My last blog post had more of a negative tone to it than I originally thought it would have. I thought about editing it, but I realized that the point it was driving home was important. Many of our students are struggling, many teachers feel they do not have the tools they need to support them, and this is just one more thing that is added to teachers’ plates. Teachers have a lot on their plates and this is leading to a huge increase of teacher burnout. In this post I will talk about; teacher mental health struggles, self-care and why it is important, the importance of strong leadership, teacher wellness committees and I will end with a simple wellness activity. Thank you to everyone who has read my posts and commented. I hope you have enjoyed following along on this learning journey, I have really enjoyed creating these blog posts and I now have a long list of books to read from the wonderful suggestions made in the comments! Struggles We are seeing higher numbers of teacher burnout than we have ever seen before. I believe that it is because we are asked to do more with less and because teacher education programs are not properly preparing new teachers. New teachers are entering in the work place with no resources, not knowing how to teach and feeling as though they need to reinvent the wheel (Forst, 2020). Burnout can be described as "a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment," (Tapp, 2021). To avoid teacher burnout, teachers should incorporate self-care into their daily lives and seek life-balance (See Wellness Wheel activity). Self-Care According to Sarah Forst in her book, The Teacher’s Guide to Self-Care, Self-care “encompasses all areas of taking care of yourself, including physical, emotional, social, intellectual, vocational, and environmental,” (2020, pp. 12). By incorporating self-care into their lives, teachers can ensure that they have a long and healthy career. Something that Forst points out that I think is important is the different between self-care and self-soothing. “Self-soothing is not inherently bad... However, we need to be aware that self-soothing isn’t a replacement for self-care, and extensive self-soothing can be a form of avoidance,” (2020, pp. 17). She goes on to state that three of the most common self-soothing activities are, drinking alcohol, consuming sugar, and watching tv. What this means is that while buying a fancy coffee or binge watching your favourite show may make you feel good, it does not count as self-care. These activities do not have a long-term relaxing effect on your body. Forst also mentions the pushback on self-care and that she has heard many comments such as, “bubble baths won’t make teachers more valued or better paid,” she whole-heartedly agrees with this but refutes it with, “as Shovolt and Trotter-Mathison warn in The Resilient Practitioner, “Be careful about waiting for others to care for you,” (2020, pp. 22). I think that the idea that Forst is driving home is an important one, we cannot care for others if we are not caring for ourselves first. Here is a chart from Forst’s book with examples of self-care activities (2020, pp, 31): Leadership
It is important that schools are safe and healthy working environments for teachers and that teacher health is encouraged and valued by school leaders. In the article, “How Administrators Can Help Prevent Teacher Burnout,” Prendergast explains that “Leaders are key players in reversing the tide of teacher burnout,” (2022). Leaders should work hard to protect teacher-time, ensure staff are getting their preps, that meetings are purposeful, and that expectations are clear. When policies and student expectations are clear and teachers know that their administrators have their backs, they do not need to stress about what to do when something goes awry. This takes one thing off their plates. Prendergast also explains that admin should be careful about what new initiatives they introduce to their schools and should make sure that they are not overloading their staff with new curriculum and ideas. “Behavior isn’t the only area where teachers need the support of leaders to ensure focus and stability. Schools are increasingly at risk for “initiative overload,” as a result of the myriad efforts to address the impact of the pandemic.” While leadership is not the only answer to ending teacher-burnout, having supportive admin can make a world of difference. Teacher Wellness Committees Last year, I had the opportunity to participate in a committee, with a group of other teachers in my school division, on how to start a teacher well-being team within our school. A teacher well-being team ensures that teacher