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77: Normalizing Teacher Self-Care (in a Pandemic) w/ Evan Whitehead image

77: Normalizing Teacher Self-Care (in a Pandemic) w/ Evan Whitehead

E77 · Human Restoration Project
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16 Plays4 years ago

Today we are joined by Evan Whitehead, a veteran educator who is the director of special services at a K-8 school in Illinois. Evan has served in a variety of roles, from crisis and behavior interventionist to Latino parent outreach coordinator to Title 1 director. Further, Evan actively presents on reaching at-risk youth, leadership, and self-care for everyone in education, and is a national consultant for the Aha! Process.

We discuss how educators can best prepare for self-care, especially now within remote and hybrid contexts. Further, we focus on conversation on two themes: 1) how can we build systems (e.g. breaks, SEL check-ins) to ensure teachers are supported by administration, and 2) how can we ensure that toxic positivity doesn’t ignore equity and social justice in the “name of” self-care?

Transcript available here.

GUESTS

Evan Whitehead, a leader in social-emotional learning, leadership, and self-care, and director of special services at a K-8 school.

RESOURCES

FURTHER LISTENING

Recommended
Transcript

Introduction and Acknowledgments

00:00:02
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 77 of our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
00:00:07
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt, and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio.
00:00:11
Speaker
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters, three of whom are Steve Peterson, Tim Fox, and Aaron Goodell.
00:00:19
Speaker
Thank you for your ongoing support.
00:00:21
Speaker
You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Meet Evan Whitehead: Experience and Expertise

00:00:43
Speaker
Today, we are joined by Evan Whitehead, a veteran educator who is the director of special services at a K-8 school in Illinois.
00:00:51
Speaker
Evan has served in a variety of roles, from crisis behavior interventionist, Latino parent outreach coordinator to Title I director.
00:00:58
Speaker
Further, Evan actively presents on reaching at-risk youth, leadership, and self-care for everyone in education, and is a national consultant for the AHA process.

Teacher Self-Care During a Pandemic

00:01:07
Speaker
The reason why I've invited you on, Ev, talk about teacher self-care.
00:01:11
Speaker
And right now, probably more than ever, self-care is needed as we head into a very unique, potentially radically different school year for the better.
00:01:22
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about what you talk about when it comes to self-care and what educators could do to prepare for teaching during a pandemic?
00:01:30
Speaker
Thanks for having me on.
00:01:31
Speaker
I appreciate it, Chris.
00:01:33
Speaker
I think in terms of
00:01:35
Speaker
self-care, right?
00:01:36
Speaker
The earlier that we started, the better, right?
00:01:38
Speaker
I'm a big proponent of prevention rather than intervention.
00:01:41
Speaker
It's kind of about like, what have we done prior to this moment to get ourselves anchored?
00:01:47
Speaker
And if we haven't done that, this is a great time to start now.
00:01:51
Speaker
We should also be mindful and conscious of trying not to do too much too soon.
00:01:55
Speaker
So just some basic things about self-care, you know, first and foremost, are we getting enough rest because of the way in which the end of last school year ended and then also the summer,
00:02:05
Speaker
you know, sleeping patterns have changed, right, for not only our students, but also for us as educators.
00:02:11
Speaker
And for parents, probably our children's sleeping patterns have changed.
00:02:15
Speaker
So making sure we get enough sleep and enough rest is important as well.
00:02:18
Speaker
And then also, you know, make sure that we're eating properly.
00:02:21
Speaker
What are we putting into our body?
00:02:23
Speaker
You know, when are we eating?
00:02:24
Speaker
Because all those things are important in terms of core principles for self-care.
00:02:29
Speaker
The other part is kind of taking out time to make sure you're organized.
00:02:33
Speaker
There has been a very quick shift for a lot of districts and schools in terms of going for crisis learning, as I put it previously, that we were in to now if we're going remote or hybrid or whatever the model may be for all in person, is making sure that we're organized and ready for the school day.
00:02:49
Speaker
The other thing I would say is
00:02:52
Speaker
You know, making sure that that we begin to really have time to do some reflection and some and be able to pause during our day.
00:03:00
Speaker
Give ourselves some grace to do that because things are going to be going so fast and I don't care if it's your first year or your 25th year in education.
00:03:08
Speaker
This is brand new for everyone.
00:03:10
Speaker
giving ourselves permission and giving ourselves grace to feel as though, you know what, it's okay.
00:03:15
Speaker
We don't know everything right now and we're going to take it day to day, week to week.
00:03:19
Speaker
And, you know, it's okay if, if we don't have all the answers, because I think a lot of what's going on right now, there's a lot of angst that's going on just because we don't know.
00:03:30
Speaker
There's a lot of unknown.
00:03:32
Speaker
And sometimes the stories that we tell ourselves in our head are actually worse than the reality of what it could be and the mistakes that may happen.
00:03:39
Speaker
So I think just some of that is just being able to sit down, reflect and pause and just understand that we're all going through this new and hopefully we'll begin and things will begin to settle, but just giving ourselves time to do that.

