Articles

The past year has added so many additional stressors on educators: virtual teaching, juggling teaching formats, and wearing masks, to name a few. Teachers must find ways to manage stress to avoid emotional and physical exhaustion. Book clubs, fitness classes, eating healthy, and getting enough sleep all help teachers recharge…

Reflective teaching is an important tool in helping you examine your role as an educator in order to both celebrate and sharpen the value you bring to teaching. Fundamentally, reflective teaching is about looking at what you do in your classroom, thinking about why you do it, and considering whether…

This time last year, I published an article titled “Building a Positive Community Through Reflection.” The article began with excitement for the start of a new year and a new decade. Little did I know that the way we deliver education was about to change drastically just a few months…

Helping students create a habit of reflection is an essential step in teaching them how to establish and maintain self-control. But sometimes teachers with positive intentions inadvertently ask questions around reflection that add a layer of shame. For example:  “Think about your work today. What could you have done to…

The excitement of a new school year generally greets me in a place of confident anticipation. Like the edge pieces of a newly begun jigsaw puzzle, cherished September routines provide a familiar boundary as I await the colorful scene that will take shape within. My knowledge and experience provide comfort…

This spring, many educators and administrators experienced working from home for the first time. We were teaching, leading, and planning in the same spaces where we cook, clean, parent children, care for pets, exercise, relax, and sleep. Our work life and home life suddenly merged without any time to plan…

It’s important to practice self-care, but doing so on a regular basis can be challenging at the best of times! One way you can develop your own self-care practices, as well as teach these practices to students, is to embed them into the lessons you are teaching. There are many…

Everybody reacts differently to stressful situations. With acute changes to normal routines, concern about the possibility of illness, and isolation from social distancing, this a uniquely stressful time, making self-care even more important. The best way you can care for yourself is to think about what you personally need to…

Summer’s adventures and excursions are dwindling, and your email inbox is filling up with welcome back notifications, professional growth opportunities, new initiatives, and meetings. These clear signs that a new school year is set to begin mean it’s time to shift your focus toward preparing to welcome a new group…

It’s the middle of the summer, another school year is successfully in the books, and preparations for the new school year are not quite in full swing. Now -- while you’re hopefully finding time for some well-deserved relaxation -- is an ideal time to reflect and recalibrate on the type…

The walls of the classroom look emptier than they looked a month ago and a few remnants of the presence of students remain: a pencil here or a sticky note there containing a past thought. As the last student leaves the room in which you’ve built a community, many emotions…

Responsive Classroom Consulting Teachers Joe Tilley, Luke Mason, Jenny Spero, and Ramona McCullough, and Professional Development Designer Michelle Gill weigh in on the importance of self-care.   You already know that social and emotional well-being are vital to student success, but with lesson planning, grading, and the day-to-day bustle of…