Tammy Axt Wellness

The challenges during the holidays

My sister in law specializes in helping people with eating disorders. As we sat together over the holidays, I asked her how her patients were handling this time of year. She shared with me some challenges that are facing her patients such as: relationships with family are strained due to all the stress that is caused by the constant change in schedule, food is such an overwhelming center of many of the celebrations which makes this holiday season difficult and finally many support services are closed at the time when people need them the most.

It was a reminder to me that not everyone has a wonderful holiday experience. We went on to talk further about many of the challenges that are heightened at this time of year for many other people, which includes many families of the students we teach.

Some families have lost their jobs and are trying to make ends meet and feeling the pressure to buy gifts to put under a tree.

Some families have lost loved ones this year and their absence is heightened during family traditions.

Some families are far away from their loved ones this year and are missing them a lot.

Some families are struggling to get along and being in the same room for days on end is not helping.

Some families have mental health concerns that are heightened by all the visitors and the change in routine.

Some families have spent Christmas in a hospital this year with sick or dying family members.

Some families are just struggling to make it through the day.

The conversation that my sister in law and I had was not a pessimistic one at all. Just a reminder to me that some of our students are facing challenges over these two weeks off from school. I will be sure to remember that the holidays are not perfect for many people and that when the students come back to school they may need some support. I will be on the lookout for those students who need an extra smile or a divergence from the conversation about presents and festivities.

Beverly Papove Mental Health, Wellness

Time to Recharge

The way work slammed into the holidays this year explains why I find myself sleeping in late every morning. Phew! That just happened! Now the two weeks ahead seem like all the time in the world to do anything but work. So, what is the best way to spend this time off?

Some things are out of our control around these super-charged holiday periods – traveling, family time, weather, finances, health – but finding some time to shut down and recharge your energy supplies should be a priority before heading back to work in January. Things really start to gather momentum when we return to the classroom with end-of-term reports being the biggest extra-curricular activity for teachers at this time of the year. Not that I’m thinking about work. Well, maybe a little. I am finding it really hard to walk by recycling boxes in the city without glancing in to see if there is some cardboard – kindergarten gold – I can harvest. The holidays have already provided me with an abundance of recyclables for the Creation Station, so it is not as if I need to keep gathering items. I will just be super ready for our first Monday back and I’ve made sure I have some sturdy plans in place for the first week for a smoother re-entry.

Trying to shut off “work-brain” is not easy – in spite of all the distractions over the holidays – and in fact, distractions are often not quite enough if you want to really recharge your energy. Quiet time, time for self-reflection, is what this dark, cold season warrants, sort of like housecleaning for the brain. Whether it is by walking/skiing/snowshoeing in a forest, field or city park, listening to natural sounds, or while listening to your heartbeat as you bob around in a floatation tank filled with warm, salinated water (doesn’t everyone have one of these kicking around the house?), we all need time to ourselves. Hopefully, you will find the opportunity to gather some loose ends within your mind so that you don’t return to work frazzled and unrested.

Our jobs are stressful, no doubt about it, with a high rate of burnout, so that is why there are so many reminders, to new teachers especially, for the need to look after ourselves. Occupational burnout is a real thing and I recall a doctor friend, whose patients included police officers and teachers, who was fond of saying, “You guys are always on stage. If, for some reason, you aren’t able to perform, I will have to take your badge away.” With that in mind, we are lucky to have a break in between gigs, where we can slow down, take some things off our plates, stare into space and breathe deeply to recharge those batteries.

Tisha Nelson Building Inclusion, General, Inspiring Teachers, Mental Health, physically active, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

How do we nurture positive relationships amongst our colleagues?