Streamlining Education Tools and Expectations

00:03:50
Speaker
Right.
00:03:50
Speaker
And I think there's something to be said when it comes to reflection.
00:03:54
Speaker
I'm personally someone who tends to over plan.
00:03:56
Speaker
I am very bad about going home and just taking a break.
00:04:00
Speaker
I can't turn off sometimes.
00:04:02
Speaker
Something that I realized very quickly going into this upcoming school year is that less is definitely going to be more.
00:04:08
Speaker
There's no reason to pick 20 different ed tech tools and try to integrate a different one every single day.
00:04:14
Speaker
think that students are going to be quote unquote engaged for 45 to 90 minutes every single day when that's not what happens during a typical school day.
00:04:25
Speaker
A lot of that time is spent doing other things.
00:04:28
Speaker
Could you talk a little bit about how teachers could maybe arrange their class or arrange planning for their class?
00:04:35
Speaker
in a way that can keep them motivated?
00:04:38
Speaker
Sure, I think the point that you said is true, Chris, is that what we once knew, like in terms of the school day, doesn't necessarily fit now.
00:04:48
Speaker
And it's almost like we're trying to cram everything into a remote or virtual setting as we did in school, and that's not realistic, right?
00:04:58
Speaker
So in terms of your planning, make sure, first and foremost, if you're going remote,
00:05:04
Speaker
You should be putting time into each subject area or class, you know, virtual class, that there's a time for everyone to kind of come together and talk, check in with people, you know, see how your students are doing.
00:05:17
Speaker
Let your students know how you're doing.
00:05:19
Speaker
Give the students time to interact with each other.
00:05:21
Speaker
That needs to be built in.
00:05:22
Speaker
Definitely building in the schedule of time to check in with students.
00:05:25
Speaker
But prior to that, making sure that there's some time that teachers take before they even begin their instruction time for themselves.
00:05:32
Speaker
A nice transition to start the day.
00:05:34
Speaker
And then during that schedule, making sure that there are breaks in between subject areas to give the students a little bit of brain break, but also for the teachers as well.
00:05:44
Speaker
Also making sure that there's a lunch built in just as if we were on site.
00:05:48
Speaker
And then at the end, making sure there's time to transition and kind of decompress from the day of being online and in a remote space.
00:05:56
Speaker
teaching situation before we transition into our personal life at home as well, because oftentimes, you know, we kind of just speed through and forget that there needs, there needs a time for us to switch hats, so to speak.
00:06:09
Speaker
So having those times built in, they're going to make tremendous, tremendous gains for what we need for ourselves in terms of our self-care.
00:06:16
Speaker
And also I think our students will appreciate it as well because they also need to learn a new schedule and new routine.
00:06:23
Speaker
So as we build it, it'll be definitely effective for the student and the teacher as well.

