Meeting Our Basic Needs: Exercise, Nutrition, and Sleep

I It’s almost time for teachers to head back into the classroom. Summer traditionally has been a time for teachers to rest, re-charge, spend time with families, friends, and take some much needed time for themselves. Many teachers even spend time learning - taking part in professional development opportunities to increase their level of confidence and self-efficacy in the classroom. Before heading back to the classroom, there’s one thing that teachers can do to help make the new school year more successful - and that's to take a few minutes and develop a self-care plan for themselves. Too often once the new school year begins with all the demands of the school day, teachers are all too likely to let their own basic needs fall by the wayside even while strongly encouraging their students to eat healthy, get plenty of rest, and exercise. 

Research has shown that eating a healthy diet, getting adequate rest, and exercise everyday helps us to think more clearly, keep our energy level high, we have more patience, it promotes a positive attitude, lowers the risk of serious disease, improves our immunity levels, and basically we just plain feel better! 

So what are the daily requirements? Below is a table with the recommended daily requirements for nutrition, water,exercise, and sleep. The left side of the table lists the recommendations, the right side of the table has space for you to jot down your plan. Make daily planning for your own self care a routine that you follow regularly this year. It just may make this the best school year ever!

 

Finding Rewarding Professional Development

Professional development - as teachers it is important that we keeping learning, that we develop a mindset of being lifelong learners. The majority of teachers are social creatures, we enjoy being around people, we learn best working together with like-minded colleagues.  Too often though professional development for teachers can be too much of “sit and get”, or information that is geared toward a large group and may not meet the individual needs of the teachers. Research shows that teachers with greater confidence in their ability to teach will be more positive in the classroom and have greater motivation to teach.  How best to develop this self-efficacy in teachers? Offer teachers more opportunities to plan professional development that will best meet their needs.

How can teachers improve their performance?  Here are a few tips….

1. The first step is to reflect on your needs - what do you already do well? What can you improve? What areas are you interested in learning more about?

2. After you’ve identified your areas of interest/improvement there are several options for professional development:

a. Attend educational conferences, seminars, workshops, or online webinars. b. Create an online PLN (personal learning network). Find colleagues on Twitter in your area of interest. There is much information that is available online for free. Many teachers freely share ideas, resources, lessons, etc to help others. There are also regular weekly and special chats on all kinds of educational topics. c. Join professional organizations and subscribe to their scholarly journals. These organizations often offer regional and local chapters that often provide speakers and other educational opportunities, d. Observe your colleagues - this can be a wonderful opportunity to learn new teaching and classroom management techniques. e. Form a study group with like-minded colleagues. This can be a book study, a curriculum study, or just a chance to share ideas and successful classroom techniques.

One final note - Once you have planned what type of professional development is best for you and your needs, set goals, what do you hope accomplish? What will the outcome of the professional development be? May school administrators require this final step before approving any professional development plan.

How to Manage Stress...

 We all know that stress can ruin even the best laid plans.  Many careers have come to a screeching halt (or slowed down considerably) due to stress.  Many of us even know people who have had major career changes due to high stress levels at what they once thought to be their “dream” job.  What can be done to manage stress before it takes over your life?  Here are a few ideas…

1.  Identify situations that cause you stress - can you control them?  Most often if they are causing you stress it’s  because you can’t control them.  When a stressful situation strikes have a list of stress reducing activities at the ready to help you manage - take deep breaths, meditate, go for a walk, practice positive mental imaging.

2. Plan your priorities - Take care of the most important tasks and people first.

3. Let it go!  Don't over analyze situations.  Don't assume the worst in a situation.  Talk to people if you’re not sure you understand what they said or their intentions.  Keep positive!

4. Be able to say “no”.  Don’t commit to a task/activity just to be liked or accepted by someone.

5. Let go of your past mistakes.  Nobody's perfect. Accept that you are human and move on.

6. Let your anger and frustration out.  If someone or something has upset you, discuss it!  Nothing is ever solved by keeping it bottled up. Talk it out - then let go. Don't hold a grudge, it just zaps your energy and weighs you down.

7. Think positive and smile more.  Try to find the good in even the most stressful of situations.  Research has shown that smiling not only helps others respond more positively toward you, but smiling actually sends signals to your brain that help to remove stress!

8. Take care of yourself!  Get plenty of rest, eat healthy foods, exercise daily and drink lots of water.  This is information we’ve all heard before but how many of us make time for ourselves to really do this?

9. Focus on the kids.  When you’re in the classroom - shut out all the other “stuff” and just enjoy teaching and helping students reach their full potential.  After all that’s the reason we got into teaching in the first place, for the kids right?

Learning to Say No!

As teachers we are natually busy.  We have not only our curriculum to teach, but we take on the added roles of classroom guidance counselor, technology problem solver, photocopier, mediator, etc.  Then there are the endless committees, focus groups, and work teams that administrators ask teachers to be a part of. And somewhere amongst all of this is the lesson planning and grading assessments.  How to right it all in? Learn to say “no”. Learning to say “no” is actually one of the top skills veteran teachers recommend new teachers learn and learn fast.

Unfortunately many teachers have difficulty saying “no”.  They want to be viewed as a team player. One piece of advice that may help is to consider your “why”.  Why did you become a teacher? Why are you teaching the subject and/or grade level you teach? Keeping your focus sharp and clean will help you to say no to requests that move you away from your goals and more towards busy work.