4 fun ways principals can boost teacher self-care

Teachers are very giving people. I read an article the other day that said educators have the most unpaid overtime of any job in the world. And it’s true: We get here at 6:30 in the morning, and most of us leave at 6:30 in the evening. We give so much of ourselves to our students.

Everything we do in schools is aimed at benefitting students, but honestly, if teachers can’t be their best selves, be healthy, and practice self-care, then we can’t expect them to be the best teachers they can be. As we move into the stressful period before testing and the end of the year, I always tell them to remember the safety demonstration that flight attendants do on airplanes: If something goes wrong, you put your own oxygen mask on first, and then put it on your children.

4 ways to boost teacher self-care

1. Word of the Year

At the beginning of the year, we took our teachers through a process of picking one word that they wanted to focus on throughout the year. A lot of teachers choose “balance.” My word was “enjoy,” because I feel like I’m always jumping around 90 miles an hour and living six months ahead, and I really do want to slow down and just be present in the moment more.

Every week we do an activity around these words, and my teachers journal about it. We gave them a journal that they could decorate, and every week we give them a prompt to write about based on one of the 7 Mindsets. Then we come together and share out about their word, what it means to them, and how they’re doing. This way, they’re learning the same sort of social-emotional skills that they’re teaching their students.