Author: Dawn Mitchell
Good Morning!
With the first week of November comes the hope of our first long break with Thanksgiving right around the corner. As we look forward to this time, I want to encourage you to engage in self-care. In our profession that is built on serving our students, our schools, our communities, and ultimately, our society, creating habits of self-care can be difficult to do. Starting healthy, sustainable habits for your own self-care are just as important as the many ways you plan for your students’ growth and success.
One self-care saying that rings true for educators is, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.”
Making time each week for moments of self-care such as taking a break from emails and to do lists to engage in an activity that promotes mindfulness such as a walk, listening to your favorite playlist, having a quiet cup of coffee, or reading an article or a book chapter can help you unplug from work.
It will also recharge you for when you pick that lesson planning back up.
A helpful resource is a blog from Jennifer Gonzalez’s website “Cult of Pedagogy” that provides you with four steps to creating habits of self-care.
Her first suggestions explains how building in rest is not a break from work, but rather a catalyst for more productive work. The longer you work exhausted, the less productive you are. If you build in short breaks, you are able to increase your productivity and your energy rather than work from a consistently depleted resource. Take a moment to read through Gonzalez’s suggestions from her blog post.
Hopefully when you return from Thanksgiving break, you will feel rested and ready to dive back in to learning, teaching, and leading with your students. If you found Gonzalez’s suggestions in this blog helpful, we would like to encourage you to join us for our upcoming spring SCASCD conference in Columbia on Thursday, March 5, 2020. Check out our SCASCD website for more information. We’d love to see you there!
Sincerely,
Dawn
Dawn Mitchell
South Carolina ASCD President