Tag: SEL

Self-Care: Crying In Your Car Is Not Enough

Cat assisting with self-care
My cat is a champion of my engaging in self-care, sitting on my grading when she feels I’ve spent too much time doing that and not enough time letting her sit on my lap.

Working with teachers who are in their first year of the NYC Teaching Fellows program this year has really highlighted for me the importance of self-care for teachers–especially new teachers. A couple of them brought up the NPR Ed piece called “Hey New Teachers, It’s OK to Cry in Your Car,” which is a terrible title. It did, however, have a lot of good advice for first year teachers regarding self-care.

That made me think: If I could travel back in time ten years and give advice to myself as a first year teacher, there are a few things I would make sure I did during my first year of teaching instead of spending the time up until February break skipping the self-care strategies and throwing myself into work. I dealt with my stress through a combination of long showers, Two-Buck Chuck, crying on the A Train, and ice cream. That obviously wasn’t sustainable.

Only take home as much work as you can feasibly do in 2 hours or less

It takes time to calibrate this, but it’s really important. Carting more work than you can do back and forth from school each day makes you feel unsuccessful and frustrated. It might actually take the first two or three months of school to figure that out, but once you do, set that boundary and stick to it. Even before you figure out where that boundary is, set a timer and don’t work past that.

Get enough exercise

Seriously. Start an exercise routine: biking, running, yoga, Pilates, swimming, CrossFit, mall walking, martial arts. It doesn’t matter what. Just do it. For me it works especially well if I exercise between then end of the school day and starting my grading or planning.

Sleep

Set yourself a bedtime and stick to it. Really. It doesn’t matter how much grading you have. Unless you’ve decided to…

Make time to spend with friends

My first year of teaching, I sometimes got so wrapped up in work (or feeling stressed about work) that I forgot to see my friends. That made me feel disconnected and lonely, and it caused me to get even more wrapped up in all of the negative things about my first year. Make a monthly date with a close friend and stick to it. I still do this with my friend Kate.

Just because you can be in the building until 7 PM…

Some schools kick you out, others don’t, but set yourself a curfew and don’t stay past a certain hour. I had a key my first year. It was bad. Some of us work best if we take a break between school and doing more work, some of us don’t. Either way, set a time when you’re going to stop doing work and go out or change gears.

Read

Yes, of course, read articles in professional journals and the books you’re teaching to your class, but also make sure to read books that are for you. Books that remind you of what you love about reading, and what you’re interested in outside of school. Develop a readers’ life apart from the books that you’ll recommend to your kids.

Eat good food

Learn a couple of simple recipes, or get a crockpot and make yourself good, healthy food for your lunches and dinner. Don’t live off of takeout just because you’re busy.

Find your flow

Resurrect a hobby you let go of or learn a new skill: knitting, gaming, bread making, canning, sewing, painting, dancing, making music, photography, martial arts, running. Whatever it is that helps you to really be in a state of flow, do it. Schedule time for it. Make it a priority. Share it with your students.

Let go of your mistakes

The most important piece of advice from that NPR segment that I would reiterate to new teachers (and have tried to reinforce to my first year Teaching Fellows–I’m forcing them to read this for their last class. I’m hoping they’ll tell me if I did it enough): I’m still in touch with kids I had my first year of teaching, and they’re not  scarred for life by the myriad of mistakes I made during that first year. Just to be clear: I made A LOT of mistakes during my first year I run into them around the city in all sorts of unexpected places. I’m friends with a few of them who are in their 20s on Facebook. I get emails from some who are in college. They’re all OK. Even the ones I worried wouldn’t be OK.

But I don’t have time for self-care…

Make the time. I’ve been telling my 8th graders all week that winter break is a great time for a reset. It can be a great time for a reset for teachers too.

How do you engage in self-care? If you don’t think you are yet, how will you make it a priority in the new year?

