Heading 1NDMTSS Conference
Description
Teachers have always needed to know and practice protective strategies in their social emotional first aid kits to manage the daily stressors of working on the front lines of a human-service oriented profession. That need has never been greater given the massive increase in uncertainty and unpredictability in the teaching profession and in one's personal life due to COVID.
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In short, teaching is emotional labor-- the effort required to manage and metabolize strong emotions like anger, shame, guilt, anxiety, and overwhelm, as well as generate and stoke positive emotions like joy, hope, and compassion.
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Stress significantly diminishes a teacher's capacity to regulate their negative emotions and cultivate positive emotions. Ironically, teachers who leave the profession often cite their inability to cope with their own emotional reactions to loss of control, unpredictability, and lack of purpose in their teaching as the primary reason for burnout.
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There are many, many strategies and practices rooted in cognitive and affective neuroscience and social and behavioral sciences that teachers can learn, practice, and integrate into their personal and professional lives as teachers to metabolize stress, manage negative energy, protect themselves from the burnout cycle, and find joy in teaching the whole year through!
Learning Objectives
In this session, teachers will:
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Explore the core elements of the teacher burnout cycle and learn how to protect one's self from the 2 paths to burning out,
the Present Teacher Impact
“When you’re learning to be a teacher, you think it’s just about lesson plans, curriculum, and seating charts,” said Garcia. “I was blindsided by the emotional aspect of teaching—I didn’t know how to handle it. I was hurt by my students’ pain, and it was hard for me to leave that behind when I went home.”
(When Students Are Traumatized, Teachers Are, Too, Edutopia, 2017)
Description
Teaching is a RELATIONSHIP based profession.
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How a teacher positively relates to the self in good times, actively restores the self when stressed, and intentionally re-stories negative self-talk has a direct impact on one's capacity to build healthy, trauma-sensitive relationships with students. Core to intentionally building healthy relationships with students is a teacher's connection with their social and emotional (SEL) development.
Artwork by Minnesota Artist and Teacher: Jinjer Markley
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"There is an uncanny symmetry between the way you are inward with yourself and the way you are outward."
(John O'Donohue, 2008)
Since teaching is a relationship-based profession, research confirms that one of the biggest sources of emotional fatigue for a teacher is relationship stress. Teachers often cite being called to the profession because of their desire to be in relationship with students-- to create spaces for students to feel seen, actualize their potential, and leverage learning as their greatest asset to building self-capacity.
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Since relationships are foundational to good teaching and effective student learning, teachers must become relationship researchers. Core to being a relationship researcher is exploring one's personal SEL development.
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We believe teachers must learn relationship resilience skills that stoke their mental health and emotional well-being, cultivate their own SEL practice, and create healthy relationships with students where they share power and co-create spaces of belonging that positively impact student learning and their human development.
In this highly experiential session, teachers learn about and experience the foundational competencies of the Present TeacherTM Impact:
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REST: Utilizing the power of active rest and connecting to the breath to settle a busy mind and reactive nervous system
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RESTORATION: Engaging the potential embedded in stress for educators to metabolize triggers into opportunities to exercise and embody SEL and value-based actions
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REVITALIZATION: Creating the possibilities and opportunities for learning, joy, and belonging in their classrooms through their presence.
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Learning Objectives
MIND
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Explore the difference between healthy stress and toxic educator stress
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Learn about the stages, symptoms, and manifestations of teacher burnout and emotional fatigue
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Discover the power of perception in influencing personal power in stressful moments
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Discover the 4 core conditions for sharing power with students
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Explore how joy is inextricably tied to teacher well-being and social justice
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Learn about the 5 competencies of SEL and explore how moments of stress can be metabolized to cultivate teacher SEL.
BODY
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Explore the (2) mindfulness-based practices to settle a busy mind and calm an overactive nervous system
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Learn about the mind, body, and soul benefits of meditation for teachers
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Discover the power of the soul nerve: what it is, what it does, and how to strengthen it
PRACTICE
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Reconnect with calling, purpose, and core values as an educator
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Learn about and practice the 4 elements the Infinite Well-Being ModelTM for restoring energy, perspective, and self-integrity through moments of stress
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Engage the competencies of empathic listening to build resilient relationships with students that engender trust and belonging