“We come to work for our students but isn’t it nice when we get along with the adults? (Heart and Art Book of Teaching and Learning, pg. 12)

As teachers, we are so careful to nurture positive learning environments for our students to learn and thrive in. We are mindful of the social, emotional, physical and mental well-being of our students and work diligently to ensure that they are safe and secure in our care. Our families are grateful for the love in which we care for our learners and they are resolved in knowing that the adults in the building are committed to their personal well-being of their children. How then, do we nurture this same kind of environment for ourselves and our colleagues? After many years of working with many different educators, I’ve come to realize that adults are super comfortable addressing the needs of students but act in ways that are incongruent with how we take care of ourselves. Collectively, we are intentional about teaching students to be respectful and cooperative, but how might we nurture these great habits amongst ourselves? The following, though not an exhaustive list, are some things we can try tomorrow to foster healthy working relationships amongst our colleagues:

  • Send a thank you note or email to express gratitude.
  • Visit the staffroom for lunch at least once a week. Sharing a meal lends itself to conversation that allows you to get to know those you work with and appreciate the diversity they bring.
  • Start a wellness club that encourages physical, social and mental well-being through physical activity and healthy eating.
  • Escape your “divisional cubical” and reach out to those you may not have the opportunity to work with. We have more in common than we think.
  • Start-up a book club. My favourite thing about reading a good book is talking about it. Why not explore a text together and see how much that ignites collegiality amongst the staff.
  • Say “please” and “thank you”. Manners just makes the world a better place.
  • Presume positive intentions but also be honest when an offence has occurred. Talking it out with the presumed offender will invite a learning opportunity, as opposed to engendering future conflict and harbouring resentment.
  • Smile wide and laugh loud. The radiance of a smile and the joy of laughter always makes for a welcoming.

As the adults in the building, we really need to take care of each other. We are growing the adults of the future and the model we set is read more nuanced than the one we say we expect. Let our actions speak volumes in our commitment to serving our learners. Let us serve the community. Let us serve each other.

Mike Beetham Challenging Topics, General, Inspiring Teachers, Learning in a Real Life Context, Mentorship, Resilience, Wellness

Rebound From Your Mistakes

Perfectionism seems to be a common character trait of teachers in that they expect to be perfect at everything they do. They must have perfect lessons, they have to have perfect classroom displays, they expect perfect interviews and so on and so on. If this level of achievement has not been met they often feel they have let down their students. They may feel guilt or embarrassment and tend to dwell on the negative aspect of the scenario. The reality is we are human and humans make mistakes even if they are teachers.

We are patient with our students. We expect them to make mistakes in their personal learning journey and offer formative feedback that allows them to reflect on their learning and move forward to the desired outcome. If this works with students, it will also work with teachers.

There have been many, many times over the course of my career that I made a mistake. Like when I said something I should have phrased a different way or when my reaction to a classroom situation was not handled in as professional a manner as it could have. Each time a situation occurs that I feel could have been handled a different way I complete a personal reflection that helps me move forward in my practice. All of those not so shining moments, have helped shape my learning and skill set for the present and future.

One of the Keys of Excellence in my classroom is ‘Failure Leads To The Sweet Smell of Success’. This foundational belief teaches my students that mistakes are inevitable and we can examine the error and turn it into a teachable moment so that future scenarios will result in success for all. An added bonus to this is that my students become more of a risk taker as it relates to ability to try new things. I live by this belief and it has helped me become a lifelong learner as well as a risk taker in experimenting with new pedagogical practices.

 

Mike Beetham Challenging Topics, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students, Mental Health, Wellness

When Your Best Is Not Enough

I work with some very challenging students, who at their core, are really nice people. As I get to know them as people first and learners second, what surfaces quite rapidly is that many of their needs are beyond my skill set. I am not a counsellor. I am not a psychologist. I am not a physician. Yet the needs they bring to my classroom are very diverse and more complex than just literacy and numeracy. I find myself often saying, what can I do to help this child succeed and feel good about themselves. As you know, there is no simple answer to this question.

This year I have been faced with a dilemma that I have never before in my career been in. I do not know what to do for a child in my class. All of my efforts, strategies, consultations and professional readings have left me in the same place I started with this child over 6 months ago. This individual’s lack of progress (and at times regression) have been a huge stressful burden on me as I struggle everyday trying to figure out what to do to help this child stabilize and grow as a student should. My initial reaction was that despite my absolute best effort, I have failed this child.