Realism Over Toxic Positivity

00:06:28
Speaker
Something that I want to talk about with you to take a critical lens at self-care is this intersection of justice and kindness.
00:06:37
Speaker
So a lot of times we talk about SEL, it gets framed as positivity, which it should.
00:06:44
Speaker
You should be positive about the environment that you're in and express positivity.
00:06:48
Speaker
At the exact same time in that balancing act, I think some maybe you're pushing for positivity too far to the point where it becomes toxic.
00:06:55
Speaker
And we're no longer recognizing that the world is not necessarily perfect.
00:07:00
Speaker
And we should have just readily like walk back into the school and say like, oh, things are great.
00:07:05
Speaker
And we should just treat it as great because I'm practicing self-care and air quotes.
00:07:09
Speaker
Do you want to talk a little bit about how toxic positivity can be counteracted while still practicing self-care?

Social-Emotional Learning in Crisis

00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:16
Speaker
You know what?
00:07:17
Speaker
That idea is.
00:07:19
Speaker
of the toxic positivity as you spoke to is really because we're not self-aware or we choose not to be self-aware, right?
00:07:27
Speaker
You know, life has its ups and downs, it ebbs and flows and you know, too much of anything is not a good thing.
00:07:34
Speaker
And really, you know, there's definitely like a continuum, right?
00:07:38
Speaker
Although social emotional wellbeing and social emotional learning
00:07:41
Speaker
does try to focus on things being positive.
00:07:44
Speaker
The reality is more it's about how do you navigate life's challenges, life stressors, you know, in the everyday life so that you can strive, you know, and that's, and that's it.
00:07:54
Speaker
So I think some of that can be dangerous because the reality is we've come, we've come back from what we're still in,
00:08:01
Speaker
pandemic hasn't changed.
00:08:03
Speaker
You know, even though there's a lot of the language we use talks about, you know, a second wave coming or spikes in terms of cases.
00:08:11
Speaker
However, it hasn't changed.
00:08:13
Speaker
It's still here.
00:08:13
Speaker
COVID's still here and people are still suffering from it.
00:08:16
Speaker
And we're still seeing the manifestations of that.
00:08:19
Speaker
Also in terms of social justice issues, it hasn't gone away, even though some of the hashtags and social media have
00:08:25
Speaker
kind of disappeared in that training as much as they were before, those challenges still exist.
00:08:30
Speaker
And I think part of that, you know, is that's where the SEO comes into play, right?
00:08:34
Speaker
Where, where are we, how are we self-reflecting?
00:08:36
Speaker
Where is our self-awareness, right?
00:08:38
Speaker
Understanding what our strengths are, what our, what our challenges are, what we do well, what we need to work on.
00:08:44
Speaker
Also in terms of the social awareness, right?
00:08:47
Speaker
That idea of just because we're back to school and everything's going to be fine, putting the positivity, positivity, positivity.
00:08:54
Speaker
is great, but also understanding the social context in terms of where we are right now is important.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I think that's often missed as well in this.
00:09:03
Speaker
The self-care comes into play because yes, we want to prioritize ourselves, but there has to be a balance with that, right?
00:09:09
Speaker
There has to be a balance in terms of where we're putting our energy, where we're putting our efforts in, how we're doing, what it looks like, because if we just imagine or want to imagine that simply by
00:09:22
Speaker
me thinking positive things are going to go better.
00:09:24
Speaker
That's not the reality.
00:09:25
Speaker
It has to be action behind it.
00:09:27
Speaker
You know, the idea of, of students wanting, you know, just because they, they want to learn, we have educators have responsibility to help facilitate that learning.
00:09:36
Speaker
This whole idea of social emotional learning is a journey for everyone.
00:09:40
Speaker
And it's a journey for the adults just as much because we have to be able to model what we want for students and students are going to come to us with challenges, right?
00:09:49
Speaker
They're going to come with the typical life challenges that they had previously, but now they're probably magnified.
00:09:55
Speaker
So we have to be in the right state to understand that, not to think that so bad that
00:10:01
Speaker
They're beyond help or beyond, you know, the challenge they have are so strong, but really how can we help them to understand where they are, what they, what they need to be and how to build, you know, a life around that so they can be a lot more successful and be able to navigate that.
00:10:17
Speaker
Cause that's what it's about.
00:10:18
Speaker
It's about the resilience.
00:10:19
Speaker
And if we think that everything's going to be easy and it's going to happen overnight, that's not realistic.
00:10:24
Speaker
So we have to be able to be real realistic and authentic about our work as well in terms of self care and self management.

