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WEAC Professional Development, Fall 2019

Staying sane can feel like an uphill battle.

​What leads to this insanity?
And can anything be done to stop it?
Educators struggle with stressors placed on them, their schools, and their students. We need to take a serious look at these negative forces before teachers see their only way to escape is to leave the profession. 
What's your level of stress?
​How does it compare to colleagues?
Take the 8 questions questionnaire  and find out. 
What's your emotional style?
​Take this 24 question quiz.
Understand how your emotions effect your well-being and relationships with others. An online self-assessment from Dr. Richard Davidson, the Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Results displayed at the end and can be emailed to you.
Personal self reflection for teachers and staff; paper.
​From CASEL, designed to help teachers and staff assess and understand their own levels of social and emotional competence.

23 Resilience Building Tools & Exercises

Excellent article with activities for adults and students to build resilience. Also information, videos, and links.
​From Positive Psychology.  Click for link

How can we support the emotional well-being of teachers?

Sydney Jenson, Nebraska Teacher of the Year, talks about stressors that challenge educators, including secondary trauma and compassion fatigue. Time- 11 minutes. 

10 Tips to Deal with Stress & Building Resiliency

From Bryan Harris
  1. Maintain perspective. Even in challenging or stressful times, remind yourself that you make a difference. 
  2. Control your calendar. Create time for family, exercise, and fun activities. Add it to your calendar if you have to, and then follow through.
  3. Deal with conflict or difficult issues quickly and honestly. Remember what your dentist says: Rarely do problems get better by ignoring them. 
  4. Take care of your body. Diet, exercise, and sleep are fundamental to dealing with stress and building resiliency. You know the importance of feeding and walking your dog, don't do any less for yourself.
  5. Find a professional passion. Find what you love most about teaching and learning and dive in and become an expert.  
  6. Embrace change. In the last 10 years, our profession has had to embrace change like no other time in the past. Change is inevitable, embrace it and you'll feel you controlling it rather than it controlling you.
  7. Laugh. Humor is one of the best ways to combat stress, and it helps to place difficult or challenging situations into the proper perspective. You'll feel better and you'll be more pleasant to be around.
  8. Avoid complaining. Complaining about students, parents, coworkers, policy, school leadership, or the profession in general takes you in a negative direction. There is no such thing as a perfect school or a perfect organization. 
  9. Develop a professional support network. This profession can be lonely, find ways to support one another. Avoid the temptation to stay isolated in your classroom-- eat lunch with others.
  10. Take a risk. Stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone and try something new. After all, we ask kids to take risks on a daily basis.  If you fail, laugh and learn how to be better next time.
    ​If you succeed, celebrate. 

Truth with a little levity

Teacher Stress, Effects on Students and Schools
Direct and with humor, Sarah Breckley--Wisconsin 2017 High School Teacher of the Year-- shares the research and the effect teacher stress is having on students, the classroom, and education. 

​Time: 16:48 minutes

Components of Self Care

From Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
​Choose one from each of the five categories to actively work on. 

Physical self-care:
Eat regularly (breakfast, lunch, and dinner)
Get regular medical care for prevention
Get massages
Dance, swim, walk, run, play sports, sing, or do some other physical activity that is fun for you
Take vacations
Wear clothes you like
Get enough sleep

Psychological self-care:
Make time for self-reflection
Write in a journal
Read literature that is unrelated to work
Engage your intelligence in a new area, e.g.: go to an art museum, history exhibit, sports event, theatre
Practice receiving from others
Notice your inner experiences – listen to your thoughts, judgments, beliefs, attitudes and feelings
Say “no” to extra responsibilities sometimes

Emotional self-care:
Spend time with others whose company you enjoy
Stay in contact with important people in your life
Give yourself affirmations, praise yourself
Allow yourself to cry
Play with children
Identify comforting activities, objects, people, relationships, places and seek them out

Spiritual self-care:
Spend time in nature
Find a spiritual connection or community
Cherish your optimism and hope
Be aware of non material aspects of life
Be open to not knowing
Meditate
Pray
Sing
Take in inspirational content (literature, talks, etc.)

Workplace or professional self-care:
Take a break during the workday (e.g. to eat)
Take time to chat with colleagues
Make quiet time to complete tasks
Have a peer support group
Set limits with colleagues
Identify projects or tasks that are exciting and rewarding
Regularly consult with a mentor

APA Teacher Stress Module

From the American Psychological Association 
The first few years in the classroom can be the most difficult for a new teacher who may feel overwhelmed by the complexity and responsibilities of his or her new role. This module, primarily aimed at pre-service teachers and new educators, examines definitions and causes of teacher-related stress and provides strategies for recognizing, preventing and coping with stressful situations, events and triggers as they occur. 

​Time: 1 hour, 21 minutes

Teacher Stress and Health: Effects on Teachers, Students, and Schools

Produced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Brief overview of the effect teacher stress is having on education as a whole. 

​Time: 2:27 minutes