I have a very good friend and colleague to whom I shared this belief about myself with. He was very quick to point out that I had not failed him. The student’s lack of progress is a result of many needs not being met. He began to query me about my approach with the student. The conversation went something like this:

Do you differentiate the work for this student so that it reflects his current academic level? Yes

Do you provide accommodations in his program that meet his individual’s learning needs? Yes

Do you work hard to make that student feel welcome and cared for each and every day in your classroom? Yes

Do you seek out additional supports within your school and/or board to assist you in creating a program for this student? Yes

Do you communicate your concerns in an ongoing manner to your school support team, principal as well as the student’s family? Yes

Do you smile and tell that student what a nice person they are and thank them for coming in everyday and putting forth their best effort? Yes

At the end of that conversation I came to realize that I had not failed this child. I had to the best of my knowledge and skill set did everything humanly possible to help this individual succeed and that despite my best effort, that progress was not occurring. I had not failed him, because I had not given up on him.

Beverly Papove Building Inclusion, Inquiry, Wellness

This is who I am

Through the winter inquiry my senior kindergarten students and I are involved in at the moment, I have recently been reminded of the importance of seizing opportunities for students that can spark a sense of self and place within the school setting. 

In one of our classes, we have a five-year old Inuk girl who is from Pangnirtung (on Baffin Island), and who was adopted by a family from the south. When we began talking about how people stay warm in the winter, her mother spoke to me of an opportunity for her daughter to bring in and share some of the clothing she has received from her family in Pangnirtung; a spring amauti (anorak), sealskin slippers and mittens, and a pair of sealskin kamik (boots).

Elisapie (not her real name) is a quiet student who plays happily with her friends and who engages in a variety of activities and learning opportunities during her school day without making a big splash. However, since beginning this journey of exploring the wonders of the north with her classmates and her unique connection to it, Elisapie has become a bit of a superstar. She is definitely proud of her uniqueness and this inquiry seems to have offered her an opportunity to step up and claim a place which is her own within the school setting. We have all noticed how she has become more engaged in class – asking where her amauti is every morning and wanting to put it on to go visit other classrooms in the school to show and tell all about it. When one classmate came back to school after an absence, Elisapie said, “I have to show her my amauti and slippers. When can I do that?” I am finding I occasionally need to open a window to get some cool, fresh air in the classroom before her cheeks start to glow red (sealskin is very warm), because she likes to wear them during centre time now. According to her mother, Elisapie talks more about her school day when she goes home in the afternoon, and also mentioned that Elisapie is showing an interest in going to Inuktitut classes to begin learning her language again. In class the other day, Elisapie and two of her best friends took an Inuktitut early reader from the class library and used it to write a message in Inuktitut. It is a collection of words that no one can read at this point, but it is definitely an exercise in writing in Inuktitut.

Because of the nature of inquiry, you never know where it will take you and your students. While our winter inquiry is not quite finished, I am very inspired by the learning journey and where it has taken Elisapie in particular and the whole class in general.

We may all have taken workshops on diversity and inclusion which remind us how representation in a school of every child’s culture and people can have a positive impact on their sense of self and place. As teachers, we understand that learning in a school and seeing people and images that, for a change, are familiar rather than largely representative of the dominant white culture, is not only important but imperative for a child’s well-being. None the less, seeing the world from the unique perspective of all of your students may be hard to consider. Furthermore, if you find that each of your students seems relatively well-integrated and engaged in school life, you may not seize on opportunities that may make their school experience even more worthwhile and personal. That is why I feel that workshops, books, and discussions which encourage you to make diversity and inclusion regular aspects of your teaching day are invaluable to individual students as well as the broader school community.

 

Mental Health in the Staffroom
Will Gourley Challenging Topics, General, Mental Health, Wellness

Mental Health in the Staffroom

Maybe you’ve seen this intro before?
You are reading a different post.
Read on and you’ll understand.