Balancing Self-Care with Systemic Challenges

00:10:30
Speaker
That's really interesting that you bring up the word resiliency, because that to me is something that that we struggle to model with our students because it's hard to be resilient when you're constantly demanding better, especially surrounding issues of equity where.
00:10:45
Speaker
From an SEL perspective, it can seem like the world's burning, figuratively and literally.
00:10:50
Speaker
It's one of the toughest topics to bring up with coworkers, with administration, and feel like you're going to be met with, I don't know what the right word is, but not every work environment is going to be receptive to talking about issues of equity, at least openly, beyond the hashtags, beyond just putting a message on the website.
00:11:10
Speaker
How can then educators balance practicing self-care when they're talking about these issues that are systemic and wide-ranging and sometimes kind of disparaging?
00:11:21
Speaker
How can they just make that work for them?
00:11:24
Speaker
The idea is that this self-care has to work for you.
00:11:28
Speaker
And what does that mean within your context, right?
00:11:30
Speaker
As an organization, right, we have to get better as a profession and recognizing the importance of it and making it a priority.
00:11:39
Speaker
As leaders, you know, I include myself in that category.
00:11:43
Speaker
We have to give space for those that we serve and those that are working in our schools and our districts to do that.
00:11:50
Speaker
We can't keep expecting so much from everyone else and then say, oh, by the way, make sure you practice self-care.
00:11:57
Speaker
Well, when do I have time to do that, right?
00:12:00
Speaker
Are you adding so much onto my plate and are the demands so that even if I want to talk about self-care and put myself first, I really don't have time to do that.
00:12:08
Speaker
That's I think where we have to be able to understand that and what does that look like.
00:12:13
Speaker
Equity today, it appears so different than what it once did.
00:12:18
Speaker
And there's so many components to it.
00:12:21
Speaker
So I think as we begin to kind of deconstruct what equity looks like, think about what it looks like within our own local
00:12:29
Speaker
environments, right?
00:12:30
Speaker
What does that look like in our classrooms and our schools?
00:12:33
Speaker
What does that look like in our communities?
00:12:34
Speaker
Because there's not a one size fits all.
00:12:37
Speaker
It's just acknowledging what that means and defining that and have a clear definition and a common understanding.
00:12:43
Speaker
is important because there's this misconception that as soon as we talk about equity, we're talking about race and talking about ethnicity, right?
00:12:52
Speaker
We forget about all the other areas such as gender, such as socioeconomic status.
00:12:58
Speaker
We think about religion.
00:12:59
Speaker
We think about inclusion of students with disabilities, all these areas, like English learners.
00:13:06
Speaker
And I think that we need to define that and really get a grasp on that because sometimes the word equity is a trigger.
00:13:14
Speaker
For some, that creates a barrier.
00:13:16
Speaker
So we have to be mindful of that so that we can have those conversations.
00:13:20
Speaker
We don't put too much on people.
00:13:22
Speaker
I think that coming back this school year, there's been so much that's happened over the summer.
00:13:28
Speaker
What are we expecting of our educators?
00:13:30
Speaker
Are we expecting them to be equity experts now because of reading some books and having some studies, which I'm all for awareness.
00:13:39
Speaker
And I think that's the first step.
00:13:41
Speaker
However, now, does that necessarily mean that they're ready to facilitate conversations with that?
00:13:46
Speaker
Do they have the ability to, are they in a safe place to have that, in a safe space to have those conversations?
00:13:53
Speaker
Because that's part of the self-care too, right?
00:13:55
Speaker
Do you want to put yourself in a situation where it's just too much for you, you can't handle it, because now are you taking too much on?
00:14:02
Speaker
Right ready to do that, you know, are we asking kind of the, I don't want to say the usual, but the, but the typical people to do that work and are we expecting to do time along with everything else that they have to do?
00:14:14
Speaker
That's that's to me.
00:14:15
Speaker
That's kind of where the self care comes into.
00:14:17
Speaker
Right?
00:14:17
Speaker
Are those champions that are those people that are typically champions of equity that are the ones that are willing to do that work.
00:14:23
Speaker
Are those the ones that you always lean on?
00:14:25
Speaker
especially now, are you leaning on them so much that they don't feel that they can take care of themselves?
00:14:31
Speaker
That's kind of where I see where the self-care and equity kind of come into play.
00:14:36
Speaker
That work is draining, right?
00:14:37
Speaker
To be an advocate, it's draining.
00:14:39
Speaker
To be a champion of that work is draining.
00:14:44
Speaker
And that's where I believe issues such as compassion fatigue start to set in.
00:14:49
Speaker
Because we often want to do so much and then we all we start feeling the pain of often those that we're trying to serve.
00:14:56
Speaker
And sometimes just because we're willing to do that, or we have in the past, you know, we end inheriting the role of having to do that within our organizations.
00:15:05
Speaker
And we forget about that.
00:15:07
Speaker
We have to make sure there's a balance to take care

