Teacher Wellbeing is, as we know, not just a hot topic for conversation right now, but a serious issue.
I have spent a fair bit of time researching Teacher Wellbeing lately, and it was alarming to find that some research states that up to 95% of teachers feel stressed at any given time and that as a profession we are the largest to access psychological support.
Those stats not only alarm me but make me want to cry. I want to cry big, fat tears for all the teachers who feel so stressed they can’t function at their best, who are so tired their coffee consumption should be illegal and who put so much time into worrying about others they have no time for themselves.
Is it any wonder Teacher Wellbeing is on the decline?
I think our schools and school leaders need to be commended for how they manage Teacher Wellbeing at the moment. I know each of you is grateful for meeting free weeks and chocolates on the staffroom table, but I also suspect many of you are left feeling like you need more.
When it comes to Teacher Wellbeing, we have to begin a new conversation, one that will move us from seeing Teacher Wellbeing as a reactive response to an embedded approach across all schools.
We also need to acknowledge that Teacher Wellbeing starts with self. Yes, we want collective change and collective responsibility, but before we have that we need to understand that Teacher Wellbeing is firstly an individual responsibility before it can become a collective.
Earlier this week Adam and I had a chat about Teacher Wellbeing. We talked a bit about Teacher Wellbeing before and after Covid-19 and how learning from home has shifted the perception of teaching. We looked a little at the difference between reactive and embedded approaches from schools and we began to unpack the difference between self-care and wellbeing (more to come on this soon).
If you didn’t see it and have a spare 13 minutes, I encourage you to have a look. I am almost certain it will get you thinking about your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of teachers in your school.
Warm regards,
