Search results matching tags 'teacher' and 'home educators'

Supporting Teachers My Way

welleducator — Sat, 07 May 2011 17:03:00 GMT

The Institute for Educator Wellness has added a new division - Teachable Moments Transition Coaching.

I will be offering wellness classes and coaching just for educators, because, let's face it, we have a tough job!

Avoid Burnout: A short stressbuster

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:07:53 GMT

During your busy day it can be really difficult to find time to quiet your mind. A meditation session can be downright impossible to fit in. Here is a short little meditation activity I found that anyone can use no matter how busy the day.

This comes from a Prevention article by Sarah Mahoney.

“ Sit upright, focus on your breath, and pay attention to a physical sensation, such as the feel of air in your nostrils. When your mind wanders, notice the disruption, then return your attention to that simple sensation. Jha herself now meditates 5 to 10 minutes at a time, several times a day.” – Amishi Jha, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania

Give it a try. This professor says that she has encountered Marines who do this even while deployed in a war zone. If they can do it, you can too.

Resilience: Goal-Setting Activity

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:00:06 GMT

It’s easy to forget that we don’t stop developing just because we are adults. Indeed, we do continue to develop, hopefully creating a more colorful life for ourselves. This can be either intentional or unintentional.

Take a moment and take the pulse of your current life. This is a good exercise for writing down in a journal or on a piece of paper.

What is your greatest achievement so far?
What is the best thing about being your age?
What is the worst thing about being your age?

Now, look over your responses. Take a few moments and think about where you are headed.

What would you like to achieve yet?
What are some things you look forward to in the coming years?
What are some cycles you’d like to break?

This should give you some food for thought in goal-setting. Remember, if you never set goals, you will never reach them.

Taking a Technology Break – Guest Post

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:14:00 GMT

A note from Fran: Ben’s blog, www.technologyinclass.com is an outstanding blog filled with practical tips about technology in education. Today we welcome him as a guest blogger for welleducator.org. Welcome, Ben!

Guest post by Ben from http://www.technologyinclass.com/blog

Teachers are highly wired professionals. Technology is a huge part of our job. We have to answer e-mails from students, teachers, parents and administrators, input grades and attendance in programs like gradebook and blackboard, update our class blogs, plan with and incorporate educational technology into our daily teaching. Then when we get home, we’re on facebook, we write personal e-mails, and we read our favorite education blogs. Whew! I’m tired just thinking about it.

In a technologically driven profession like teaching, an intentional technology break is essential. If we don’t make the break intentional, we’ll default to checking facebook or e-mails when we have any downtime. We know that even when we take a walk there’s the danger of looking down at our smartphones or listening to our mp3 player instead of looking up at the sky and listening to the sounds of nature.

The technology break has to be intentional so that our minds can rest. Glenn Gould had a theory. He said that for x amount of hours he spent with people he would have to spend x amount of hours alone. I would say the same about technology. For x amount of hours you spend on your laptop you have to spend x amount of hours with human beings or by yourself apart from technology.
Here are four suggestions to build a peaceful mind on your technology break:

Sit or lie down and let your mind wander. Get into a technology-free place (not at your computer desk), and let your mind go where it pleases. Don’t stop it, but notice it and let it go. Notice what you notice. Catch yourself thinking.
Breathe. I learned this technique as a teenager from Dr. Weil. He calls it the 4-7-8. I practice this a little before bedtime as it is a relaxing exercise. It’s easy and it works:

· Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.
· Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
· Hold your breath for a count of seven.
· Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.
· This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.

Red tea. I discovered red tea (a.k.a. rooibos) when I was looking for a salubrious decaffeinated tea. I drink this at night. According to South African Rooibos Council, red tea’s chemical properties may help alleviate digestive problems, allergies, and anxiety.
Walk. Take a technology-free walk. Walk with another beloved human or a pet. Leave everything else at home. Notice what you notice.

Now it’s your turn. How do you spend your technology break? What suggestions do you have for those of us who can’t pull ourselves away from a screen of some sort?

Self-care Reminder Again

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:45:57 GMT

I know I can’t be reminded enough to slow down and take good care of myself. I’m one of those people who is a single mom, and have aging parents, so the plate gets pretty full pretty quick. Not as full as the plate of a practicing teacher though!

So this is your reminder to slow it down this weekend. Take the time to do something to take care of yourself in some way. Only you know if you need to quiet your mind, get some exercise (or more sleep) or if you just need a good laugh. Whatever it is, take some ‘me time’ this weekend. It’s all about refilling your reservoir.

I’d love to hear what you will choose to do.

Resilience: Eating Right, Eating Well

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:26:38 GMT

When you are really busy, sometimes it’s easier to just take vitamins, but paying attention to what you eat can keep you healthier.

World’s Healthiest Foods website has some good information about the importance of getting healthy foods into your diet, and describes some realistic ways to do this.

Essential nutrients are nutrients that your body can’t make on its own. How these nutrients are introduced into your body may have a great impact on how well they are utilized. Nutrients do not work alone but in concert (synergistically) with other nutrients. The benefit of deriving nutrients from eating fresh whole foods such as those included on the list of the World’s Healthiest Foods is that they provide not only an abundance of individual nutrients but also the variety necessary for their optimal function.

