Riding the Wave. Jeremy S. Adams
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Professor Keith Herman, doctoral student Jal’et Hickmon-Rosa, and professor Wendy Reinke (2018) note in a prominent study, “Teacher stress and burnout are significant problems that affect our schools. Finding innovative and impactful ways to improve outcomes for students by supporting teachers may make a significant contribution to society” (p. 98).
When teachers thrive emotionally, physically, and psychologically, the list of positive consequences is almost limitless. Consider that when students describe the qualities of effective teachers, they commonly observe that these teachers seem to enjoy what they are doing (Urban, 2008). The teachers want to be in the classroom. The classroom rejuvenates them. In short, the best teachers derive genuine joy and purpose from their interactions in the classroom (Adams, 2016). Self-care makes for more positive and productive classroom teachers—which makes for more positive and productive students.
Data confirm that when teachers feel good about themselves and their profession, they are more likely to provide a high-quality education to their students. Trauma consultant William Steele (2017), for example, has argued that teachers who eagerly practice self-care are far more likely to be proactive in reacting to both student challenges and overall challenges of the educational system. Self-care gives teachers the tools they need to effectively cope with the difficult circumstances of 21st century education.
NOTICE the WAVE
Do school staff talk about self-care at your school? If so, does it seem like a perfunctory conversation, or do both administrators and teachers take it seriously? If staff haven’t brought up self-care, how do you think your colleagues would react to the topic?
Summary
Teaching has never been easy. Standing in front of dozens of young people for hours every single day can be challenging even in the most stable and supportive of environments. And sadly, most teachers feel that their jobs are more stressful in 2020 than they were in 2010. Everything is faster—the trends, the technology, the unpredictable disruptions to the profession itself—which adds to teachers’ difficulty in maintaining a positive, productive frame of mind. Irrespective of the reasons for this shift in attitude and morale, it is no longer an option for schools to hope that teachers “get their minds right” or “find a happy place” on their own. In service professions such as teaching, there is sometimes a stigma associated with considering anyone besides those being serviced. But schools are communities, and while students are correctly the focal point, teachers should never hesitate to acknowledge their own limitations or needs as they relate to their roles within those communities. As long as we can count on constant change and reform, teacher self-care will remain a relevant and necessary topic in education. It must feature just as prominently in our professional conversations as pedagogy, credentialing, and technological trends do.
This chapter has explained why taking self-care seriously is important to maintaining the integrity of the teaching profession. In the next chapter, we’ll learn a variety of self-care strategies teachers can use inside and outside of school. These strategies will help teachers maintain a sense of control over their health and career and prepare themselves each day for whatever the classroom has in store.
CHAPTER 2
Practicing Self-Care
Now that the case for self-care has been made, let us discover how to put theory into practice. The following five strategies will help you maintain your personality as an educator, avoid compassion fatigue, better manage your stress, self-reflect in a fairer way, and keep a positive outlook amid negative situations. Depending on your experiences and mindset, you may find some strategies more useful than others, but know that each strategy represents just one component of your well-being and effectiveness as a classroom teacher.
Strategy 1: Stay Yourself
At one point or another, almost every teacher has faced an intimidating reform—such as incorporating new technologies, flipping classrooms, confronting students’ emotional issues, or conducting an unorthodox lesson—and thought to him- or herself, “You’ve got to be kidding. That isn’t me! I can’t do that.”
When facing change, you must stay yourself. As you will see, this can mean a multiplicity of different things. But this much is certain: resistance to reform is natural. When teachers don’t feel suited to new educational developments, they may feel as if they must lose their teaching style and their entire self in the process of reform. But they can maintain their personalities during such changes. The idea is that you should never try to be a teacher you aren’t. Teachers who master the ability to absorb new demands while maintaining who they are as individual teachers will stay positive and continue to flourish through turbulent times.
How do they achieve this duality? By realizing that they still have considerable power over their own classrooms. As researcher Mark Feng Teng (2017) observes, “There is an interconnection between teachers’ professional identities and their sense of agency” (p. 119). In more practical terms, what does this look like? Teachers can maintain a sense of control by:
Implementing changes at their own pace
Approaching change as an opportunity to add new color to their teaching canvas instead of as a demand to burn what they have already painted
Holding on to unique personality traits or quirks
Preserving assignments and activities that they especially enjoy or value
Funny teachers should retain their sense of humor. Teachers who tell stories should absolutely keep telling stories. Teachers who like a strict schedule should continue scheduling.
Sound reforms will allow for the natural diversity that exists among teachers who stand in front of the classroom day after day, week after week, and sometimes decade after decade. After all, there is a vast difference between a dictate to “change what you do in the classroom” and a dictate to “change who you are in the classroom.” Teaching is an activity rooted in a common humanity and delivered with teachers’ force of personality, and shedding that personality is fraught with drawbacks, such as feeling like a fraud or phony in front of one’s students. Your personal teaching style is a reservoir of joy in the teaching profession. So if this style serves you and your students well, you should continue to drink from this reservoir and remain loyal to this style while confronting change. Your prosperity in the classroom and your experience of teaching’s greatest rewards depend on your sense of agency and individuality amid constant change.