Find Your Mountain: Managing Teacher Social and Emotional Wellness

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. This page was included as it offers multiple resources, updated regularly, about emotional well-being. While the page is not specific to teachers, it does offer many valuable resources about the mental health, social isolation, and the mental implications that COVID-19 has had on the general population. I was specifically interested in the WSCC page (Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child), which is the "is CDC’s framework for addressing health in schools."

Dr. Jennings, an internationally recognized leader in the fields of social and emotional learning and mindfulness in education, offers seven ways in which "mindfulness" can help us manage classrooms and thus our own mental wellness. I found this to be important as teachers are often reactionary and classrooms are platforms of student emotions and dialogue. Increasing mindfulness is of great importance for teachers hoping to avoid burnout.

Lisa Klein, Chair of English at Baldwin High School and an educator for over twenty years, shares how meditation helped her to cope with the stresses and anxieties of both teaching and life. As part of her doctoral studies, Dr. Klein conducted research on the effects of mantra meditation on classroom teachers. I found this Tedx talk to be of value because, very often, teachers are skeptical when you discuss the benefits of meditation with them. Dr. Klein does a great job at promoting meditation through her own experience. The first time she practiced guided meditation, she didn't know what to make of it, but upon walking outside and looking up at the trees she, "...realized it wasn't so much what I was feeling, but rather what I wasn't. For the first time in my memory, I didn't feel anxious."

With the shift to hybrid and online instruction, I thought it would be important to include some research-based studies in regard to the mental health and well-being of online instructors. Of import was the fact that this study was released two years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, eliminating any bias that might be associated with the "echoes of concern" disseminated by the pandemic. The findings here are not surprising: "...results indicate that online instructors are more susceptible to experiences of isolation and emotional distress..."

As is the theme of my page, I've found that nature is of great importance for bringing our body and mind back to balance. This thorough study conducted by Cornell University found that "...as little as 10–20 min and up to 50 min of sitting or walking in a diverse array of natural settings has significant and positive impacts on key psychological and physiological markers, when contrasted with equal durations spent in urbanized settings."

This resource is a return to mindfulness and self-care, specifically geared toward teachers. It also offers twenty self-care activities that teachers can do individually and collectively, as a group/class. I found the video about classroom Yoga, a practice in which I have been shying around for years now, to be exceptionally helpful.

This study was conducted on 387 middle school teachers. It is important to my page because it discusses teacher burnout, an issue that has only been growing at a startling rate over the years. The study discusses increased stresses and pressures (which certainly was fanned by the pandemic) and a lowering of teachers self-efficacy, which ultimately led to burnout and an exodus from the profession.