It’s Better to Light One Candle…

Photo by Djruhavi S. via Flicker. Creative Commons 2.0
Photo by Dhruvaraj S. via Flickr. Creative Commons 2.0

I’ve been trying and failing for a week to write a post about Ferguson and racism and our role as educators in discussing it, or about the need to teach digital citizenship in the wake of incidents like what happened to Zelda Williams on Twitter. But the truth is, I feel helpless and ill-equipped. Deep down, I know that’s not true. My mantra since my days as an over-zealous, left-leaning high school freshman in my school’s Amnesty International group has been “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” I can do something, even if it seems small. I have the theoretical and pedagogical knowledge I need to to talk about these things. I’ve read the right books. I have a computer with internet access, and so thousands of resources at my fingertips, and the critical thinking skills and background knowledge to weed through it all. So why should I feel helpless? As I’ve been trying to write I’ve come to the conclusion (that as a veteran teacher I’m slightly ashamed of) that while I can discuss these things academically, I really don’t know how to talk about them with kids.

Sure, I nodded my head and was inspired in Social Foundations of Education where we read Beverly Daniel Tatum and Ruby Payne, and all of these ideas have served me well in my career. And yes, I’ve been in situations that have opened my eyes to the privilege that exists in being a white, straight, able-bodied person with a college education and a job that puts me solidly in the middle class, even if there are other aspects of my self that aren’t as privileged. And that understanding has helped shape my interactions with students of color, students with disabilities, students who identify as a part of the LGBT community and at least try to be aware of how my own privilege might color my perceptions. I’ve taught in communities where being profiled by police and store owners was (and probably still is) a common occurrence for my students, and I’ve had serious conversations with these students about their experiences. But the kids I don’t know how to talk to are economically advantaged students I teach now–mostly the white students, but not always–about these things.

That all said I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how I am going to counter racist, sexist, and homophobic comments in my own classroom. And I’m still not sure. I tend to address things head on with my students, but as I said above, it’s been a challenge.

What do I say to the white student who accuses his teachers of being racist against him (possibly because he doesn’t really have the words to express that he thinks his teachers are treating him unfairly because he learns differently)?  Last year after several failed attempts to explain that (1) that’s a really serious allegation in our school, (2) I don’t think you really understand what racism is…let’s talk about that, and (3) perhaps your non-white classmates don’t appreciate it when you say that, I ended up giving up and ignoring. Not the best choice. I’m not sure how to help this student see that racism is a huge problem in our society and something that, in all likelihood, neither he nor I have actually experienced. Like I said, I have plenty of academic sounding language (it probably includes the word “hegemony”) to discuss these ideas with adults, but is that really going to make sense to a 12 year old?

I didn’t have to have these conversations with my students at my previous school, because, well, they knew, and it was my role to listen and reflect. I’ve had many other encounters of this sort–where that phrase I hate, “check your privilege”, seems almost the best response. I don’t want you to think it happens all of the time. It doesn’t. But those few incidents add up.

Part of my issue is that in a skills-based intervention course, there’s not often time to sit and have these deeper discussions, and I need to find ways to make space for it. Often when we’re working on expository reading or writing, I’ll highlight a current event, especially something that will spark that sort of deeper discussion. And I’m going to continue to do that, and try to create more space for that sort of discussion. But part of the issues is that I didn’t anticipate having these issues. I probably should have. But I didn’t. And now that I know I can change things at the start of this year. What I do know for sure:

  • Set clear expectations about how we treat each other and what kinds of language is acceptable is important.
  • Look to find more ways to link my reading and writing intervention work to the concepts being taught in the social justice and service learning curriculum that some of our Humanities teams are trying to add to the curriculum.
  • Don’t ignore, but don’t get into a power struggle either.
  • Address things when they happen.
  • Figure out how to talk like a normal human being on subjects like racism, sexism, and homophobia, rather than like an academic (have you guessed that I’m really bad at this? If you’ve read some of my blog entries you already know I have trouble letting go of my academic voice)

I’m hopeful that I can put these things in place and light my one small candle. Any advice? How do you deal with these things when they occur in your classroom?