By Dr. Mamie L. Pack, Western Governors University’s Manager of Healthy Learning

Article originally appeared in eSchool News on September 13, 2024

 

Across the country, teachers like you are decorating classrooms, creating lesson plans, and preparing for new students.  You have invested numerous hours planning how to help students learn and thrive.  While teachers know how to prepare to help their students succeed, too often we forget to focus on what we need to prioritize our overall well-being so we can hold on to the joy of teaching. This back-to-school season is the perfect time to commit to you.

I recently gave a presentation for Utah-based teachers called The Joy of Teaching: How to Sustain Your Professional Passion. I spent time talking with teachers about the importance of creating practical strategies that were centered on them, their well-being, and how to cultivate joy.

As teachers, putting everyone else first and caring for yourself last is going to make it hard to sustain your passion for the teaching profession much less sustain your mental health and overall well-being. The work that teachers do touches every profession and impacts every community. 

You matter. So, talking about educator well-being and cultivating the joy of teaching must matter too.

Joy matters not just because it feels good. That’s a bonus. It matters because it is good for you. There is ample research that shows us joy can increase our emotional resiliency, it can increase job satisfaction, can help protect our body from the effects of stress and pain, and can have an overflow factor where it spreads to other people and aspects of our lives.

But how do we find and embrace joy in our busy worlds?

We choose to cultivate a mindset that endures over time. In order to do this, we need practical strategies that we can apply no matter the season of life or how many years we have been in the classroom.

To get started, be clear about your core values. Core values can be our guide and help us be our best selves. Ask yourself these questions:

What matters to you?

What is your lived experience?

Who are your role models and why do you look up to them?

What gets you up in the morning?

Intentionally make time to build community with other educators. Communal care is integral to cultivating joy in teaching.  Having a mentor, being a mentor, and getting connected to professional organizations can help you sustain your joy in teaching.  We need safe professional relationships that make space for us to grow and ask for help. 

Cultivating joy requires self-reflection and self-regulation in addition to sharing experiences with your community. Make it a point to pause to recognize and understand your emotions to nurture your emotional intelligence. Pausing helps you to see the good even on the hard days.  It will make you resilient and is like a sponge for integrating joy into your life and your work.

One question that I often ask teachers is what drains them and what fills them up throughout the day. It’s amazing how many people have not taken the time to reflect on this. Asking yourself this is like putting Google Maps on your mental health journey. You’ll have directions.

We all have different answers. For me, I get filled up with meaningful connections, seeing students and teachers thrive, and practicing gratitude. I quickly lose energy and mindfulness when I’m in a cluttered workspace, working in isolation, or find myself very overcommitted to activities that prevent me from prioritizing my well-being.

Do some reflection and try to decide each week how you can do more of what fills you and less of what drains you. It’s also useful to ask yourself what your unique contribution is to the teaching space. Pause to reflect on how your voice, knowledge, and experience benefit you as a teacher.  For some of us, it helps to take some time to remember your “why” for getting into this profession. What motivated you to become a teacher? Or maybe who motivated you to step into education? It’s time to get excited about that part again. And the great news is, teacher-leader joy helps your students succeed.

Another way to hold on to your joy is to know your capacity. Have a plan for when you feel overwhelmed. You’re human. It’s going to happen. Knowing your capacity helps you to identify where to put your time and your focus when life is hard. Think about what you need to do, delegate, and delete.  Take some time to ask yourself if you have what you need to thrive. Like the flight attendants always say, put your oxygen mask on first before helping others. Focusing on taking care of you doesn’t make you selfish, it helps you be healthy.

And with all of that, you’ll be ready for the parade of smiling faces coming your way soon. Thank you for being part of one of the most important professions in our country. Your work has a lasting impact. We respect you and we appreciate you. Be well.