wellness is being considered at school, provides activities and games to boost staff morale, and provides support and resources for teachers who are struggling. While playing staff games may seen kind of kitschy, the feedback we received was very positive. We had noticed that our staff culture was suffering, the games that we implemented did not take up a lot of time, were optional and ran in the teachers lounge and teachers could participate at any time. This ensured that the teachers lounge became a place for self-care practices to happen. I highly encourage you to look into teacher well-being teams, New Brunswick Teachers Association does a great job and their resources are found at www.teacherwellness.ca Wellness Wheel Activity The Wellness Wheel activity is a very quick but impactful activity in the book “the Well-Teacher” by Wade Repta. The image for the Wellness Wheel is just below this post, in the bonus post for shared resources. In the book, Repta explains that a huge part of wellness is having balance. Not just work-life balance but, whole-life balance. On the wheel, there are 8 categories; physical, environmental, financial, occupational, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and mental, and social. From the spokes of the wheel are ten tick marks that represent numbers, one in the center and ten on the outside of the wheel. To complete the activity, rate your wellness on a scale of 1-10 for each category. How are you doing physically? Emotionally? Financially? Etc. After marking down your scores connect the dots, you have made on the wheel, does it look like a balanced circle? Would your wheel roll? This is a great visual to check in and see how you are doing, and what aspects of your life need some care and attention. This is also a great activity to do in a staff meeting or when introducing a Teacher Well-being committee. Stay well, Laura References Forst, S. (2020). The teacher's guide to self-care: Build resilience, avoid burnout, and bring a happier and healthier you to the classroom. The Designer Teacher, LLC. Prendergast, L. (2022, July 28). How administrators can help prevent teacher Burnout. Edutopia. Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/how- administrators-can-help-prevent-teacher-burnout Repta, W., & Repta Andrée. (2018). The well teacher: Everything Teachers Need To Know to be well and stay well in the classroom. Humanworks Press. Tapp, F. (2021, February 10). Teacher Burnout: Causes, symptoms, and prevention. Hey Teach! Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/teacher- burnout-causes-symptoms-and-prevention1711.html
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I have received so many great resource suggestions through the comments of this blog and through the conversations that I have had with colleagues while researching for this blog. I wanted to compile them into a list to make them easy to access. Thank you to everyone who has commented and suggested a resource! Here they are:
Books “Beyond Behaviours" by Mona Delahooke “Compassionate School Practices: Fostering Children’s Mental Health and Well-Being” by Christine Mason et. al “Fostering Resilient Learners” by Kristin Souers with Peter Hall. “Kids these Days” by Dr. Jody Carrington “Reclaiming Our Students” by Hannah Beach & Tamara Neufeld Strijack “Relationship, Responsibility and Regulation” by Kristin Souers with Peter Hall "Self-Reg Schools. A Handbook for Educators” by Shanker & Hopkins “Social Media Wellness” by Ana Homayoun “Supporting Student Mental Health: Essentials for Teachers” by Michael Hass “Teachers These Days” by Dr. Jody Carrington “The Emotionally Connect Classroom: Wellness and the Learning Experience” by Bill Adair “The zones of regulation: A curriculum designed to foster self-regulation and emotional control.” By L. Kuypers Authors Dr. Jennifer Katz Dr. Stuart Shanker Websites www.self-reg.ca – Dr. Stuart Shanker Training UBC offers a free online mental health course for educators. CPI Training around Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Skills Teacher Well-Being Resources NB Teacher Counselling & Wellness Program website: www.teacherwellness.ca “The Teacher Self Care Manual” by Patrice Palmer “The Well-Teacher” by Wade Repta & Human Works Seventeen. Seventeen, is the number of colleagues I personally reached out to and asked the question, “As a teacher, what mental health supports can you help students access?” Seventeen is the number of replies that I received that did not have an answer besides “the school counsellor.” I am not surprised, because I also did not know, but I am overwhelmingly concerned after having these conversations.
