Teacher Wellbeing

It's good to be back behind the mic and I'm excited to talk to you today about 11 mistakes I see teachers and schools making when it comes to their health, wellbeing and resilience. These are things I see quite commonly in my clients and I've also made a lot of them myself, so I absolutely get it and I'm sharing these with the greatest empathy and compassion. If you recognise yourself in these, know that I'm right there with you and we're human so learning and growing and messing up is part of the deal.
Exciting things:

• Cultivating Extraordinary Wellbeing Video Training www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/cultivating
• Wellbeing Champions Meetup www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/wellbeingchampion
• School Staff Wellbeing & Resilience Sessions: taking bookings for 2021 now! Email [email protected]

Episodes mentioned:

• S04 E11 Three thinking Traps
• S01 E18 Self-Care and Differentiation
• S05 E07 The Other Side of the Wellbeing Equation

Books mentioned:

• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
• The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
• The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner

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In the first teacher story recorded since coronavirus, Wendy shares her story of health challenges and new wellbeing resolutions, and how that was all impacted by the disruptions to work and life that Covid-19 brought.
Remember there's also a couple of days left to join is round of the Resilient Teacher program: www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/resilientteacher

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This is the audio from Lesson 2 of the free workshop series about Teacher Wellbeing and Resilience. Click here to watch a replay of it this week for free, on Facebook! Or find it in the Freebies Library at www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/library
Enrolment for the next round of the Resilient Teacher Coaching Program is now open, and early bird pricing is available until Sunday 5th July, so join now!

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Back in January I ran a free workshop series about Teacher Wellbeing and Resilience, with the subtitle "what ever teacher needs to know before the 2020 school year begins." Looking back on it now, I can't believe how prescient that actually was. So I'm running a replay of it this week for free, on Facebook!

Enrolment for the next round of the Resilient Teacher Coaching Program is now open, and early bird pricing is available until Sunday 5th July, so join now!

You are almost at the end of the weirdest, most challenging term ever. Just in case you haven’t paused to acknowledge yourself, take a moment to do so now.
This last term has been the biggest disruption to Australia’s education system in history. Twice. Across Australia, teachers have never worked harder or had to be more flexible, adaptable and cooperative in the face of some huge challenges and rapidly changing circumstances.
Yet, here we are. Just a week or two left until holidays (depending where you are in Aus) and you did it. You have been an integral part of getting this nation through the health, social and economic crises that we are still in the midst of.
Join me for this free live workshop series, screening on Facebook. If you can't make it when I go live, then you can watch the replay in the Facebook event.

• Take The Australian Teacher Health and Wellbeing Survey: www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/survey
• Sign up for the free Teacher Resilience and Wellbeing Workshop Series here: https://www.facebook.com/events/713958529378484/
• The next round of the Resilient Teacher coaching program begins in July so you can get on the waiting list at selfcareforteachers.com.au/resilientteacher

Set aside some time in your calendar next week to invest in yourself and your wellbeing going forwards. Whether you join me for the free workshop series or not, please take some time this week to acknowledge all that you have accomplished this term.
If you want to, raise it as a topic of shared reflection and celebration in the staff room or with your teacher buddies. Take a moment this week to be grateful to each other and to yourself for making it through this incredible term.
This is one for the history books, and you have been a part of it.
As always, remember you’re a person first and a teacher second and you are SO worthy of your own care x.

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In this episode I want to explore two myths that are sabotaging your health and wellbeing, and those are the ideas that health and wellbeing is binary and linear. Now, when I say myths, I’m not necessarily talking about mythology, as in The Greek Gods and Goddesses, Hercules and Zeus and Athena and Aphrodite. That’s not what I mean.
I’m talking about that other definition of myth, which is a widely held belief or idea that is actually a misconception. However, all myths have some truth to them, but to believe them literally is problematic.
So, these two myths that I want to share with you today, about binary and linear health and wellbeing outcomes, are things that our culture, our Western Industrial culture really socialises or conditions us to believe as true.
We have been taught for our whole lives that life, the world, relationships, health, everything, is binary and that it’s linear. And it's not!
Links mentioned in this episode:

• The Australian Teacher Health and Wellbeing Survey: www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/survey
• Waiting list for the Resilient Teacher Group Program: www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/resilientteacher
• Get tickets for the Fatigue Resilience Masterclass on Sleep: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/fatigue-resilience-masterclass-4-sleep-tickets-104930172972
• Sign up for Replay Week of the Resilience & Wellbeing free Workshop Series: https://www.facebook.com/events/713958529378484/
• Results of the 2018 Survey: https://www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/twps04e03/
• Concept of Tilting

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Support the podcast today via Pozible: https://www.pozible.com/project/teacher-wellbeing-podcast-season-6
This is a longer episode, and it’s a really really fantastic teacher story. I also share my ongoing commitment to anti-racism work and unpacking my privilege as a teacher and a coach.
There are just SO many learnings and I’m so grateful that Tina shared her story with us. Now, like many of my episodes this season, it was recorded before COVID so there’s no mention of that at all, but we do talk about people pleasing, boundaries, the challenges of moving away from your support networks for a job, and the challenges and opportunities of living and working in a small town. The two big themes from this episode are around having a safe workplace, and taking care of physiological needs, that bottom level of Maslow’s Hierarchy. So Tina shares her experience of being bullied at work, and how as an early career teacher she didn’t necessarily know that that wasn’t normal, and it was thanks to an older, wiser, more experienced colleague pointing out to her that that was what was happening that she was able to make some decisions about what was right for her. And running alongside that like I said was a whole lot of body messages that were really telling Tina to pay more attention to her basic physiological needs, but like so many of us, it took a diagnosis of a health condition for her to actually pay attention to those messages. We do focus on early career teachers in this episode because Tina is an early career teacher, but I know many aspects of the story will be familiar to people at all stages of life and career.
As always, remember you’re a person first and a teacher second and you are WORTHY of your own care.
May you continue to look after yourself wholeheartedly this year, be a beacon of inspiration for others and an example to encourage your colleagues to do the same.

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This interview is with Katrina Bourke of Katrina Bourke coaching, who you may remember from way back in Series 2. We talk about schools around Australia returning to on campus learning for all students, and the way that transition is playing out for teachers and leaders and school staff, and what we can do individually and collectively to support ourselves and each other during that transition and the challenges of the ongoing uncertainty around the way the school system and the COVID-19 crisis will continue to unfold. I really wanted to release this episode this week because I believe it’s important, timely conversation for educators as schools navigate this current transition, which is happening right now.
But before we get to that interview, I want to take a moment to pause and acknowledge something else happening right now. If you’re listening to this episode at the time of its release, in the first week of June 2020, there are protests in the USA this week following the murder of George Floyd in police custody, which is following on from a long list of police brutality against BIPOC, black, indigenous and people of colour, and I want to acknowledge the hurt and trauma and injustice of that. To my US listeners, particularly African American listeners, I am thinking of you. Black lives matter.
In Australia, it’s also Reconciliation Week and we have our own black lives matter movement because we also police brutality here. According to the Guardian Australia’s Deaths Inside project, there have been “at least 432 Aboriginal deaths in custody since the royal commission in 1991.” If this is news to you, or even if it’s not, I will put a couple of links in the description of this episode that I recommend you read for the Australian context of this, because it gets so little media or public attention here. I acknowledge and recognise the pain and trauma of this injustice for Aboriginal people here in Australia too.
If you’re following @selfcareforteachers on social media you may have seen that this week I am participating in the #amplifymelanatedvoiceschallenge, which is about centering the voices and lived experiences of folks of colour, so I’m not posting my own content on social media this week. I’m sharing the work of BIPOC teachers and leaders and content creators in my stories, and listening and learning, reflecting on my privilege and how I can unpack that going forwards. This isn’t a one and done thing, it will be ongoing internal work for me and for all of us to unravel how society conditions us and what we allow to continue at the expense of black and indigenous lives. I want to say also that I don’t need praise for this, it’s not about me, and I’m not at all sure of the right response but I know that ignoring this and saying nothing would be wrong. I support the #blacklivesmatter movement, it is a matter of human rights. To my listeners who are white, I invite you to spend some time reading and learning about it, too. Start with the links below and then keep learning, and listening to the lived experiences of folks of colour.
Links Ellen mentioned:

• Amplify Melanated Voices Challenge by @jessicawilson.msrd and @blackandembodied
• Guardian Article about Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
• We must bear witness to black deaths in our own country by Amy McGuire
• 75 things white people can do for racial justice but Corinne Shutack

