in challenging the narrative of the overworked and unappreciated educator who sacrifices to the point of burnout. Through the Truth for Teachers writers collective, she aims to center the voices of classroom practitioners in finding more sustainable approaches to high-quality K-12 education.