Here’s a snippet from casual conversations playing out in school hallways everywhere.
Pick the one’s you’ve used or heard before.

“How are you? How’s it going? What’s up? How’s it?”

“Good. Great. All good here. Meh. No problems. Busy. So busy. Not too bad. OK. Top of the world ma!”

What would we do if the person speaking said, “I am having the worst day of my life. I don’t know if I can keep this up? I need help.” Would we pull out the motivational clichés, tell the person to toughen up, or just walk away after saying, “I hope you’re OK?”

How are you dealing with issues like this in your classroom? Do you feel overwhelmed yourself? Do you have a colleague or a place to go when you need support? Would you go? Ask for help? Are you running on empty?

Part of keeping your heart in tact while you practice this art comes from protecting your own state of mind. Students are not the only ones with feelings of anxiety, self-doubt, and depression. In some cases, when surveyed, teachers have noted feeling excluded in their own staff rooms, or that they struggling with so many things at once. Here are some excerpts from the ETFO web page Depression – It’s More Common Than You Think

Key Causes of Teacher Stress

Working conditions, such as the following, may make teachers particularly vulnerable to depression:

  • Long working hours.
  • Lack of administrative support.
  • Excessive workload.
  • Large class sizes.
  • Lack of specialist teachers.
  • Unreasonable expectations.
  • Lack of necessary supports to do the job.

Thankfully there is help available, but it takes time, education, courage, and a supportive environment to work.

“Prolonged exposure to stress can cause serious health issues. Making a few, simple, lifestyle changes can reduce your stress level and lower your risk of depression. Protect yourself by:

  • taking control of your life, setting achievable goals at work and at home, and being realistic about what you can accomplish.
  • making time for relationships and taking time to connect with family and friends. A strong support network makes stress easier to manage.
  • eating a healthy, balanced diet to maintain good mental and physical health.
  • exercising regularly.  Even a 10-minute walk, three times a day, reduces stress and relieves symptoms of depression.” via ETFO web page Depression – It’s More Common Than You Think

As Winter days at school become more hectic, we need to be able to see the light from one another while we wait for the sunshine of Spring and Summer to warm us. Talk to someone, reach out, get involved in something where you can contribute, and be valued for your awesomeness. Take time to share some words of encouragement or conversation with each other. Perhaps, including the OTs at your lunch table when you can. It may make a world of difference for them and for you too.

Join a Twitter PLN like #TLAP, #CDNEdChat, #NTChat, #TEDEdChat, or #EdChat. You’ll find thousands of engaged and thoughtful educators sharing your journey.

For more information about Mental Health Issues please visit CAMH.

Will Gourley General, Mental Health, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

A word or three about 2015

Last day to come clean. Tomorrow is January 1, 2016 – New Year’s Day on the Gregorian Calendar for those keeping score at home. It’s also a Leap Year too, so I wrote a lesson about it. With 365 days in the books and a great year ahead, I wanted to share a few words that have kept me hopping in 2015;

Resilience Patience Silence

Silence – In 2015, I worked really hard to step aside and listen. I learnt to listen to all of the voices in the room, not just the most frequent and loudest ones. By being silent more students were empowered to find and have their voices heard.

Silence took on another form in the classroom again in 2015. It meant that students had time to consolidate new ideas into enduring understandings in a calm and stress free environment. In 2015 we took time to be still and allow our minds to catch up from the daily bombardment of outside stimuli. We learnt about Mindfulness and how it can help in the classroom.

Patience – Patience is not a cliche, but a call to inaction at its purest. When I felt the most vulnerable in my practice as a teacher this word held me on the rails. I’ll admit, that there were times when it felt like that my life as an educator was only a penny left on the tracks away from a train wreck. At times when anxieties rose the word patience steadied me when I wasn’t feeling it that day.

Patience also guided my class room management style. Students need time, they need understanding, and they need someone in their corner while they work things out. Patience is like counting to 10. It can be the difference between a hasty [over]reaction or a thoughtful response. Patience is the lens by which we all need to see that things are not always as they appear.

