Teacher, Take Care
A Guide to Well-Being and Workplace Wellness for Educators
Written by teachers for teachers, this comprehensive resource provides strategies to improve educator wellness and foster positive mental health in the workplace.
Description
Teaching can be a highly satisfying profession, but it can also be overwhelming. Stress management. Self-care. Mental well-being. Mindfulness. These words have become all too familiar, but what do they actually mean for you? And how can they help without adding to your to-do list?
All teachers have different experiences and different needs. Through stories by diverse educators, this professional resource invites you to try different wellness strategies, explore varying perspectives, and consider new ideas of what it means to “be well.”
Grounded in servant leadership and a holistic model, each chapter connects to Indigenous perspectives of wellness through remarks from Elder Stanley Kipling and Knowledge Keeper Richelle North Star Scott.
Reviews
With compassion and clarity, this book provides both the insights and tools that will help to meaningfully improve teacher well-being. Always encouraging and grounded in a deep awareness of our connections to one another, this book's wisdom is valuable and important.
Stephanie Harrison, well-being expert and founder of The New Happy
Easy to read and hard to put down! In a time when we seem perpetually stressed, we are too often offered one-size-fits-all quick fixes, when what we really need are thoughtful, engaging, diverse, and easy-to-use toolkits, giving us the freedom to choose what works for us. Teacher, Take Care is just that kind of toolkit, and has quickly become a personal and professional mental health go-to resource!
Sharon Blady, PhD, CEO of Speak Up: Mental Health & Neurodiversity, former Minister of Health in Manitoba
This book speaks to the hearts and minds of educators who, at the center of their practice, must create the conditions for flourishing learning environments. The emphasis on well-being and workplace wellness is a timely reminder that to create the conditions for children and youth to flourish, educators must attend to their own wellness and self-care individually and collectively as part of the broader educational landscape. Written accessibly with thoughtful reflection questions, the book gives permission for educators to breathe. It also emphasizes that workplace well-being is essential to both teachers' own physical and emotional health, but also that of the students they serve.
Dianne Gereluk, Dean of Education, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary
No one can take care of others when they are not taking care of themselves. For this reason, perhaps nothing is more important for teachers than attending to and understanding how to achieve their own wellness. Jennifer Lawson's Teacher, Take Care is an essential guide for how to fulfill one's potential as an educator while educating others to do so as well. This book is good medicine for those working in one of the hardest professions in the world.
Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, Professor, Department of Indigenous Studies, University of Manitoba
The guide, created by teachers for teachers, includes self-care tips, strategies to spot burnout warning signs and support colleagues, and ideas on implementing “psychologically safe work environments” based on national standards. Each chapter starts with a teacher’s personal story about their well-being challenges.
Maggie Macintosh, The Winnipeg Free Press
If...your intention is to take better care of yourself, a new book...written specifically for teachers may be helpful. If you are feeling stressed and out of balance in your life, you will relate to the challenges faced by the contributors and will find practical strategies that they used for regaining balance. Exercises for reflecting and responding to the text appear frequently, and the use of the Indigenous Sacred Circle helps to ground the teachings in physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual awareness.
Diana Mumford, Canadian Teacher Magazine