Go Back to School with a Different Mindset

It’s back to school time, and many teachers are excitedly shopping back to school deals and preparing their classrooms. There’s also another group of teachers who are dreading the start of another school year and wondering where the summer went. As an Educational Psychologist, people think that my job is to work with students on improving their behavior but my job also involves working with teachers on how to handle the daily stress of education, as well as the stresses of life. Working with children these days requires a lot of patience, persistence and mindfulness from the educators who teach them. Working in school environments can be extremely rewarding but also very stressful.

We all started out as bright eyed, hopelessly optimistic teachers armed with super powers to change the lives of children. As the years wear on, some of us burn out and leave the profession, while others hang in there and live for the weekends, holidays and summer break. Have you ever thought, there has to be more to life than living for the weekends? So many of my teacher friends talk about surviving the school year, but what happened to the concept of thriving as a teacher? We deserve more than overcrowded classrooms, heavy workloads and unreasonable accountability standards. It’s time for teachers to join the wellness revolution! I’m not talking about student wellness, I’m talking about teacher wellness. You can’t teach children to be more mindful if you are not practicing mindfulness yourself.

This year I’m celebrating 25 years in the teaching profession and I’m challenging all my fellow teachers to return to school with a different mindset. A mindset of stress less and live well. The one thing that I know for sure from 25 years of teaching is that self-care is critically important. No matter how hard you try, you can’t serve from an empty vessel. You must take the time to put self-care and stress management practices into place to ensure that you not only survive this year but you end the year on a happy, healthy note. Join the TEACHER STRESS MANAGEMENT Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/TeacherStressManagement/  and get weekly stress management and mindfulness strategies. I am excited to share some of the best tips that I have learned along the way. This is a group where we will support and uplift you throughout the year. Share this info with your teacher colleagues and friends, Let’s go though this year with a stress-less mindset!