Inspiration and resources for balance before burnout
Archive for December, 2009
The Whole Teacher Daily Planner & Workbook is here!
Monday, December 28th, 2009I am so thrilled to announce the arrival of The Whole Teacher Daily Planner & Workbook!
I have had a vision of a tool to help teachers build balance and into their daily lives and it has finally come true. It is a culmination of the best tools I have been using with teachers to help them beat teacher stress and puts it all into one neat package.
Check out the video I created below, and don’t hesitate to let me know what you think. Please feel free to share with all the teachers you know.
The planner itself is on sale at http://wholeteacher.com/store. Check it out!
Gallup Poll show teachers score higher in well-being
Sunday, December 27th, 2009I reported earlier in an article on examiner.com that the original results of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found business owners ranked the highest in well-being until Gallup decided to ask a follow up question. According to Lopez and Agrawal in their December 23, 2009 report entitled, Teachers Score Higher Than Other Professionals in Well-Being, at www.gallup.com, teachers are usually included in the "professional worker" category, but a new category was created from other professionals when Gallup asked "are you currently a teacher in a public or private school (at any level, secondary, elementary, college, pre-school)?
The data collected between July 2008 and June 2009 found that teachers bumped out business owners by either scoring the highest, or tying for the top spot among all 12 job types in how they viewed their overall well-being.
The areas included how they evaluated their lives, whether they felt they had access to resources needed to live a healthy life, emotional health, and their likelihood to engage in healthy behaviors. As Lopez and Agrawal noted, the results shed light on a variety of benefits and drawbacks to the teaching profession.
Let’s look at the first area below:
1. Teachers view life with more optimism
This was determined by The Life Evaluation Index, which is based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale, where people were asked to rank their present and future lives on a scale of 0 – 10. According to their scores, teachers were at the top of the list.
The Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale (Cantril, 1965) , developed by pioneering social researcher Dr. Hadley Cantril, consists of the following:
Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top.
The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you.
On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time? (ladder-present)
On which step do you think you will stand about five years from now? (ladder-future)
The results of the Gallup poll showed teachers to have higher rates of optimism. I have been pondering this and have several thoughts on possibilities of where this comes from:
Teacher pay is usually based on a scale that increases with time of service and training The amount they earn is usually increasing and 5 years can make a lot of difference.
As teachers we have a sense of renewal as each year progresses, giving us a great sense of hope for the possibilities.
Personal and professional growth and development are integral parts of a teachers life. There are always new things to learn, new ways to do things, and chances for things to improve.
Our sense of purpose and desire to affect the lives of our students keeps us a bit "outside" of our selves.
What do you see as your reasons for optimism? How would you rate where you are now and in 5 years? Please comment below.
Holiday Wishes – simplify, let go, and let them help!
Thursday, December 24th, 2009This holiday season, my lesson has certainly been to keep it simple. Picture Disney’s Snow White doing her chores with the birds and woodland animals dancing around her singing while she whistled her way through her chores. Well that was me preparing for the ensuing blizzard that hit the East Coast last weekend. I have 2 feeders that stick to my windows of my glass enclosed "Maine Porch Room". This is my favorite place to watch storms and see the birds as the forage for seed. I was running up and down the stairs of the deck, whistling Christmas carols, when all of a sudden I took a tumble. You can picture the interruption to the woodland vision.
Well after the storm subsided the next day, I was able to get an x-ray and luckily it was only a sprained wrist. This has meant that preparing for the holidays and sending out last minute college applications at schools has been a slow process. I know the lesson for me was to let go of perfect and simplify.
The other gift was in letting others help me. My boys made me so proud, cooking dinners, hanging curtains, folding clothes, all the thins I would usually do myself so it was done right … but guess what … they did it better! We had so much fun, and I think it made this Christmas a very special one!
The message for you:
May you keep it simple, let go of perfect, and let others help you!
Peace!
Subscribe
-