After teaching through a pandemic, being fairly aware of the issues that our society faces, and completing the research that I have for this blog, I am confident in saying that now more than ever our students are struggling with mental health. Many students have experienced trauma, are lacking social-emotional skills, and do not have mental health coping skills (Schwartz, 2022). Our students need so much more than a school counsellor. In the rural, K-12, school that I teach at, we have approximately 400 students and one school counsellor who is at our school for 2 days a week. That is enough time to see between 5-15 students depending on the school’s needs for the week. Seventeen teachers whose responses were “the school counsellor,” is not enough for these kids who are struggling, however, we as teachers are undertrained on how to help our students. On top of that, our class sizes are getting larger making it even more difficult to set time aside to help our students with their mental health and to teach social-emotional learning. When I reached out to these 17 colleagues, it was either over text, social media, or by email. Several great conversations came out of the simple question that I asked. It is not just me who is deeply concerned for our student’s health but teachers collectively. One friend replied, “Oh wow, I have no idea, let me know what you find out!” Several others mentioned that they just try to talk to the students that they notice are struggling. Schwatz’s article confirmed that this is the number one tool that teachers use when trying to help students with their mental health (2008). But how can we make time for them all? And how to be help students who are in real crisis, at home, or mentally? Another colleague, who is an administrator stated that we are in a real crisis and are severely lacking in mental health supports. Crisis centers pass you along to other organizations who pass you back to the first one. There is no where to go. With this feeling of hopelessness starting to wash over me, I couldn’t help but think of all of the campaigns we have seen in the last few years about mental health. Slogans such as, “It’s okay not to be okay,” and “Sometimes you just need some help” playing on commercials and on social media advertisements. It feels very performative when we are left with no concrete tools and strategies to support students who are in crisis. I spent about twenty minutes searching my school division’s website and could not find anything about what mental health supports we offer. I searched local news websites for resources and did not come up with much. One article talked about the Saskatchewan Rough Rider’s new campaign called “The Game Changers Playbook,” which states that it provides mental health resources for youth (Benson, 2022). I was excited by this but quickly learned that the online resource was a maze of hyperlinks to short motivational videos and worksheets. We need strategies and tools for teachers to help them in the moment. Schwatz’s article outlines this need when she stated that, “Less than 40 percent of teachers surveyed by the Education Week Research Center said they received training in conflict de-escalation, and a similar number said they had been trained in child trauma. Only 29 percent said they had received mental health training” (2022). Teacher education programs are lacking in social-emotional training and mental-health training. I wish I was ending this post on a more positive note, but I have more questions than answers. I will say however that it is inspiring to see that a lot of people share these concerns and that this is being talked about. I hope that curriculum will start implementing mandated social-emotional learning, I hope that teachers will begin to be adequately trained in these topics and that they will be provided tools and resources to help their students. I hope that more counsellors will be hired and that class sizes will go down. I do still have hope. References Benson, A. (2022, October 14). Saskatchewan Roughriders introduce New Mental Health Initiative for SASK. youth. Global News. Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://globalnews.ca/news/9196731/saskatchewan-roughriders-new-mental-health-initiative-sask-youth/ Schwartz, S. (2022, February 28). Teachers support social-emotional learning, but students in distress strain their skills. Education Week. Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://www.edweek.org/leadership/teachers-support-social-emotional-learning-but-say-students-in-distress-strain-their-skills/2019/07 Before moving on to my last two blog posts, I wanted to regroup and reassess my original questions to see where I need to go next. My original main question was: How can I support student mental health in the classroom?
And my goals for the blog that I stated in my first post were:
The gap that I still need to fill is to learn more about what supports I can make available to my students. Specifically, my students, in rural Saskatchewan. I will learn more about this and write about it in my ninth blog post. Something that has been popping up in the back of my mind in each of my blog posts is, what about the teachers? How can we pour from an empty cup? I feel as though more and more gets put on teachers’ ‘plates’, year after year. Now post-COVID, I feel as though teachers are expected to do the most they ever have, with the least amount of resources. This is taxing and has had a huge impact on teacher mental health. In my tenth blog post I will explore my concerns with Teacher Mental Health and what can be done about it. Time has passed, a student is calm and is regulated, now what? In my last post I stated several times that learning cannot happen when a child is dysregulated. Now is the time to have a conversation where learning and reflection can occur.
There is a lot of advice and ideas out there of how these conversations should go. After completing some research, here is a layout that I am going to try to use in the future and what a conversation using this layout could look like:
Carrington, J. (2019). Kids these days: A game plan for (re)connecting with those we teach, lead & love. essay, IMpress Books. Desautels, L. (2019, October 15). The role of emotion co-regulation in discipline. Edutopia. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/role-emotion-co-regulation-discipline Foothills Academy. How to support self-regulation difficulties in children. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.foothillsacademy.org/community/articles/self-regulation-difficulties Parrish, N. (2018, August 22). How to teach self-regulation. Edutopia. Retrieved October 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-teach-self-regulation In my last post, I wrote about how to prepare students for moments of dysregulation. In this post I will write about what teachers can do when they are in the thick of it, when a student has ‘flipped their lid’, when a student is experiences a moment of dysregulation.
What does dysregulation look like? Dysregulation will look differently for everyone, however, children who do not have a toolbox of coping skills and who do not have fully developed brains may appear, shut down, defiant, exhibit challenging and unexpected behaviour, seem aggressive or destructive, and will be difficult to connect with (Carrington, 2019). What should/can a teacher do when a student is dysregulated?
