Professional Learning for Busy Educators

Would shifting our conversations from self-care to personal wellness bridge that gap and encompass more of the intended concept of putting the oxygen mask on ourselves first? Rather than adding self-care to our daily or weekly to-do list, what if we focus on listening to our hearts, our bodies, and our spirits more carefully and then acting upon that information? Taking care of ourselves in the midst of our daily grind could help us take better care of ourselves as well as those around us.

How are you feeling?

It’s not a trick question. But it’s more complicated than it sounds. We’re always feeling something, usually more than one thing at a time. Our emotions are a continuous flow, not an occasional event. Inside each of us there’s a river—placid and contained sometimes, but raging and overflowing its banks at others. There’s a lot to navigate.

Silence is a rare commodity these days. There's traffic, construction, air-conditioning, your neighbor's lawnmower ... and all this unwanted sound can have a surprising impact on your health, says noise researcher Mathias Basner. Discover the science behind how noise affects your health and sleep -- and how you can get more of the benefits of the sound of silenc

Why did you go into teaching? Most of us came into it because we had a vision of how we thought education should be. We loved children, believed that we could affect change, had an enthusiasm for our subject, and we wanted to make a difference. Sadly, many of us have lost sight of that vision.

Consider this: On a scale of 1-10, how stressful is your job? Too often, we do not listen to our bodies, ending up with distress, which manifests physically as pain, muscle tension, injury or disease; emotionally with symptoms of jealousy, insecurity, feelings of inferiority, inability to concentrate, poor decision making, mental disorientation, depression, anxiety and so on.

In this article, I’m going to outline five steps to create delicious habits that will make you positively flourish at work!

Here’s an irony. This generation is the one most concerned with personal wellbeing than any before, yet our very pursuit to be fitter and more productive may be the cause for declining health.

Consider the things we do in the name of better living. Hitting the gym to get into shape, commuting to the office to succeed, the programmes we watch and games we play on our screens for entertainment, the pubs, clubs and dinner parties that set the scenes for our social life, the sleep at the end of it all. All of these activities are enacted behind closed doors.   

If you think that still leaves plenty of outdoor time in our daily lives, you may be surprised. Studies show we think we spend 66% of our time indoors when, according to the World Health Organization, it’s actually around 90%. Now a new YouGov report, made in conjunction with home environment experts VELUX, has assessed the effects of modern indoor living, going as far as suggesting our elaborate mix of commuting, indoor work and indoor activities is not only having a detrimental effect on our health and wellbeing, but could actually be “detaching us from the natural world that has been the driving force behind our evolution as a species”.

Most of us don’t need more than one whiff to identify that generally unpleasant, characteristic smell we call body odor. But it’s a surprisingly complex phenomenon, influenced by our genetic makeup, age, diet, and hygiene. So what is this odor, exactly? Where does it come from? And can we do anything about it? Mel Rosenberg dives into the stinky science of body odor.

It’s time for a quick story about life, gratitude, and inner strength…

Once upon a time there was a woman in her mid-sixties who noticed that she had lived her entire life in the same small town.  And although she had spent decades enthusiastically dreaming about traveling and seeing the world, she had never taken a single step to make this dream a reality.

Teaching is exhausting. There’s the sense of presence you need, the constant energy you bring, the give and take between students, the conflicts you have to navigate, the sense of pressure about the tests and the tension between what you believe about learning and what the system requires of you.

This is especially true for introverted teachers like me. We work in a profession with constant communication and collaboration. It’s beautiful, yes, but it’s also disorienting to introverts. You can hit a place where you feel lost. And, even if you love teaching, it can feel draining.

Commuting can be bad for our health, whether it’s packed, delayed trains or mile-long traffic jams. It contributes to our anxiety, stress, and our waistlines. A recent study of British commuters found that even just a 20-minute increase in commute time is equivalent to getting a 19% pay cut for job satisfaction. Every extra minute spent travelling to and from work feels like a lifetime—and, unsurprisingly, increases strain on our wellbeing.
It’s also making us lonelier than ever.

Feeling stressed? Just eight techniques — a "buffet of life skills" — can make a significant improvement in well-being, say scientists who taught the techniques to caregivers of people with dementia. After learning techniques such as how to keep a gratitude journal, for example, and how to quickly reframe negative experiences in a positive light — these family caregivers reported impressive decreases in both stress and anxiety.

'This teacher is making a difference in her students' lives, one simple Post-it Note at a time.

Excellent teachers do so much more than teach. They can be mentors, role models, guides, and even confidants. Sometimes a teacher is one of the only trusted adults in a child's life—a fact that drives home the immense responsibility educators hold in their hands.

Perhaps that's why a photo shared by Facebook user Tara Mitchell Holman has touched so many people. It shows a teacher's whiteboard with "Monday Check-in" written on top and sections underneath labeled, "I'm great," "I'm okay," "I'm meh," "I'm struggling," "I'm having a tough time & wouldn't mind a check-in," and "I'm not doing great."

Yes, diet and exercise matter, but so do these other simple interventions you can start doing today.

How can you create a culture of wellness in your school or classroom?

General wellness is an important concept for leading a healthy life wrapped up in a generic term. What does wellness look like and how can you encourage it in a class setting? Sketch-noter Sylvia Duckworth created the graphic above to share tips for supporting a culture of wellness in schools. 


Children spend a significant amount of each week day in a classroom, making it not only a place to learn academics but also an opportunity to teach life skills that will serve them beyond the schoolyard, like self-care, community involvement, and fostering a sense of connection and belonging.

The demands of modern life continue to increase, even as our time does not.

"We are all different; whatever you are thinking will not be the same as others. In an academic environment where teachers work as a team, not as individuals, there needs to be consistent mindfulness and consideration to others. We will all have those bad days. Your day or mood does not belong to anybody else. We are here to serve young people. Professionalism is imperative in setting high and positive standards. In this article, I will share three examples of how this can be developed."

Are you ready to make 2018 a year to remember? Follow these expert tips on how to revamp your mind, body, career, love life and home, and tackle the New Year as a happier, healthier and more centred person.

I had a great conversation with a new principal with very big aspirations on how they were going to help their school move forward.  Very quickly, she seemed to have detractors that were more focused on her than the hopes she had for where she would lead her school.  To be clear, this wasn’t even people that were in her school, but outsiders.  My advice to her was that the more greatness you strive for, the more people will come out of nowhere to hate on you.4

The reality of our world is that people get threatened when other people shine their light on the world.  This bothers me even more so when it is educators doing it to educators, as our jobs are to empower those we serve, not try to bring them down.  If you are doing this to a colleague or peer, would you do it to a student? Would you do it to my daughter if she was in your classroom?  In education, this is unacceptable.

Some people believe that if you shine bright, it somehow gives them less opportunity to find their own success. Instead of learning from what others do, they choose to find ways to undermine others.  There is room for all to be successful, and although we all have different obstacles to overcome, some more daunting than others, I believe that we ultimately determine our own path and destination.

We are bombarded with information and competing priorities, from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep. Technology has permanently turned up the volume and quantity of noise that permeates our lives.

The current political climate has drastically impacted employee focus and productivity. Employees report spending 2 hours a day reading an average of 14-21 political posts online.

This has required us to become much more intentional in how we spend our time, and where we direct our energy.

The ability to focus on our priorities lies in our own hands. The daily choices we make drive our focus - or our distraction.