Building Resilience for Teachers

Key Wellness Strategies and Self-Care Techniques:

• Understanding Resilience: Resilience is defined as the ability to rebound after adversity. It's crucial for educators to build and strengthen their resilience, especially during prolonged challenges.
• Emotional Awareness: Recognizing and understanding one’s emotions is vital. Key practices include:
  • Pausing to identify feelings (e.g., fear, sadness) and exploring them rather than pushing them away.
  • Developing a healthy relationship with emotions, acknowledging them as part of the human experience.
• Practical Techniques:
  • Emotion Recognition: Learn to identify physical sensations associated with emotions (e.g., shortness of breath with anger, lack of energy with sadness).
  • Naming Emotions: Use language to articulate feelings (e.g., "This is sadness" or "This is anger"). Resources like emotion vocabulary lists can help improve emotional literacy.

Resources for Building Skills:

• Books and Workbooks: Elena Aguilar’s book "Onward" and its accompanying workbook provide hundreds of strategies for cultivating emotional resilience.
• Free Resources: The Bright Morning website offers tools like the Core Emotions resource to help individuals categorize and understand their emotions better.

Systemic Approach:

Highlighting the example of Portland Public Schools, the importance of a systemic approach to resilience-building is emphasized, focusing on community support and professional development.

Conclusion:

The conversation encourages educators to actively engage with their emotions and utilize available resources to foster resilience within themselves and their communities.

Presenters/Sources:

• Adam Geller (Founder and CEO of Edthena)
• Elena Aguilar (Author and Founder of Bright Morning)