This weeks’ HEALTHbeat Extra from Harvard Medical School has an excellent article on the best ways to get essential nutrients from your diet. The article is so well-written that I’m not going to try to summarize it here, but strongly recommend you check out the article yourself.

Resilience: Writing for Personal AND Professional Growth

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:55:14 GMT

Writing is a vital part of keeping yourself resilient. It can help you coalesce your thoughts, can give you an avenue for expressing yourself, and can also provide a way of developing professionally.

Journal Keeping:

Keep journals of your personal experiences, to help you process the events that occur in your life. Sometimes it’s good to just ‘get it out of your system’, and sometimes it’s good to look back objectively at the emotions you are experiencing.
Journal about your professional exploits. Have you tried out a new way of teaching math? Keep a record of your processes, results, and reflections in a professional journal

Sharing your ideas:

Writing up your teaching ideas for websites is a marvelous way to make connections with other teachers, and to share your triumphs.
Professional journals publish teachers’ projects and teaching research. Being able to write it up according to their standards, while making it interesting and readable for your audience is a big plus.

Professional Development:

Get your professional development college credit by writing. Organizations such as The Attic offer writing courses for college credit. these are courses that focus upon your writing, not your students. The fact is, if you work on your own writing, you will be that much better a writing teacher for your own students.
Many schools of education teach a variety of courses related to everything from teaching writing to professional writing for teachers.

So think about writing as a way to keep yourself resilient.

Avoid Stress – How Noise Affects Your Brain

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:14:33 GMT

Noise can be a real stressor on your brain.

Loud noises cause us to react before we even have time to think – it’s a response that can keep us safe and alive in times of danger.

However, it’s not just loud noise that can affect us. Lower level noise also has an impact on our stress levels, and our health. Here is a tidbit I found from the Franklin Institute Online:

Noise at home or school can affect children’s ability to learn. Compared to kids from quieter neighborhoods, children living near airports or busy highways tend to have lower reading scores and develop language skills more slowly. Psychiatric hospitalizations are higher in noisy communities. Bad moods, lack of concentration, fatigue, and poor work performance can result from continual exposure to unpleasant noise.According to Dr. Alice H. Suter, an audiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: “Included in noise-related problems are high blood pressure, peptic ulcers, cardiovascular deaths, strokes, suicides, degradation of the immune system, and impairment of learning. Noise is also associated with an increase in aggression and a decrease in cooperation.

This affects you as well. It’s something to consider when tailoring the learning environment in your classroom. Little things that you do will set the tone. If the noise level in the room is loud, slowly lower your voice as you speak to the class until you are speaking more softly. They will quiet down to hear you.

Additionally, this is all the more reason to find ways to bring quiet into your day. The students in your classroom are not the only ones affected by noise – you are as well. So, remember to find ways to let your mind experience quiet each day. It will bring down your stress levels, and help you to function at your optimum, which is best for everyone in your life, including you.

Exercise – Yes You

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:59:22 GMT

In my Inbox yesterday was another study on weight loss and women. I can’t help but think this must apply to men as well.

According to Harvard Medical School, middle-aged women need to exercise moderately (a good paced walk) an hour per day just to prevent weight gain. If you exercise vigorously (like jogging,) you can get by with 1/2 hour per day. That’s just to break even, not to lose weight.

Weight isn’t the only reason for exercising, as we all know. Exercise improves your mood, your overall health, and just plain prevents all kinds of future health problems.

The thing about these studies, is the results are general. You have to know these researchers are talking about us – talking about you. These aren’t just some people somewhere – they are talking about all people everywhere, of which you are one.

So, educators, while you are assembling your schedule for the coming year, getting your routines in place, remember to put an exercise routine in place for yourself. Consider it an investment in your SELF.

Avoid Burnout – Two Critical Back to School Self-Care Tips

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:49:41 GMT

Staying calm in the face of the busy season can be a real trick. The beginning of the school year can be insanely busy with meetings and planning and getting the room all set up for the coming students.

First, organization will save you.Take a little time to organize yourself. Make lists so you don’t have to worry about forgetting things. Keep the list with you. (If you have a cell phone with voice capability, then you’re really rolling. If not, a good old-fashioned notepad will do just fine.)

Think about ways you can streamline the way you run your classroom so that you are not creating more work for yourself. For example, doing regular parent communication can save you a lot of time. When parents receive a regular weekly email from you, for example about what to expect in the coming school week, you save yourself a ton of time having to answer questions later on. Send the email out on the same day each week, so parents know when to watch for it, and set aside a regular time each day to respond to parent emails so you are not seen as not caring about parent involvement. This will save you loads and loads of headaches later on.

Second, and perhaps most important, take a little time to breathe.

When you find yourself running at an insane pace, invigorating though that might be, remember, that’s your adrenalin kicking in. You really do want to save that adrenalin rush for emergency situations.

Try this. When you notice your heart is beating faster, and you are going 100 mph, remind yourself to slow down. You can pull this off if you start practicing right now.

Here’s how I do it. You may have another way that works for you.

1. visualize a peaceful place

2. pay attention to breathing

3. will your pulse to slow down

4. feel a sense of calm within yourself

Now approach your tasks. When you find yourself ramping up again, go back to that visualization. You will the ability to relax will come easier and easier the more you practice. You will be able to pull it off without anyone even noticing you are taking a moment to breathe.

Remember to take care of yourself this school year. Nobody can do that but you.