References Carrington, J. (2019). The Keys to Reconnecting - Getting Hearts & Taking Names. In Kids these days: A game plan for (re)connecting with those we teach, lead & love. essay, IMpress Books. Darling-Hammond, L. (2019, January 14). Teaching self-regulation by modeling. Edutopia. Retrieved October 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/video/teaching-self-regulation-modeling Foothills Academy. How to support self-regulation difficulties in children. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.foothillsacademy.org/community/articles/self-regulation-difficulties Parrish, N. (2018, August 22). How to teach self-regulation. Edutopia. Retrieved October 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-teach-self-regulation In my search for specific coping skills that we can teach students and strategies that teachers can implement to support them, I realized there are three categories that these strategies can fit into. These being, preparing students for moments of dysregulation, what to do when a student is dysregulated, and what to do after the fact when the student has become regulated once again. In this post I will write about preparing students for moments of dysregulation.
Before I start a reminder at what self-regulation means, “Self-regulation is the ability to remain calm, cope with big emotions, adapt, and respond appropriately to our environment. Self-regulation is important because it allows children to do well in school, with friends, and at home,” (Foothills Academy, n.d.). Preparing Students for Moments of Dysregulation In my previous posts I have mentioned that relationships and environment go a long way in helping your students managed their emotions and learn self-regulation skills. While becoming dysregulated is not a bad thing, after all we need to become dysregulated in order to learn how to self-regulate, there are things we can do as educators to prepare students to work through big emotions. Such as:
References Carrington, J. (2019). The Keys to Reconnecting - Getting Hearts & Taking Names. In Kids these days: A game plan for (re)connecting with those we teach, lead & love. essay, IMpress Books. Darling-Hammond, L. (2019, January 14). Teaching self-regulation by modeling. Edutopia. Retrieved October 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/video/teaching-self-regulation-modeling Foothills Academy. How to support self-regulation difficulties in children. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.foothillsacademy.org/community/articles/self-regulation-difficulties Parrish, N. (2018, August 22). How to teach self-regulation. Edutopia. Retrieved October 10, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-teach-self-regulation In my first blog post I wrote that one of the things that I want to learn more about under the umbrella of Student mental health was teaching and modeling self-regulation to students. On this post several of you commented and recommended that I check out www.self-reg.ca and Dr. Stuart Shanker’s work. Thank you so much for that tip because I have really enjoyed reading his work and have even passed some of his articles onto some of my colleagues.
So what exactly is self regulation? “Self-regulation is about understanding, not “monitoring and managing” emotions, thoughts and behaviour: in ourselves and others,” (Shanker, 2017). When we self-regulate, we are seeking to understand our emotions, stress-behaviour, and maintaining a healthy state of mind. One way to help students regulate their emotions is through coregulation, “Emotions are contagious, and when a teacher is able to model a calm presence through their tone, facial expression, and posture, students are less likely to react defensively,” (Desautels, 2019). The goal of coregulation is to teach students how to recognize their stressors, their stress induced behaviour and learn how to cope with and manage them. Teaching and modeling self-regulation is important in creating safe spaces. Students should not only feel physically safe, but mentally and emotionally safe as well. Shanker explains this concept as, “when we talk about feeling safe, we are referring to a state of mind: whether or not this state is objectively warranted! That is, there is a fundamental difference between being safe and feeling safe,” (2017). If a student is in a constant state of fright, flight or freeze they are not mentally or emotionally safe. Often behaviours that we consider to be negative are a students’ way of coping with their current emotions. “These children need assistance regulating their nervous system before they can learn new coping strategies and understand the consequences of their choices and decisions,” (Desautels, 2018). Students cannot learn when they are dysregulated. It is our job to help them become regulated. For me it is easy to think about coregulation with my 6-month-old daughter. She requires my husband and I to help regulate her regularly through rocking, feeding, deep breaths, and using a calm voice. Sometime it is harder to think about coregulation with our students. It takes a calm brain to regulate another brain. “Self-Reg is not about forcing ourselves to behave in a certain way. It is about understanding that children and teens may lack, not just the verbal ability to tell us what they’re feeling, but more fundamentally, the self-awareness to even know what they’re feeling,” (Shanker, 2017). In my next post, I will explore specific strategies on how teachers can help their students recognize these emotions and become regulated through coregulation. References Desautels, L. (2018, September 25). Teaching self-regulation in the early grades. Edutopia. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-self-regulation-early-grades Desautels, L. (2019, October 15). The role of emotion co-regulation in discipline. Edutopia. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/role-emotion-co-regulation-discipline Shanker, S. (n.d.). Self-reg for elementary teachers. self-reg.ca. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://self-reg.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/infosheet_SelfRegTeachers.pdf Shanker, S. (2017). The self-reg view of: Schools as “Self-reg havens.” Self-Reg.ca. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://makingsenseoftrauma.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/viewon_self-reg_havens.pdf In my last blog post I wrote about trauma-informed education and how it is imperative for you and your classroom to be a safe space for all students. But what does it mean to be a safe space? That is what I will be exploring in this post. Something that I have seen a lot more of in my school lately is Safe Space and LBGTQ+ ally posters on the walls. I think this is a great step in creating safe spaces for all students but I think that safe space practices need to go beyond putting up a poster. After completing some reading, I have come up with 5 things that teachers can implement to create a safe space in their classrooms.
