TM4T Stress Armoury 37 - Using friends

For most teachers, friends are just friends. This applies particularly to young teachers. The notion of friends as a professional resouce may seem odd; distasteful even... or just plain wrong: aren't we supposed to keep work and home-life separate?

Well, yes we are. You need friends who are not connected with teaching; that's the whole point. If things get busy at school, if things get tough at school, then our non-teaching friends tend to get pushed into the background: 'maybe we can have a drink when things are a bit quieter'. This is logical and understandable of course, but one of the consequences can be a loss of perspective. 

If we spend all day teaching, and all evening talking about teaching to other teachers, we will inevitably lose some sense of relative proportion. You should consider the following steps - some may not be appropriate for you, but I'm sure you get the idea.

1.     Categorise your friends

Spend some time thinking about your friends (this may apply to relatives and partners too). Are they good to talk to? Do they have life experience which makes them valuable as unpaid consultants? Are they genuinely good listeners? Do they give practical, helpful advice?

The fact is, of course, that friends are friends. Some friends are wonderful company and wonderful people, but are just NOT the right option if you're looking for advice or empathy. Get it clear in your head who might be useful, before you need them.

2.    Plan to stay in touch

This doesn't mean a vague commitment 'we'll have to go out some time'; it means, literally, plan. That means putting a date in your calendar (on your Yearly Plan if you're following TM4T) and then making time to keep in touch. Regularly. This doesn't have to mean frequently, just regularly. The idea is that if you do need to talk to someone; just talk, then you're in a position to do so without having three years of catching up to do first.

3.     Ask for advice

This is a hard for some people to do; it seems like weakness to them. Often, it seems far easier to make a decision yourself than to explain things to other people; especially someone who doesn't understand how schools work.  If you find it difficult, start doing it more. It is a skill which requires practice.  Asking for advice should not be regarded as a despairing last roll of the dice.  It should be a routine part of any decision-making, or sense-making which isn't intuitively obvious to you. It may represent a second opinion, or a new perspective, or just a way of maintaining a mutually supportive relationship: it has all kinds of benefits, but it must be done kind-of-regularly to have real value.

4.    Seek perspective

The world of stress management seems to specialise in unhelpful advice and meaningless mantras. 'Prioritise' may seem like good advice and 'don't sweat the small stuff' may sound like a helpful slogan, but... does anyone really not do this?  Do people honestly do the unimportant stuff first, or deliberately worry about trivia? Well, yes they do - regularly - but not because they're stupid. They don't realise that they're doing it, because - to our teacherly brains - everything to do with children's education seems important and almost nothing looks like 'small stuff' to us. This is where cold-headed warm-hearted friends come in.  They will tell you that the difference between C- and B+ is not worth losing sleep over, no matter what Kylie-Jo's mum says.

Use your friends to offer sensible perspectives and a sense of proportion. Of course they will spout heresy of course: 'It's just one student' isn't how we look at things, but even so, it will help you maintain a sense of balance in what is going on.