Links mentioned in the interview:

• Connect with Katrina on LinkedIn or Facebook, or at https://www.katrinabourkecoaching.com.au
• Katrina’s Series 2 interview https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=149938
• Finale of Season 5 where I cover Satir Change Model https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=651613
• Kristen Neff and Self-Compassion https://self-compassion.org/

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In this episode, I interview Melissa, a teacher with a powerful story about taking back control and power and responsibility for own health and wellbeing.
Contribute to the Crowdfunder for Season 6 here: https://www.pozible.com/project/teacher-wellbeing-podcast-season-6

I’d love to hear your questions and comments! All the details about how you can leave me a voicemail are here.
Links mentioned in this episode:

• The Pozible Crowdfunding campaign: pledge today!
• Teacher Health and Wellbeing Survey coming soon: listen to the podcast episode about the 2018 survey results here.
• Replay Week of the Teacher Wellbeing and Resilience Free Workshops: starts 29th June. It’s free, sign up here.
• Fatigue Resilience Masterclasses 3 on STRESS
• Fatigue Resilience Masterclass 4 on SLEEP
• Replays of Fatigue Resilience Masterclasses 1 and 2 can be purchased through the Pozible campaign

Did I mention that you should pledge your support for the Pozible crowdfunding campaign for the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast today? 😉
I’d so appreciate if you could do that right now and go and share the link with your teaching colleagues too because podcasts are free to listen to but they’re not free to make, and with your support I’m looking forward to finishing Season 6 and being able to follow it up with a 7th Season later in 2020. So thanks in advance for your support of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast, go and pledge right now!
As always, remember you’re a person first and a teacher second and you are WORTHY of your own care.
May you continue to look after yourself wholeheartedly this year, be a beacon of inspiration for others and an example to encourage your colleagues to do the same.

Sign up for the Self-Care for Teachers newsletter here.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Season 6 of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast! I’m so excited to be here and back on your airwaves and in your earbuds every week for the next 10 weeks at least.
Today I’m excited to share with you the voicemails that I have received since I asked for listeners to call in and Leave me a voicemail for Season 6 of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast answering this question: “Thinking back on your first year of teaching, what did you learn about staying healthy and cultivating wellbeing as a person and as a teacher? Put another way, what advice would you give your first-year teacher self about staying healthy and cultivating wellbeing as a teacher?” https://www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/voicemail
Contribute to the Crowdfunder for Season 6 here: https://www.pozible.com/project/teacher-wellbeing-podcast-season-6
Dear listener, you can still call in and leave me your voicemails because I have loved hearing these answers:

• You can ask a question that you’d like me to answer on the show
• You can answer this reflective question of what do you wish you’d known in your first year or what advice you would give your first year self
• And I’d love to hear from you about your experience in this pandemic. In particular I’d like to spark some reflection for you on what you have learned from this pandemic that you will take forward with you, what you have let go of and or what really matters.

I’d love to hear your questions and or your answers and all the details about how you can leave me a voicemail here.
Links mentioned in this episode:

• The Pozible Crowdfunding campaign: pledge today!
• Teacher Health and Wellbeing Survey coming soon: listen to the podcast episode about the 2018 survey results here.
• Replay Week of the Teacher Wellbeing and Resilience Free Workshops: starts 29th June. It’s free, sign up here.
• Fatigue Resilience Masterclasses 3 on STRESS
• Fatigue Resilience Masterclass 4 on SLEEP
• Replays of Fatigue Resilience Masterclasses 1 and 2 can be purchased through the Pozible campaign

Did I mention that you should pledge your support for the Pozible crowdfunding campaign for the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast today? 😉
I’d so appreciate if you could do that right now and go and share the link with your teaching colleagues too because podcasts are free to listen to but they’re not free to make, and with your support I’m looking forward to finishing Season 6 and being able to follow it up with a 7th Season later in 2020. So thanks in advance for your support of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast, go and pledge right now!
As always, remember you’re a person first and a teacher second and you are WORTHY of your own care.
May you continue to look after yourself wholeheartedly this year, be a beacon of inspiration for others and an example to encourage your colleagues to do the same.

Sign up for the Self-Care for Teachers newsletter here.