Bullying and harming others should be a nonnegotiable in your classroom (Tribe, 2019). Ensuring that students are mentally and emotionally safe, as well as physically safe is important. Teaching students about microaggressions, racism, and ableism can be done so through social stories, teaching history, and reading testimonials from marginalized people (Alder, 2016). This can be done in morning meetings as well.
When students are struggling, we can respond with kindness and walk them through a problem instead of reacting with frustration or anger or by ‘solving’ the problem for them.
References Alber, R. (2016, July 25). Resources for creating a radically compassionate classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/resources-creating-radically-compassionate-classroom-rebecca-alber Edutopia. (2015). Morning Meetings: Creating a Safe Space for Learning. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/video/morning-meetings-creating-safe-space-learning. Tribe, T. (2019, May 21). 9 ways to create safe spaces in your classrooms. Medium. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://medium.com/@trainertribe/9-effective-ways-to-create-safe-spaces-in-your-classrooms-6cdfcc60a364 On Friday, September 30th, my family and I participated in Saskatoon’s ‘Rock Your Roots’ walk for reconciliation, followed by a two-hour program honoring the survivors of residential schools and remembering the children who did not make it home. This event made me think and reflect on many things, one of them being the trauma and intergenerational trauma that many of our students have experienced. Trauma is not something that can be ignored when thinking about student mental wellness.
In the article, The How and Why of Trauma-Informed Teaching, Shervin states that, “according to a seminal study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood trauma is far more pervasive than previously believed and is often invisible” (2018). He goes on to explain the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) and how it can positively impact students’ academically, behaviourally, emotionally and mentally. He explains that by incorporating SEL into the classroom, teachers are taking a universal approach in that they are assuming that all of their students have experienced trauma in one way or another. The article, also talks about the importance of knowing your students and building relationships with them. I believe that this is so important but not always easy. Teaching in a rural school I know almost every students’ name in our building. I spend weeks at the beginning of each school year focusing on getting to know who my students are individually. Having said that, I usually teach the same 24 students all day, for the entire year. I think of my sister, who is a phys. ed. teacher at a Saskatoon high school and teaches 150 students per semester. While she also values relationships, it is harder for her to build a relationship with every student and to incorporate SEL in each of her class sections. This has left me wondering how can ALL teachers, build these relationships so that they can better recognize and respond to student trauma. I started to explore this thought more as I read the article, Understanding Trauma-Informed Education. This article explains that being trauma-informed is a mindset and that “every interaction is an intervention” (Portell, 2019). What this means is that creating a sense of belonging is essential for all students, specifically those who have experienced trauma. My take away from this is that, teachers who teach a large number of students every day may not be able to have a strong, deep relationship which each student, however, every interaction they have with every student can make a positive or negative impact. This is why it is essential for teachers to remain calm, regulated, kind, welcoming in each interaction they have. Trauma-informed education is not intending to “fix” children; however, it is aiming to fix a broken system that often alienates children who are marginalized (Powell, 2019). I like the idea of taking a universal approach as you cannot just look at a group of students and know who has experienced trauma. Teaching in Saskatchewan, a province with a large Indigenous population, and teaching post-pandemic, I think that it is fair to assume that every classroom in the province includes a student who has experience trauma and/or intergenerational trauma. Therefore, SEL is imperative. I think it really does come down to building relationships with your students and ensuring that you and your classroom are a safe space for all students. In my next post I will further explore what a safe space is. References Matthew Portell. (2019, December 16). Understanding Trauma-Informed Education. Edutopia. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/understanding-trauma-informed-education Shevrin Venet, A. (2018, August 3). The How and Why of Trauma-Informed Teaching. Edutopia. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-and-why-trauma-informed-teaching |