Resilience – In 2015 the word resilience has worked its way to the top on a lot of lists as the 4th R in education. In my estimation, resilience is, and always will supersede the other Rs because it transcends the classroom.  We must allow students to ideate, learn, iterate, fail, succeed and repeat.

If all we are doing is programming students with the software from a curriculum, and never allowing them to test their own operating systems and hardware, then we are missing the chance to develop lifelong problem solving skills. Resilience is what makes first attempts in learning bigger than the FAIL acronym, by being the launch pad for lifelong learning.

Learning must be relevant to their lives, not ours. We cannot expect students to care about something totally antiquated and irrelevant to their world and future. Our role as knowledge mediums and intellectual fire starters is to kindle a spark of curiosity in students to become constant learners. Resilience can be developed by equipping and evolving real life problem solving skills now. My students are expected to do this everyday. As our class motto asks, “What are the real life problems you are solving today?”

So as the hours tick towards another new year I look back with appreciation on a great year of learning and look forward to another year ahead. May silence, patience, and resilience be part of your classroom in 2016. I know they will be part of mine.

Happy New Year.

 

Mike Beetham Challenging Topics, General, Mentorship, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

Tortoise Brained Learning

“ Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”. This quote from Maya Angelou holds true no matter what stage of  teaching  you are at. Too often teachers feel pressured to constantly be moving their best practice forward before the last component has been consolidated into their everyday practice.

Over the course of my career I have evolved from a Hare Brained Learner to a Tortoise Brained Learner. A Hare Brained Learner is one who is constantly delving into new areas without going through the process needed to implement theory into best practice. I attended multiple workshops, almost everyone our board offered. I would see so many good ideas in practice, take notes on them, put them in a file, give them a try for a week or two and then most often let them fizzle out in that file. I was off to the next workshop, new idea or teaching practice.

My life as a Tortoise Brained Learner is much more manageable and is producing a far greater change in my day-to-day pedagogical practice. I have learned that my personal learning cycle is about two years. From the initial exposure to a new idea (e.g. mind mapping) through further research, personal experimentation, classroom experimentation and finally a part of my practice where I no longer even think about it as a new idea it takes me about two years. Thus my shift from quantity to quality professional learning has resulted in me being a much more pedagogically sound teacher.

It is not possible, nor reasonable for teachers to be constantly in a state of change. My advice is to develop an Annual Learning Plan that focuses in on one or two key areas that you are both interested in and know will enhance your journey toward best practice.

Tammy Axt Mental Health, Wellness

Personal Wellness

It is that time of year where your steps are getting a little slower and your energy is starting to dwindle. There are concerts coming up, progress reports to write and a million other little things to do before the next five and a half weeks wrap up. Usually I handle this chaos with a steady stream of caffeine and a total stoppage to all things at my home including cleaning, shopping and spending time with friends. However, this year, a member of my family and my teaching partner are both suffering with a critical illness. This has forced me to slow down and take care of my personal wellness.

This year, I am trying to take time to exercise regularly. I attend swimming lessons and belong to a running group. I attend them at least a couple times of week. Nothing like a good sweat or your face in the water to let go of the day and just relax. The weather has been fantastic this fall which has also made being outside just awesome!

I also have committed to only one extracurricular this fall. This was a tough one for me but necessary. Only giving up two breaks a week will ensure that my sense of humour, energy and general cheeriness stay intact.

At my school, my team and I decided to change some long standing practices around things like the Remembrance Day assembly. I realized that doing an elaborate wreath processional, a choir, and a tableau presentation was not necessary for the act of showing respect to the members of the military. This year, I taught all of my classes the same songs and we sang them together. We all stopped for a moment of silence and watched a beautiful tribute on our screen. The singing sounded awesome with 300 students singing together. It was a simple but meaningful tribute to the amazing men and women who deserve our reflection on the eleventh.

Overall, I am trying to find a balance between home and work. This is something that I am definitely still working on and will continue to strive towards for the next 27 years.