Skip to main content

Building Resilience as an Educator


Educators are very good at meeting the needs of their students, their families and anyone else who may need their help. We go into education because we care for others and want to make the world a better place. What we are not always great at is taking care of our own needs. In theory we know that we can’t really take care of others until we have taken care of ourselves but in practice that is often the very thing we try to do. When we do not take this time we run the risk of burnout and worse. There has been a lot of research lately about teachers and resilience. There are two resources in particular that teachers can turn to in order to work on building their own resilience: Elena Aguilar’s Onward and Angela Watson’s website.
Elena Aguilar has done extensive research in the area of teacher resilience. In her book Onward she identifies the twelve key habits of resilient educators. She has thoughtfully paired each habit to correspond with a month of the school year. She has also created a workbook with daily activities that teachers can engage in to begin implementing the ideas from the book. She has a website http://www.onwardthebook.com/author/elena-aguilar/ with additional resources to support the content in her book. She has designed the book and workbook to be used by individuals or teams of teachers working together. One idea is to find a teacher buddy or even a group of teachers who are also wanting to build their resilience and do a year-long book study. The community you create doing a book study will in itself help support your resilience.
Angela Watson’s website https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/ is another great source of resilience-building tips for teachers. She has lots of resources on her website as well as weekly emails that you can subscribe to. She has a weekly podcast called “Truth for Teachers” if you prefer content delivered that way. Using the website, subscribing to the emails and listening to the podcast are all free. She also runs a “40 Hour Workweek” club that you can join for a fee. Her emails and podcast can be a good weekly reminder of the importance of taking care of yourself and offer tips for building your resilience.

Elena Aguilar and Angela Watson are both experts and great resources for ideas. However, just reading Aguilar’s book or listening to Watson’s podcast isn’t really enough. The key is to commit to taking time for yourself in order to implement their ideas. Or, you may already have some ideas of what may work for you but you may not have given yourself the time to do those things. Your needs as a teacher are extremely important and the more you are able to take care of yourself and build your resilience, the more you will  ultimately be able to offer others.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Resources For Teaching For Racial Justice

We are all watching the demonstrations happening right now in response to the many years of discrimination and oppression of people of color and wondering what we can do as educators to help ensure that our society does better moving forward. As educators we have the power and the ability to be part of the solution. There are many resources available that can help guide us on that journey. We hope that the books,websites and resources below will empower you to help make the change that is needed right now.  We must also acknowledge that every teacher comes to issues of race differently based on their own experiences and identity/ies. White educators have a special responsibility to increase their own understanding and to listen when they are fortunate enough to hear about the experiences of their colleagues of color. However, we must ensure that the burden of informing others about the history and experience of racism does not rest on the shoulders of our colleagues an...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE WOMEN WHO ARE THE SUPPORT TEAM FOR EMERGING PROFESSIONALS: S.T.E.P. 2022-2023

The support team for Emerging Professionals has had a very busy and enlightening biennium. We have written articles, attended International, State and local conferences, added to our blog and are ready for our second “Penne Party” to honor the Penne Ferrell Grant recipients. We had successful Tuesday Teacher Talks/tips on important educational issues as well. Thank You DKG for supporting our team's efforts. CHRISTINA CLEMONS I am a recovered & "non-math person"! I've been teaching Middle School math for 9 years but I started out as an early elementary teacher so that I wouldn't have to teach, what I considered to be, "math". After teaching 2nd grade in Florida, and through lots of twists and turns, I was offered a teaching job in Oakland, California in January of 2015. I took over a 5/6 GATE class and 6th grade math after their teacher had left in November. I began taking as many math courses as I could from City College of San Francisco and ended up...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Times Have Changed: Technology in the Classroom

  In 2001 Larry Cuban wrote Oversold and Underused (978-6674011090). The book acknowledged teachers not having the power to use technological resources to teach and empower their students. Teachers were mostly told what curriculum was acceptable and had to follow strict guidelines for computer usage. Dr. Cuban would go on to do more research in this area and the area of reforming curriculum throughout the school systems. His articles span the k-15 level inclusive of special education. In the magazine The Journal (vol. 34, no. 6) printed in June 2007, the article on how to keep the cords and wires neat in the classroom setting caught my attention    The entire volume was devoted to technology in the classroom that was relevant at the time. There were articles on computers, in the classroom as well as how to use an interactive whiteboard. We have gone past cords and wires. We are no longer fascinated by whiteboards.   We have promoted to Chromebooks and laptops. W...
Post a Comment
Read more