If we only focus on self-care, we only affect the top of what I’ve coined the Wellbeing Pyramid. Collaboratively, we must start to address the systems that we have helped foster that have caused much of the stress in the first place. We must improve the environments that educators find themselves in everyday and at a minimum decrease the stress and increase the supports available in that setting.
We must stop expecting educators to save themselves and instead start to address the group climate and culture of our schools. We can safely assume that those new to the profession are exhausted too.
I don’t know how others who might be in less than ideal situations are handling it.” Larry Felazzo, the award-winning teacher who writes a popular education blog and a teacher advice column, recently wrote, “I teach in an almost ideal situation and I’m exhausted after just the first month of this year. For many educators, being asked to “find time for themselves” is both impossible and, in itself, stress inducing when finding time is not a real option.įor more on the future of learning, check out the weekly EdSurge Podcast, wherever you listen. No doubt these strategies are helpful in addressing the wound, but they do little to nothing to address the cause. Basically, it’s up to you to save yourself. 3 in 4 heads see staff in tears this termīut the only solutions we are presented revolve around “self-care,” i.e., rest, relaxation, meditation, physical activity and yoga.Educators, Don’t Forget About Your Own Mental Health.Why So Many Teachers Are Thinking of Quitting.This quote, which comes from Education Week’s aptly titled piece, Teachers Are Not OK, Even Though We Need Them to Be, is just one of numerous articles, reports and statements outlining the stress that educators are under, and the well-intentioned but flawed approach of asking educators to save themselves. “You can’t deep-breathe your way out of a pandemic you cannot stretch your way out of terrible class sizes you cannot ‘individual behavior’ your way out of structural problems,” she says. Excuse the pun but they are more than burned out, they are scorched.Ĭhelsea Prax, a program director at the American Federation of Teachers, sums it up succinctly. In education, we treat the wound and then usher our teachers back into the fire. If you get burned in a fire, you first treat the wound, but you also try to put the fire out.
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