Teacher Wellbeing
There are many professions in our community that are on the front line, doing it tough in the service of our people. A group that I am particularly fond of are our teachers. Educating children and youths is a huge task on top of the added role of mentoring, coaching and apprenticing young citizens. I watch my brother and sister-in-law, who are high school teachers in a rural area, go above and beyond in so many ways for students. The demands on their role get bigger each year but they don’t get more time in the day to get through the work. It’s easy to see how teachers can burn out.
Over the last 10 years Mindset has provided a variety of services to schools. I even had the delight of going back to my old high school this year to deliver psychological skills training to students, teachers and parents. Having a common understanding of mental health for all parties and the skills that are helpful to cope with stress gave consistent messaging in multiple contexts, increasing the take up of the skills.
I’m often asked to kill two birds with one stone for schools on their staff development days: teach practical ways to support student mental health – as well as for teachers to support their own. The focus is on what choices and skills help to promote mental fitness; how to cope with feeling bad and still do what’s important in the course of a day. What I have noticed helps teacher with this is:
- First and foremost a positive workplace culture where teachers know their leaders will listen to them, it’s safe to raise concerns and have different opinions, genuine collaboration and peer support.
- Good processes of being able to switch off outside of work. Some of this is practical, playing touch footy, for example, where it’s hard to think about that stressful chat with a parent. Or mental strategies of being able to compartmentalise, like mindfulness.
- Specific psychological skills to respond to and mange stressful events. How teachers speak to themselves during and after stressful situations makes a huge difference to how they communicate when stressed and how long they stay agitated for afterwards.
- Good health behaviours. You know, the shit we are all supposed to be doing regularly? Like exercising, eating enough fresh food, managing sleep and not drinking too much alcohol.
- Having stuff outside of work that is also meaningful, interesting, relaxing or energising. What that looks like is very personal but its hard to hold burn out at bay if work is the only important thing in your life.
While a lot of these choices seem basic, not rocket science, if it was easy we would all be doing it already. The psychological skills is often a knowledge gap and tends to be what I speak to teachers and students about the most.
Hit us up for your next staff development day to do a bit of learning not only about how to support students, but how teachers can support themselves.
