school management engaged and making progress . The trick is to achieve this lofty goal by individually empowering each and every teacher to take responsibility for themselves . Wellbeing is too personal , too much about mindset and too much about the choices we make for it to be someone else ’ s responsibility . Teacher Wellbeing requires action and change .
3 Self-care is not wellbeing ; however , it is a key part of it Think of this a bit like the icing on the cake . Yes , you can have cake without icing , but it never tastes as good , and icing without cake has nothing to stick to . For selfcare to improve wellbeing it has to have something to stick to . Self-care is also not a one size fits all approach . It looks different for everyone – and that ’ s OK .
Leading from the front
Making teacher wellbeing the next school improvement frontier .
By Amy Green
Walk into any school and you will find teachers who are smiling and chatting happily with students . Scratch below the surface though and what you may notice is that these teachers are using their smiles to mask the to-do list they are going over in their head , the email response to an unhappy parent they are crafting or the anxiousness they feel about attending a planning meeting with colleagues .
It is an easy fix though , isn ’ t it ? Every now and then teachers just need a ‘ wellbeing pick-me up ’. Yeah ? A surprise morning tea , a cancelled staff meeting , a guest yoga instructor , a ‘ you made it ’ end of term chocolate cake or a ‘ Hot Chip Friday ’ lunch ought to do the trick . And it does . For a little while .
This approach though doesn ’ t help with long-term wellbeing issues . It doesn ’ t address the needs of teachers we see all too often , repeated over and over again . It merely provides a band-aid to a gaping wound no-one is brave enough to look closely at .
Leading teacher wellbeing is moving from a reactive response to an embedded approach ; it is knowing that to achieve collective responsibility individual responsibility needs to take place ; it is knowing that self-care is not wellbeing , but rather a component of it . Most critically , it ’ s about acknowledging and talking about the fact that teacher wellbeing is hard . This is leading teacher wellbeing .
Let ’ s unpack four themes that can point us in the right direction :
1 . We need to move from a reactive response to an embedded approach To embed an approach to teacher wellbeing in your school , it needs to be part of who you are . Teacher wellbeing should be part of your leadership mindset , your decision-making process and daily conversations .
2 Collective responsibility comes after individual responsibility Committing to teacher wellbeing in your school commences with the intention for collective responsibility . In many ways , it ’ s akin to how a teacher thinks about learning in the classroom . We want everyone
4 Teacher wellbeing is hard If only leading teacher wellbeing was as simple as ticking off a few things on a ‘ self-care ’ checklist or making sure your staff have a get-together once or twice a term . Improving teacher wellbeing is linked intimately to a recognition that a teacher is a person first and a teacher second . This means it isn ’ t just about wellbeing in the school but more about wellbeing for the whole person , reflecting the professional ways we ’ d speak about educating the whole child . Teacher wellbeing requires looking through a lens that allows for improvement and change in different areas of self : physical self , mindful self , connected self , learning self and purposeful self ( The 5 Domains of Teacher Wellbeing – Real Schools ).
With improving teacher wellbeing being less about what you do ( selfcare ) and more about who you are as a person ( state ), leading teacher wellbeing can be done successfully in any school , including yours .
It is time that as schools , teachers and leaders we change our thinking and approaches , no longer focusing on a ‘ quick-fix ’ or a ‘ one size fits all ’ model .
It is time we take action by moving from a reactive response to an embedded approach , where all wellbeing , for all teachers and educators , can underpin your school ’ s success . ■
Amy Green is an experienced teacher and school leader who runs wellbeing workshops with realschools . com . au .
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