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,
A full day restoration session allows for your teachers to really feel the flow of their natural states of well-being and capacity for connection with their peers.
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There is something unreplicable about immersing your teachers in a full day of concentrated attention on their mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Teachers report leaving a full day of guided practices that facilitate deeper connections with the self and each other feeling lighter, supported, seen, and energized.
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When we know we have a full 6 hours of well-being time, we organize the entire day around a specific well-being theme. We then tether the learning, reflecting, and engagement with peers through multiple mindfulness-based practices.
During a full day session, we get your teachers' bodies moving right away with (2) gentle morning movement practices. We then engage the calming of the mind with a soothing body scan meditation. These practices really ready the mind and body to integrate our core learning for the day as well as facilitate a sense of safety and trust with each other to do some deep connecting work.
At lunch, we keep practicing our well-being strategies as teachers learn the art of Mindful Eating. After eating lunch mindfully, teachers are guided on a rejuvenating Mindful Walking exercise (*outside if weather permits).
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That afternoon, we engage more content and reflective practices while engaging in more mind calming mental health meditations. The day long focus on well-being closes with a restorative yin yoga practice that calms and balances the nervous system, stimulates the body's immune system, reduces anxiety and stress, and increases natural energy states in your educators.
Teachers leave this day not only with the embodied feeling of pure calm, joy, and relaxation, they are take away multiple strategies and practices to use in both their personal lives and classroom practices to keep the positive energy stoked!
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