Prioritize your mental health by creating boundaries around your time and energy and scheduling time to rest and recharge, writes Robyn Neilsen in an Education Week commentary. She creates curriculum and instructional materials for educators and writes a weekly blog about teacher mental health.
Here are four ways to prepare to take care of ourselves and our mental health:
1) Let go of the ‘Pinterest classroom’ ideal.
Wanting to make your classroom a safe environment is essential to learning. Wanting to make your classroom a beautiful space that students want to be in is an admirable goal. Your classroom does not have to look Pinterest-perfect to be a safe place where students want to learn and be.
What matters is the relationships you have with your students. They will want to be in your class because you make the space safe, not the decorations on your bulletin board.
2) Schedule time for yourself.
Make a list of what matters to you most. How you spend your time every day is what matters most to you. And how you’ve been spending your time is what makes you feel calm, inspired, and joyful. Take inventory of it. Then block out intentional time (that you commit to!) during school to bring what matters most into your teacher life.
3) Make time for check-in moments.
A check-in gives us important information about where our minds are so that we can reassess and recalibrate to get back on track emotionally. This should be a daily activity for you personally but also an activity that you share with your students.
A check-in might be 10 minutes of journaling between classes. Five minutes of meditation after the last bell. A 20-minute walk. All these activities get you in touch with your brain and body.
You can do the same for your students through free-writes at the beginning of class or five-minute games to get them started.
4) Don’t try to be perfect.
We all want to create the most interesting, innovative lessons and have every day be fresh and new. But remember, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you have a certain lesson type that works for your students, it’s OK to reuse that lesson with different content. Not every lesson needs to be the most exciting lesson ever taught. Realize that keeping it simple is actually best to avoid burnout.
Perfectionism is out, and simplicity is in. Focus on prioritizing joy for your mental health and make serious time to spend it with the people you love and do what makes your heart happy.
Creating boundaries isn’t about alienating anyone or making people angry. It’s about creating sustainable schedules so you can continue to enjoy your career as you show up for your students.
You owe it to yourself and your mental health. And you are more than who you are in the classroom. And you don’t have to wait for summer to be that person again.
Education Week
