Teacher Self-Care: The Payoff of Taking Time for Yourself

Hi, everyone—Steph here! I’ve been reading a lot the last few weeks: we’ve had some new ideas for the blog and Instagram (including our First Chapter Friday freebies—have you signed up yet?), and as the team’s designated fast reader, I’ve been racing to keep up with my library holds. And this morning, I was feeling guilty about it: am I really just sitting here reading a YA book (Iron Widow, by the way, and it is SO GOOD—I had to go to the library to write this so I wouldn’t keep reading) instead of working on the many, many other things I could (need) to be doing? I would imagine this is a familiar feeling to many of you. It is for me: I’ve always struggled with an impossible workload and the ever-present feeling I’m not doing nearly enough. And after an OCD diagnosis and a major case of burnout contributed to my decision to leave the classroom last February, I’m passionate about encouraging those still in the classroom to practice teacher-self care and remember taking time for yourself is so important. But I catch myself struggling to practice what I preach. There’s a lot to be said about guilt-free reading when it comes to teacher self-care, but this morning, as I reached for a stack of Post-Its to scribble down a brainstorm, it occurred to me how important slowing down, taking time for yourself, resting, and making time to consume the content you enjoy is for our creativity as teachers.

At one of my tutoring jobs, we’ve been using Rebecca Stern and Brad Wolfe’s Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Delectable Essays for writing prompts and model essays. In one of the model essays we read last week, Joshua Mohr argues for the importance of putting our imaginations to use rather than letting them loll about like couch potatoes. One of the steps he gives in his “how-to guide” is to make sure our creativity, like our bodies, receives nutrition: “Like our bodies, our imaginations know the difference between quality and empty calories. Make sure you feed it the good stuff. It wants to read books. It wants to paint pictures, write poems, learn how to DJ. It wants to see smart movies.” His words came back to me this morning. We, as teachers, are content creators. Our job is to create daily lessons that engage students and help them access challenging texts; as we all know, this requires creativity. But when we keep running on empty, our creative juices don’t flow as easily, which only adds to our stress. Now, I recognize some might think YA, especially of the variety that most captures our students’ attention is not “the good stuff,” and is just “empty calories,” but as Kate likes to say, “a good story is a good story,” and if our goal is to make content accessible for our students, then reading what appeals to them is a necessary part of our diet.

Mohr’s argument is why we need to make time for consuming content we enjoy, whether it’s movies, TV shows, books, podcasts, or music. Not only does staying caught up on current trends help us build connections with our students and avoid spoilers (looking at you, kids who went to the midnight showing of Avengers: Endgame), but consuming good content gives our creativity the spark it needs to make our curriculum engaging and accessible to our students day after day and year after year. And when we couple that with a few quiet minutes here and there to let some of that content roll around our brains and connect with everything else we’ve got stored away, we come up with our best ideas.

I went to a performance of Gustav Holsts’s The Planets on Friday, and it reminded me of our rhythm and meter unit where we used music to help students grasp the idea that sound reinforces meaning. Reading Iron Widow this morning and seeing themes I recognized from Pride and Prejudice gave me a flurry of ideas I want to play with in the coming weeks and months. It was our own media consumption that helped Kate and I create some of our favorite lessons using Modern Family, The Office, Psych, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and The LEGO Batman Movie. When you take time for yourself, whether it’s binge-watching the show everyone but you seems to be talking about or setting aside your stack of essays to watch a movie with your child; when you take time to practice the teacher self-care we all know is important, but is so easy to push aside, you open yourself to new ideas and fresh perspectives that fuel your teacher creativity and allow you to consider a problem, or a text, or a problematic text in a new way. 

So, sometime this week, find time to rest. Sit quietly. Go for a walk. Binge your favorite show. Watch a movie with your family. Read a book (or two or ten). And do it all guilt-free. We know your to-do list is long. We know you have essays to grade and parents to contact. But you’re in it for the long haul, and you need the strength, energy, and creativity to keep going. Feed that creativity this week and see where it leads you.

Can you relate to reading and resting with a guilty conscience? Do you have a favorite “food” you like to feed your imagination? And most importantly, have you read Iron Widow so Steph has someone to discuss it with? Email us at [email protected] or DM us on Instagram @threeheads.works. We’re eager to hear where your creativity is taking you!