Systemic Self-Care for Educators

00:15:09
Speaker
of ourselves as well.
00:15:09
Speaker
So I think that's something.
00:15:10
Speaker
we need to be cognizant of and as we as i speak to my leaders make sure we're cognizant of that as well and not putting too much on those usual people um so they don't get they don't you know start feeling burned out and feeling that you know that they're tired and they can't take care of themselves
00:15:25
Speaker
Exactly.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:26
Speaker
I mean, burnout culture in the teaching profession is already commonplace.
00:15:30
Speaker
And now I'm sure that it will only grow unless we take some measures to lessen it.
00:15:37
Speaker
I mean, you see teachers left and right, my own workplace and online, who are highly concerned about the additional planning it takes to plan an online class or to plan, especially a hybrid class where you're basically teaching like
00:15:48
Speaker
two or three classes at one time.
00:15:51
Speaker
It's like additional preps.
00:15:53
Speaker
What ideas would you have for educators or maybe even administrators to basically systemically integrate self-care for educators?
00:16:02
Speaker
We talk a lot about students and giving them breaks and allowing them choice and the many, many, many different elements of progressive education, human-centered education.
00:16:11
Speaker
But what does that look like for teachers during the workday?
00:16:14
Speaker
As administrators and leaders, we have to
00:16:20
Speaker
What are we doing?
00:16:20
Speaker
How are we doing?
00:16:21
Speaker
How are we checking in with our staff members?
00:16:24
Speaker
Right.
00:16:24
Speaker
And it's and it can't just be, you know, wait for that monthly staff meeting.
00:16:29
Speaker
because now we're already separated and isolated physically.
00:16:33
Speaker
Waiting once a month is not enough.
00:16:35
Speaker
Things that we've done in my school district during the beginning of the pandemic is that we had, you know, about three times a week, we would set aside time where we would provide social emotional well-being for our educators prior to them starting their instructional day.
00:16:53
Speaker
For example, the day would start at 830.
00:16:56
Speaker
So like from 805 to 825, we'd have a social emotional well being time where we come in and ask how they're doing.
00:17:02
Speaker
We'd ask, we talk about different topics and have some guest speakers come in just so they can get anchored in themselves and have an opportunity to prioritize that.
00:17:11
Speaker
You know, that's time.
00:17:12
Speaker
that administrators can protect to make it happen.
00:17:16
Speaker
And you didn't have to be, you know, and don't make it mandatory.
00:17:19
Speaker
The reality is what we saw in my district was that people wanted to come because it was some consistency for them to anchor themselves and to get that into their day.
00:17:27
Speaker
So even though we didn't make it mandatory, there was no additional pay for that, they wanted to come and they looked forward to it.
00:17:34
Speaker
So I think as administrators, we need to think about that.
00:17:36
Speaker
Also, we need to think about is listen, right?
00:17:40
Speaker
We have to listen.
00:17:41
Speaker
We have to listen to those that we serve and what's going on and be cognizant and aware that we have to think about people as human beings again.
00:17:50
Speaker
We all have lives.
00:17:52
Speaker
And I think the biggest challenge right now is that, you know, the multiple roles that we have, you know, as people are coming to a head right now.
00:18:02
Speaker
And, you know, you're asking an educator and a teacher to be a teacher during the day with their 20 plus students.
00:18:10
Speaker
But then they all, if they're parents, they have their own children that could be, you know, working, you know, have a remote learning situation at home.
00:18:18
Speaker
If they're a husband or a wife, so now they have the role of the spouse.
00:18:22
Speaker
And then some have our caregivers, elderly, you know, parents and families, family members.
00:18:27
Speaker
So we have to understand that
00:18:30
Speaker
Everyone's going through something right now.
00:18:32
Speaker
And just because we see them for those hours,
00:18:36
Speaker
we can't forget that they have a life as well.
00:18:38
Speaker
So I think as administrators, we need to be cognizant of that and give people the grace and flexibility to work through this and give them that time, and not try to put too much on them.
00:18:49
Speaker
Kind of the invisible work of educators is the fact that everyone sees us and says, oh, you have summers off, you have all the paid holidays, and you have all this time, you work Monday through Friday,
00:19:02
Speaker
But they don't know about when you're grading papers on, you know, after work, when you're grading papers on the weekend, when you're going to classes during the summer.
00:19:12
Speaker
Like all these other pieces are involved.
00:19:13
Speaker
And I think we need to remember that that is part of the person and part of their daily experience.
00:19:19
Speaker
So we need to not too much, put too much on them as administrators so they can have their weekends off.
00:19:25
Speaker
Right.
00:19:25
Speaker
So they can have time to spend with their families.
00:19:27
Speaker
Not too much on them so that after after their day working, they're not doing so much in this extra planning so that they can't relax.
00:19:39
Speaker
You know, that's that's part of it.
00:19:40
Speaker
They need to be able to do that.
00:19:42
Speaker
And we have control of that as leaders.
00:19:43
Speaker
What time we protect, how we protect it, and then also the time that we're able to give back.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah.

