Love, Heartbreak, and Teacher Emotional Well-being. Protecting the "heartwork" of Teaching

As you refresh yourselves over the holidays, we hope that you can remember to protect your own wellness and wellbeing. Dr. Astrid Kendrick states in her article "Love, Heartbreak, and Teacher Emotional Well-being: Protecting the 'heartwork' of teaching" that stakeholders, such as parents, educational assistants, teachers, school administrators, and system leaders, can all play a role in promoting emotional health within the school system. Simply recognizing that providing emotional labour is a part of educator professionalism is a first step. The ethical next step is to find ways to ensure that when educators have provided intense emotional labour, they are provided with a safe place during their work day – through uninterrupted time, in a physical location, or with a trusted friend – to release their emotions in a healthy manner.

Her research has shown that educators have had several suggestions that could be implemented in school settings, many of which involve small, cheap tweaks to the work day:

• More breaks, less emails, less demanding extracurriculars: we are spread too thin. We are getting away from actually being present and focused on our students.
• Reduce the workload, increase opportunities for teachers to have calm in their day.
• Class sizes (especially given the increasing diversity of our population) need to be reduced. Special needs students need to be supported.
• Respect teacher transition time… Allow the teacher a few minutes before the next class comes in.
• Ensure each staff member has a defined break period each day. Reduce expectations during break times so that breaks are actually breaks. Don’t organize so many meetings; give teachers the time they need to prep and decompress.
• Offer activity and sport opportunities for staff during the work day and/or on non-instructional days. Create a staff work-out space.
• Increase supports for teachers who are struggling mentally.
• Carefully team up teachers to create support systems.
• Create a Zen room that teachers can go to.
• Say thank you and recognize successes.
• We need a strong champion for teachers in the media.

For the complete article, read more here.