Chase Mielke was looking for a way out.
Several years into his teaching career, he was burned out, frustrated and searching for jobs outside education. He still cared about students. He still believed the work mattered. But the daily weight of teaching had started to overshadow the purpose that brought him there.
At the time, Mielke was teaching a class he created called Positive Psychology, which focused on resilience, gratitude and optimism. The curriculum won awards. His students were learning to reframe challenges and develop healthier ways of moving through the world.
Mielke was teaching those tools every day. He just was not using them himself.
“All day long, I was teaching and preaching, ‘This is the science of resilience and gratitude. This is how we cultivate more optimism’,” Mielke said in an interview with UEA. “But never once really applied it through my own lens of, like, dude, you’ve got to practice what you preach.”
So he gave himself one more year.
The difference a year makes
“I’m going to apply every positive psychology concept I’ve ever heard of to myself and really work on my own well-being,” he said.
That decision changed how he moved through the school day. The challenges did not disappear, but they no longer defined the whole day.
“We can acknowledge the bad exists and still cultivate and curate some of the good,” Mielke said. “Because that is absolutely still in every life, every day, every experience.”
Mielke, a Michigan-based educator now in his 18th year of teaching, will share his research-based, teacher-tested practices to improve educator well-being during his keynote on the first day of UEA’s Summer Learning Institute.
Practical tools for a heavy season
The free, two-day event, held June 16-17 in Midvale at the Zions Technology Center, is built around the pressures public educators are facing in classrooms, schools and local associations.
This year’s theme, “Seeds of Hope: Cultivating Brighter Futures for Public Education,” points to the event’s larger purpose: giving UEA members practical tools, time to learn together and support they can carry back into their work.
Important: Registration requires two steps
To fully register for SLI, please complete both:
- Register in Eventbrite
- Enroll in SLI through the UEA Professional Learning Portal & select sessions
Burnout is not the only challenge shaping the school day. Student behavior has become one of the most urgent and exhausting issues in classrooms.
That is where Sam Parmerlee’s work begins.
When behavior is the barrier
Parmerlee, an Indiana-based special education leader and the educator behind @TheEdQueen, will deliver the Day 2 keynote, “Believe First, Support Second.” Her work focuses on helping educators understand challenging behavior, build inclusive systems and respond to students with support, structure and high expectations.
Her sessions are grounded in a simple but important shift: moving from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”
Her breakout session, “Redirecting the Undirectable,” will focus on chronic disruption and provide participants with seven strategies for redirecting and reengaging students.
The how behind the why
For Mielke, the question is not whether public educators know why we chose this work. We do.
The harder question is how to keep living that purpose when the days are heavy, student needs are complex and another school year is already on the horizon.
“Every educator knows their why,” Mielke said. “The challenge is the how of the why.”
UEA’s Summer Learning Institute is built around answering that question.
Important: Registration requires two steps
To fully register for SLI, please complete both:
- Register in Eventbrite
- Enroll in SLI through the UEA Professional Learning Portal & select sessions