Evan's Philosophy: Balance, Boundaries, Breaks

00:19:49
Speaker
And I can't help but think as you describe each one of those things, flexibility, grace, scheduling.
00:19:54
Speaker
how that applies to students as well, just kind of going down the line, not expecting students have people that they take care of, they have families that are struggling.
00:20:02
Speaker
I'm particularly concerned about
00:20:04
Speaker
unemployment and economic ramifications of what that's going to do for our community and just like really basic things that were already there but are now exacerbated during the crisis and what that means for educators.
00:20:17
Speaker
Something that's helped me as an educator since spring is setting firm boundaries.
00:20:24
Speaker
The
00:20:25
Speaker
The ability to say like after 4.30, after 3.30, like I'll get to you tomorrow and not feeling bad about that and giving setting up the class in a way where people don't feel pressure the day to get something done constantly all the time where that would be stressful not to be able to get in contact with a teacher because otherwise you're in a perpetual state of like, well, the computer is there and I could check it and maybe someone sent me a message and you're doing that once every half hour for ad nauseum.
00:20:50
Speaker
And it's draining.
00:20:52
Speaker
With that being said, Evan, thank you so much for joining us.
00:20:55
Speaker
Do you have anything else that you would want to add or plug or something like that?
00:20:58
Speaker
You know, I think that in the conversation, we've kind of talked about it, but, you know,
00:21:02
Speaker
That's my big push is my 3 B's of balance, boundaries and breaks.
00:21:06
Speaker
And that's what I talk about a lot for educator self care and well being.
00:21:09
Speaker
And it's true.
00:21:10
Speaker
You know, we talked about balance.
00:21:12
Speaker
What does balance look like?
00:21:13
Speaker
Right?
00:21:14
Speaker
Why do we need balance?
00:21:15
Speaker
You know, the importance of balance.
00:21:17
Speaker
And I think that now it's more important than ever that we begin to.
00:21:20
Speaker
to understand how critical time and energy is and how we use that.
00:21:26
Speaker
And we can't just give it away and we need to invest into things that are going to be reciprocal, whether those are people, because people can be draining, you know, also sometimes well-intended, but they can be draining.
00:21:40
Speaker
And also kind of the projects that we take on as well, right?
00:21:43
Speaker
Understanding kind of prioritizing what we need to do and what we want to do.
00:21:47
Speaker
The other part is the boundaries that you talked about is critical.
00:21:50
Speaker
You know, as educators, we have, we don't have a good track record of setting personal boundaries.
00:21:55
Speaker
You know, we, we, we respect everyone else's, but we don't often adhere to our own.
