wellbeing – A Teacher in the making

When it comes to developing my understanding of teaching, I feel very motivated. This motivation comes from a drive inside of me – I want to be a fantastic teacher and do all that I can to ensure I am an effective teacher and that my pupils learn effectively during my lessons. My motivation for learning from home, however, is currently lacking.

Now, I’m not saying that I am not engaged with, or interested in the content I am learning – I am very engaged and interested in the content, in fact, I can’t wait to continue along this learning path over the next three weeks and over my teaching career. I am looking forward to implementing all of the skills and knowledge I have already developed, and will continue to develop this summer and I can’t wait to see how I teach my pupils in September.

But right now, the ‘struggle is real’ (I think that is a phrase used on the internet at the moment but I have no idea it’s source.) A mixture of tiredness, lack of social contact, the pandemic that is going on around us, straining at a screen and probably some cognitive overload is what I believe to be the cause of my lack of motivation.

Lets pick apart some of those points in more detail.

➤ Tiredness – this is something to be expected when participating in an intense course that prepares you for teaching. I am not surprised that I am feeling tired, especially as I get towards the end of a week – that weekend break is due and I am looking forward to switching off and resetting. It is very important that we take these weekend breaks and allow ourselves time to absorb and reflect on the weeks learning, without engaging in more content. Our well-being is very important and we have to make time for the ‘recovery’ part of our regulatory system.

Recovery allows us to: recharge our battery; pause and see the bigger picture; think creatively; build connections with people and it triggers a break. The recovery system slows us down and is very important for our wellbeing and in turn our energy levels and our ability to engage with our ‘Drive’ – which helps motivate us! I find it particularly interesting that I have listed ‘lack of social contact’ as one of the reasons for my lack of motivation. As humans, being able to make social connections is very important for our wellbeing.

➤ Lack of social contact – As we all know, humans are often social animals and the ‘recovery’ part of our regulatory system is linked to building social relationships and having social interactions. It is not surprising that a lack of social interaction has had a detrimental effect on my motivation. Last week (week 1 of Summer Institute) was much more social – we had the opening ceremony and we also had a group meeting with our Development Lead, both our live Seminar and practice group, as well as all of our BCU lectures. We were all new to the course, spending lots of time building networking groups and engaging with others, and while this is still the case, I think tiredness has overcome a lot of us – sometimes socialising can be tiresome.

However tiresome it might be, I think it is very important for us to continue to build on these networks, especially in the current Covid-19 climate, where some people may have been isolating this entire time (thank god for my my partner, I would have really struggled being on my own all of this time!) Next week, in an attempt to change this lack of social connection, I am arranging a group meeting on zoom for our development lead group on Monday and on Tuesday (both of these days are completely self-directed work, and can be quite heavy.) The idea behind these 30 minute meetings is to create a closer support network where we can: see & hear each other (much more personal than text); discuss any difficulties we’ve had with the content; discuss our wellbeing and just have a chat in general. I am hoping that these meetings will help motivate me and others in the group who may be struggling, or feeling overwhelmed.

➤ Staring at a screen – the pandemic has made screen staring a much more common factor in our every day lives. I realise that we spend a lot of time looking at screens anyway, it’s 2020 and technology is present in every aspect of our lives, but continuously staring at a screen can have a detrimental affect on concentration, wellbeing and physical health (oh I do love those headaches.) So while I know I still need to engage with the content of Summer Institute (which is all online), moving forward I am going to ensure I take more screen breaks. If I have a reflection to do, I’ll spend half an hour jotting ideas down in my notebook whilst away from my screen. I hope that actively taking extra screen breaks will help.

➤ Cognitive overload – something I have learned a lot about in the lead up to, and during Summer Institute. Our working memory is small and can only manage a certain amount of new information before it is overloaded. There is a lot of content to cover during summer institute and while it is important for me to engage with and absorb this information, I need to follow the various teaching techniques we’ve been learning about: present information in small steps; dual coding; spaced practice and retrieval practice, are which are great strategies for learning and something I can actively do to help reduce my cognitive overload and promote more effective learning.

As the week comes to an end, I am very excited to enjoy the weekend and take a well deserved screen break. I will reflect on the weeks learning and enjoy a lie in. I am excited to start a new week, especially now that we have our extra meetings planned on zoom. Hopefully these meetings will help us to overcome any motivational issues we may be experiencing on this home-learning journey.

Hope you are all managing your workload well.

R

Anxiety is an emotion I am sure we all feel from time to time. Many of us struggle with anxiety on a daily basis, and sometimes it becomes such a burden that it prevents us from achieving our goals. For me, anxiety comes in waves. I do not hate anxiety, it is an emotion that changed me from being a lazy person who was often late for things, to somebody who is always on time (well, 15 minutes early at the latest because being 15 minutes early is being on time for me), anxiety is an emotion that I often relate to caring.

Over the last 3 or 4 years, I have experienced much more anxiety than I had prior to that. Most of the time my anxiety is controllable, I use it to my advantage; to help me be more productive; to help me get back on track if I was procrastinating and to help me to prioritise what is most important. I had a burst of anxiety which was negative, and was lucky enough to have support from the NHS mental health service, where I attended therapy that really helped me deal with my negative anxiety. The ‘worry tree’ will always be my saviour when things begin feel overwhelming. If you don’t know what the worry tree is, then I’d advise you research it! To put it very simply – I have a worry, can I do anything about this right now? No? Forget about it. Yes? Fix it. The worry tree helps me control my anxiety and allows me to establish the difference between negative anxiety and positive anxiety.

An example of how this helped me this morning is as follows:
I am currently making my way through the reading list I was given for Summer Institute (which starts in less than 2 weeks). As I am reading and making notes on ‘Principles of Instruction’ by Barak Rosenshine, I begin to imagine what it will be like to implement some of these practices when I am in the classroom. This is challenging as I have no prior experience in the classroom and this makes me anxious. I then begin to spiral, having that dreaded feeling that I don’t know the content I am going to teach. At this point the worry tree would kick in. “Can I do anything to ensure I am more confident with the content I am going to teach?” Yes! 100% Yes this is something I can do! Okay, great, let’s implement a plan to do this.

From other research I have carried out and theories I have looked at in relation to teaching, I know that curriculum and subject knowledge are both very important. How can you teach something you do not know? So while I am currently prioritising my Summer Institute reading list, I also need to find time to advance my curriculum and subject knowledge. Re-familiarising myself with terminology and what is expected of pupils in my Key Stage.

Like many things, I find that 9/10, my anxiety shows itself for a good reason. It pops up to say ‘Hey, it’s good that you’re prioritising doing that, but you should also be prioritising doing this.” Being able to establish the difference between positive and negative anxiety is something I constantly work at, but I feel more confident in establishing this difference everyday. The worry tree is a fantastic and simple tool that helps me to wade my way through what is good and what is bad anxiety, allowing me to use my anxiety in a positive and advantageous way.

Hope all is well.

– R