Twenty years ago, I experienced my first day of professional development focused on well-being. Our employees were given a program of physical, emotional and social activities that gave us the opportunity to break from our usual work. Then a 7th As an elementary school teacher, I appreciated the variety, but wondered if the time I gave myself to escape the classroom actually improved my well-being.
I’m not sure any of us needed an escape back then at that school. We loved the work we were doing. We designed lesson plans we’d never tried before. We used the school building as a learning playground. We challenged each other to keep a positive attitude. Don’t get me wrong. We worked hard. We went home tired – but excited to come back the next morning.
Then, and still today, education leaders think about wellbeing in two ways: first, about protecting people from a system that squeezes more and more out of us, and second, about making sure that we as educators (and students) understand the elements of resilience and perseverance.
About this series
In this biweekly columnPrincipals and other authorities on school leadership—including researchers, professors of education, district administrators, and assistant principals—offer timely and timeless advice to their colleagues.
Some schools host wellness challenges where staff track sleep and walking distance and encourage recreational activities. Professional conversations about wellness often focus on “getting away from the daily grind.”
But what if well-being is promoted when we ensure that things To Is it worth putting on the plate? What if we as educators curated our efforts with the intention of, as my fellow aspiring teachers say, fighting the good fight of education?
At my last school as principal, we found meaning in putting the learning process at the center of our activities.
Along with the rest of my leadership team, I began the school year by leading staff through a process of reflecting on what was important to us as educators in terms of educational expectations. We all wrote down what brought us back to school even after a hard day. Staff shared a hope to help students learn, achieve goals, and feel part of a family of learners.
Our administrative team gathered the thoughts and synthesized them into a statement of our shared purpose. We then shared this statement with our colleagues and together we created our school’s purpose statement: “Every decision we make is for social, emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual growth.”
With this statement, we were able to filter our professional tasks and actions in such a way that they inspire us in our work. We knew our whyWe focused on growthand agreed, Responsibility for our efforts.
This simple but important framework for training allowed each of our employees to prioritize our time, decisions, and efforts in a way that felt good and made sense to us as professionals. This shared goal allowed us to be part of a positive learning environment even during difficult times like the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I recently attended a symposium on wellbeing in schools. In the three years since I left my job as a headteacher, the world has changed so much. Students are experiencing higher rates of depression, anxiety and polarisation.
Well-being still exists in schools today. I can report that there are real schools that are thriving right now. These successful schools have a common goal that they focus learning on. These goals include phrases like “seek growth,” “promote learning life,” or “love learning, learn to live.”
The principals of these schools talk about learning, ask questions about learning, and ensure that student and staff efforts lead to better learning outcomes. They openly challenge staff to ensure that all decisions and time spent throughout the day are focused on learning.
As educators, we hope that our students embody what it means to be a learner – that they love the process of learning and are capable of achieving at high levels. When we can help others – both our colleagues and our students – learn, we are overjoyed.
Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, so many conflicting expectations in education distract the discussion from how we can promote student learning. Giving grades, implementing policy initiatives, and completing necessary paperwork can all be detrimental to a teacher’s motivation. This is not because these job tasks are worthless, but because in practice they often have no connection to learning.
But there is hope. Better than taking a break (or letting great people quit), we can protect our well-being by getting back to learning. Educators can ensure their approach amplifies the valuable and rewarding work of facilitating learning. When activities are filtered through other lenses, we begin to feel burned out, taken for granted, and like outsiders in a system that simply doesn’t understand our efforts.