00:22:00
Speaker
We say yes a lot and we don't say no.
00:22:04
Speaker
And it's important that we do that for our self care and wellness, because if not, you know, people aren't going to say, Hey, Chris,
00:22:11
Speaker
Dr. Why don't you slow down a little bit or don't take this on or hey Evan, you know what you don't have to you don't have to stay till five o'clock tonight and you know your office, you can go ahead and leave at 330 right.
00:22:21
Speaker
Dr. Those are things that we need to we need to think about you know what does that look like in terms of our personal health and our physical health right.
00:22:28
Speaker
Dr. it's okay for us to go ahead and say you know what I don't feel well today I don't have to push through and come into work.
00:22:34
Speaker
you know, just so it looks like I'm doing my job, right?
00:22:37
Speaker
There's a reason why we have sick days.
00:22:39
Speaker
We need to take them when we're truly sick.
00:22:42
Speaker
And especially now, right?
00:22:44
Speaker
Even though, you know, we need to be so mindful of that because I can tell you the culture of education and educators, we're not good about taking our sick time and taking our medical concerns when we need to.
00:22:56
Speaker
That's why often there's so many like
00:23:00
Speaker
illnesses that run through schools so quickly, right?
00:23:03
Speaker
We need to be mindful of that.
00:23:05
Speaker
So that's, you know, especially now that we talk about boundaries is truly important.
00:23:08
Speaker
The last one is breaks, right?
00:23:11
Speaker
Taking that break, taking that time to pause, taking that time to reflect, taking that opportunity to take advantage of that time that you can spend reflecting, time you can spend with your families and just unplug, right?
00:23:23
Speaker
We're so focused on laptops,
00:23:28
Speaker
cell phone, you know, whatever device we have, you know, we're always plugged in.
00:23:33
Speaker
It's okay to unplug for, for a couple of hours, right?
00:23:36
Speaker
So I know everybody can't do it for a full day, but go ahead and do it.
00:23:40
Speaker
Try it for an hour.
00:23:41
Speaker
You know, it'll make a huge difference just so that, you know, you're not on a schedule.
00:23:45
Speaker
So they chose your body and your mind has a chance to just recuperate.
00:23:49
Speaker
So, you know, just in parting, just, I always encourage people to think about my three B's of balance boundaries and breaks.
00:23:55
Speaker
How can it help you?
00:23:56
Speaker
How can you apply it to your own personal life?
00:23:58
Speaker
And just take care of yourselves so you can be the best person, so you can take care of others that you serve.

Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

00:24:06
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
00:24:12
Speaker
You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.