"Resilience doesn’t just help us get through a rough time—it helps us emerge stronger, better, and happier than before.”
A teacher shares what she’s learned about resilience.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/debunking-myths-about-resilience?fbclid=IwAR14SQCPEAb3ABjC-P1H3hB8GOOUJ072NkIEQLVMcsrTBfzs-fzrzlihGL8
TEACHER WELLNESS
Debunking Myths About Resilience
It’s important to tackle these four myths because the social and emotional health of the adults who work in schools matters.
March 23, 2018
© 500px/Gable Denims
During the last few years, I’ve focused my learning, teaching, and writing on the subject of emotional resilience in educators. I’m convinced that it’s key in our attempt to provide students with the education they need and deserve.
We don’t have to do this at the expense of kids, nor do we have to put the brakes on looking at our practice as teachers, but we do need to expand our attention to include the social and emotional health of the adults who work in schools.
As I share what I’ve learned about emotional resilience and how to build it, I’ve encountered some common misconceptions about what resilience is and why we need it. I’d like to clear those up.
4 MYTHS ABOUT RESILIENCE
Myth 1: Resilience will help you survive as a teacher. We have to go beyond survival as a goal. Resilience allows us to thrive, not just survive. Resilience enables us to rebound after challenges and become stronger than before.
We deserve our precious lives to be filled with beauty and joy and meaning—and that’s what’s on the other side of survival. Resilience helps us get there. Resilience is about not just about bouncing back but about bouncing back and farther along in our journeys as educators and human beings.
In other words, resilience doesn’t just help us get through a rough time—it helps us emerge stronger, better, and happier than before.
Myth 2: Resilient people have tough skins. The resilient don’t suppress tough emotions. In fact, resilient people experience a great array of emotions, including challenging ones.
When we try to avoid difficult emotions (anger, shame, fear), we actually decrease our resilience. When we experience and explore those difficult emotions, we discover that they won’t consume or destroy us, and we emerge stronger (and more resilient) than before.
Myth 3: Resilience is a personality trait. Resilience is not fixed in us; we can all increase it. In general, it’s built through flexible and precise thinking, having the belief that you can accomplish your goals, having a connection to meaning, increasing your experiences of positive emotions, being connected to other people, and self-care.
There are dozens of things that you can do every day to increase your resilience. To name a handful:
- Get plenty of sleep
- Eat a healthy breakfast
- Have lunch with a colleague and don’t discuss work
- Expand your interpretation of the big and little challenges at your school
- Take a walk
- Meditate
- Focus on what’s within your sphere of influence
- Practice gratitude
- Expand your empathy for a challenging student
While many of these are classic stress management approaches, dealing with stress is one component of resilience, and an important element. However, cultivating resilience goes farther—it’s not just a reactive process.
Myth 4: Resilience increases when you learn to manage difficult emotions. It’s important to understand how challenging emotions (anger, shame, envy, or fear) exacerbate stress. But resilience is about far more than just learning how to manage, or engage with these emotions.
Resilient people recognize the importance of both managing uncomfortable emotions and cultivating positive emotions (joy, gratitude, contentment, and happiness). Resilient people use those positive emotions to rebound from, and find meaning in, stressful events and challenges.
There’s so much to learn about resilience to help us to manage the daily stressors of teaching and to allow us to fulfill our purpose as teachers. The deeper I get into this exploration, the more convinced I become that as educators, we must prioritize social and emotional learning for ourselves.
TEACHER WELLNESS
How to Make the Most of Winter Break
Learn one teacher’s strategies to return from break well-rested and recharged.
By Kasey Short
December 13, 2019
In my teaching experience, winter break arrives at the moment when both the students and I need it most. As we are nearing winter break, I look forward to some time to relax and renew my energy before school resumes in January. Some years I realized a day or two before the end of my time off that I wasn’t any more rested than I had been in the days leading up to break. Over the years there are some things that I have found to help me have a truly revitalizing winter break.
Before break, I designate days on my calendar when I won’t check email or do anything work-related. Allocating days when I won’t engage in work helps me to be intentional about spending time with family as well as spending mindful time alone. Around a week before winter break, write down all work-related to-do items. Check off as many as possible before break. Listing what needs to get accomplished helps me stay organized. Even better, if I succeed in checking off all of the items, I return from the break with a clean slate.
TEACHER WELLNESS
Ways to Reclaim Your Joy in Teaching
Teaching is a stressful job, but these simple steps can help build happiness in the profession.
September 19, 2019
Somewhere between “School starts next week, but the entire county is piloting a new literacy program,” and “I’m sorry. We tried to cap your classes at 28 but now you have 35 students,” your teacher joy can become depleted. A few key strategies can help steal back your joy.
Slowing down and reflecting can help not only to restore joy but also to benefit classroom culture. When students struggle to understand a topic, look at it as a way of honing your craft. How can you improve the lesson, break it down, and reteach it in the next class? While a slower pace can cause anxiety about covering all the material, thorough comprehension is an outcome worth the patience it requires.
