Self Care 101- Looking at Teacher Self-Care
Season 1- Episode #7
Welcome to Tick Tock Tech! In this episode, we are beginning a four-part series on self-care for teachers.
"Too many teachers have reached the conclusion that this lifestyle is just part of the job; there simply isn’t enough time to be a good teacher and take care of yourself. Self-care is something you’ll get to do over breaks or in the summer, right?" ~https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/teacher-self-care/
Okay, but it has to be meaningful and we have to be able to maintain it, right?
So now what... I think it is easy to say the words self-care. And it is easy to take a few minutes once in a while to do it. But to do it consistently? And when every day you feel like you are behind?
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Transcript
Auto Transcription- Please forgive errors:
(00:00):
Too many teachers have reached the conclusion that this lifestyle is just part of the job. There simply isn't enough time to be a good teacher and take care of yourself. Self care is something you'll get to do over breaks or in the summer. Right.
(00:22):
Welcome to the Tick Tock Tech podcast, where we talk about all things, education tech and teacher happiness, join host, Anna cliff, and Cassie frost, as they share simple ideas to guide you and bring meaning to your day to day experiences. All right, so we are talking today about how educators are often in I stress situations and more often than not, they're just trying to manage the day to day things that they can in the most productive ways. But self care is often the first thing that goes. And as we get into new year, we really wanna talk about how can we take back ownership of our own self care and start taking care of ourselves. Again, I feel like this is such a timely topic. I think actually I would say this is probably a timely topic. Anytime we were going to do it, because I always feel like there's something more, there's always one more thing that we've been asked to do, or there's one more thing that's going wrong in life.
(01:14):
And self-care kind of goes out the window. We're gonna actually take and kind of do our first series. We're gonna start with four episodes on self-care this week. We're gonna be talking about the basis of self-care, how to recognize when you need to do it some basic tips next week, we're really gonna focus on work. So right now we're starting out with this quote that, you know, teachers just, I can take care of myself in breaks or the summer. And that has been me for a good chunk of my career, even. I mean, even thinking about it right with the weekend, right. Everyone thinks I just gotta make it through this. And I'll, I'll re I'll take some self care this weekend. You know, I just realized this morning I texted my sister, like first thing this morning and said, is it Friday yet?
(01:59):
Like it is, it's that mentality of if I can just get through the week. Yeah. And then you get to Friday and you're like T G I F I think what happens is we spend all week rushing around trying to do our classroom stuff, trying to do our paperwork, trying to be the best educator that we can be that I don't know about you. But by the weekend, I feel like my family and my house has been so neglected my weekend then is catching up on all of the stuff I didn't get to during the week. So there's really not self care time there. So I mean, thinking about this then, so how has your week been going? So what's been going on that you feel like we need to even like, bring this topic for fun. Oh boy. Okay. So let's open up this whole story here.
(02:43):
So I am actually leaving for a conference on Friday heading down to the council for exceptional children conference. So I'm presenting there on Sunday. And so, but you know, there's just the stress of planning a trip, obviously during a pandemic, trying to stay safe, actually we should own up to the fact we're actually recording this in our cars right now. You, because you're leaving work me because I just had an oil change that ran late because I'm trying to get the car ready to go. And then our second SUV, the battery died like completely, totally non jump died and was sitting in a parking lot for a few days until we could get the tow truck there. And we manage a rental house and the furnace died on that. And of course it's like negative eight out. So I had to deal with that.
(03:34):
And so it's just real life also happens. And I feel like as educators, we can forget, right. If we can just get through the day at work, we think everything's gonna be fine, but there's also real life stuff that piles on top of all that. And like, I know you've been like crazy at work on top of it. Yeah. I've been, I've been subbing in the schools in the past week. And I'm, I feel like I'm very fortunate and lucky because I haven't had to sub every single day. But yesterday I subbed in a middle school and a student this, I have to laugh about this because it's just, just the reality, right. A student shared with me that I was the Walmart version of her teacher who was out. And so I, I mean, I've, I've heard it all now.
(04:21):
It, you know, it kind of brings you back to reality of like, kids are just trying to make it through right now as well. And they're struggling with new people, new subs and new staff supporting them. And how do we take care of ourselves? We can take care of each other and spirals well, and we wanna be there for our kids. And if we can keep ourselves in better places, we're better for them too. And we're better for our families and we're better, you know? So self care sometimes feel selfish, but I think it's important to know that if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't be there for the people we're trying to be there for. So let's talk about some things we can do, but we're gonna try to pick just like a few simple things. And, you know, whenever it is, you're listening to this.
(05:05):
Now in the future, you're down the road. I have a feeling things aren't gonna change much when it comes to self care and the need for it. So we're gonna challenge you, try these things, like pick one of these things and just give it a shot. So the first one we're gonna say is just pick a time, like pick specific time of day. That's your time of day. It doesn't have to be long. It can be three minutes, five minutes, but pick a certain time on the clock or before breakfast during second hour, either pick a time period that follows something else or an exact time on the clock and make it your, and just do something small. Like for me, literally it is sitting ha having a cup of coffee and watching the news. Oftentimes my coffee gets cold. I might be playing with my dog, talking with my family.
