In reading the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari (excellent read by the way), I was introduced to the idea of ‘Cruel Optimism.’ Essentially, the thinking behind it is that we are often given hope for change, success, etc but this ignores the systemic factors that are stacked against success. 

As an example from the book he mentions the weight loss industry. We are told that if we eat right and exercise right, we can have our ideal body. But this fails to take into account that the average person is now 24 pounds heavier than they would have been only a few decades ago. We are more sedentary in other parts of our lives, we rely more on transportation rather than walking (cities are more sprawled out so we commute more than walk or bike these days), food has more additives that make weight loss difficult, etc. So when we do fail, we blame ourselves for this failure, ignoring the fact the deck was stacked against us the whole time. This is not to say that we are doomed to fail, it is just an acknowledgment that it may not be as straightforward as we are led to believe.

Cruel Optimism has given a name to thoughts that have been percolating in my mind for a while when it comes to educator Self-Care. While I do believe that we have a responsibility to look after ourselves, we also cannot ignore the systemic components that detract from educator well-being. 

There are increased demands on teacher time, and equally competing demands on our personal time. Life tends to move much faster than it did years ago, as such, there used to be more time to spend on our work. As well, we had a culture built around work and how work was our identities. This is doubly true I think for educators who do have a lot of their identity wrapped up in our work. We now have a culture of ‘busy’ where how busy we are often dominates the conversation. We even may find ourselves engaging in a contest of sorts where we compare our busy miseries, but, as a colleague of mine says ‘no one owns busy.’ Also, if you ‘win’ that contest, are you really winning?

As a means of combating this, we have more and more educators who choose to do less professionally. They seek pre-packed lesson plans so they can essentially plug them into their classroom with little to no customization for the students that they have. We have terms like ‘quiet quitting’ where we do the bare minimum that our jobs require. To be clear, these aren’t judgements, they are an acknowledgment that educators are trying to find ways to take back their time against all the demands placed on it.

Some stressors and demands on our time are inherent to education. We will always have lesson planning, assessment, managing student behaviour, etc. There really aren’t any shortcuts or policies that will reduce this in a meaningful or effective way. Our classrooms will always be a place that contains a variety of individuals with a variety of needs that we will have to meet and navigate. As well, the learner of today is not the learner of our youth. Student behaviour within the classroom has changed, arguably for the worse as a whole, and as such, schools are faced with a host of challenges daily that were unknown to our parent’s generation. These are unfortunately unlikely to simply disappear anytime soon.

However, how we react and treat one another is firmly within our control. Boundaries that we set for ourselves and our schools, such as expectations around answering emails, doing some of the ‘extras’ can be better established and encouraged. I am a firm believer that every teacher can, and should, contribute to a school beyond their classroom, and that if everyone does a little bit then no one gets overwhelmed. While coaching a team may be difficult for someone with other commitments since it runs all year, spearheading a fundraiser over the course of a few weeks might be more manageable. This may not be an opinion shared by someone already feeling overwhelmed with the demands and I understand that as well. Because we are all different, we do have different capacities for stressors and demands on our time. What I might find reasonable, someone else may find overwhelming (and vice versa). 

I do sometimes wonder though, if those few (and every profession has them) who will take advantage of any opportunity to cry foul against the system, and that they are done wrong by it, create a barrier for these improvements to be made? There are always those who use the term ‘mental health’ to justify something they simply don’t want to do or as a rallying cry to try and gain support for their personal beliefs about how things are done.

There is a lot to be said for taking a day off when you need one, however, I do wonder if that threshold has been lowered from needing a day, to simply not wanting to go on that day. These aren’t really the same thing. We do have a responsibility inherent in our roles to show up when we can, that is the premise of accepting a job: your time and efforts in exchange for a salary. 

While we can’t fix everything, we can sometimes make them a little better, even if it is simply by acknowledging them and recognizing that we aren’t facing them alone. While it is important to help our educators access tools and techniques for self-care, it is also the responsibility of our leadership to improve the system. Small things like listening and empathizing with concerns can go a long way. When we work together we can discover what things are possible and what our expectations for all of us should be. This can help us make the switch from surviving, to thriving.