(05:56):
I might not even really never watch the news, but it's the idea of those five minutes are mine. It's so funny. I read this book called the miracle morning, which talked about all these strategies to do before you even wake up before everyone else in the world is woken up. And it talks all about taking care of yourself, but like one of the strategies is waking up and giving yourself like that minute to your being that like alone time in the morning. And that has always been a hu I feel so much more set for my day when I have five minutes of me time. And even if I'm not, like you said, I'm, I'm not always watching the news or paying attention, but that, I love that like, that, that one I use. And I still religiously try to keep that five minutes, 10.
(06:37):
It sometimes it's longer. If I can to myself in the morning, I don't even look at my phone. I just, I just have five minutes with my coffee solution. Number two, this is one of my favorites is create a checklist. So we do checklists all day, every day, right? With all of the stuff you know, that you need to do. And you never really get to it. I'm talking about a different type of checklist, making a checklist of things that make you happy of self care things or you to hold yourself accountable, because it's really easy for those things to get brushed off because you just didn't get to them. So, like a year ago I found a planner and it had like this section for like daily habits or something. And I wrote some things that I do that really are self-care to me.
(07:22):
So it's reading, it's playing the keyboard, it's drawing, and I wrote those things down. And then you just put a check on the days that you do them. And some days I'm really good. And I will like do all three of them other days. I don't get to any of them, but I look at my planner. If I'm noticing it's like midweek and I have yet to do any of those, I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not doing and creating time for those things that bring me joy that are relaxing to me. I love that idea. And I, I laugh Cassie, because you are the planner person and you still have your physical planner, which also amazing. And I like, I still go back and forth between my physical planner and my electronic all calendar, my Google calendar. Right. Cuz there's time in place for all of it.
(08:09):
But because I don't use a paper calendar like you do, I actually just put it on. Post-Its like a couple ideas next to my computer because it it's something I know I'm gonna see. And it's in my face. Like you have to do something for yourself today. You know, we have a lot of solutions there, but I think one solution that I just wanna mention, like kind of a little bit broader idea is just being able to say no and, and delegate some of your tasks. So something that like I don't do enough of is just when I'm starting to think about self-care for myself, I need to start giving my myself time for that self care. And you can't give yourself time, if you say yes to everything. And so Cassy and I are both guilty of this because we, we are very about our work and we always wanna keep sharing and doing more.
(08:54):
But we also, at the beginning of our episode, we do say like, before we even start, we say no to like starting to record because we like the debriefing time of just like checking in with each other. And so it, it just being okay to say no to other things. So you can do the things that you really enjoy that find you find meaningful. And so it's all about finding that balance and, and linking with the people that help you find that balance and that passion. So I'm sitting here thinking about these three solutions we came up with today, like just three of 'em, right? Like picking a time of day. That's your time of day, you know, making yourself a list of things that you need to do for yourself and including those in, with the things that you need to do because you need to do them.
(09:34):
I think the saying, no, maybe the hardest one on this list. Actually Anna, I do believe at one point in our history, we were in some meeting together and there was like a committee for something or another thing to join. And you were like, messaging me in the chat being like, you need to do it. You should do it. Come on, you should do it. So, you know, that whole, like saying no thing is kind of funny coming from you actually. Cause I think you feel like peer pressured me into things. Yes. I have peer pressured you, but I asked the peer pressure mean, I remember this exactly because now I feel like if I hadn't peer pressured you, we probably wouldn't be doing this podcast. Well. And you know what saying yes to something like that when you know, you're working with somebody that's gonna have your back, if you need to say no.
(10:18):
And I think that's something that even for our listeners, there's times where we're planning on recording these and our life gets in the way. And I appreciate so much that we are both the people that can be like, you know what I can't right now. And it's okay. Exactly. Yeah. All right. And so now we're gonna, we're gonna just do we like to do this bright in my, a challenge, something to, to just bring some happiness and some joy through just challenging times in general, and now we're talking about self care. And so when we're thinking about selfcare, we're thinking about ourselves, right. But we also thought it would be good to recognize the, the things that other people around us are doing. And so I found this really cool challenge online that just talked about connecting with somebody and, and sharing like a shout out about something good that they're doing.
(11:07):
Because I feel like right now there is so much negativity in the world. And I have been just like trying to be thoughtful of like once or twice a day, just emailing somebody like something awesome. I heard about or saw because I really thrive off of that when somebody recognizes and gives me recognition for the things I'm doing, I'm really trying to be thoughtful about doing that for others. I like that. That's a really interesting thought and it's something that we should be doing all the time, but I think it's one of the first things that goes by the way. All right. Well, thank you for joining us for another episode of TikTok tech, you can find links to information discussed in today's episode, along with references on our website, don't forget to like subscribe and share this podcast. So you don't miss any tips and tricks. And so your fellow educators can join in the fun.