Most days I get on social media and I see so many different opinions about how teachers should do their jobs. I also see supportive and encouraging comments, but the negative ones just hit a little differently. They make you think you’re not doing your best as a teacher, or somehow you have it wrong. It creates so much self-doubt and frustration. Frankly, I’m tired of reading those types of comments, wishing people understood my job. A job I work tirelessly at every day, night, and weekend.

Do you get tired of reading or hearing other people’s negative opinions about teaching and teachers?  How teachers are always whining and complaining?  About pay, crowded classrooms, insufficient resources? And lately, safely returning to the classroom for in-person instruction? Teaching can be fulfilling, rewarding, and all that good stuff, but sometimes it can be downright stressful and full of worries and anxiety.  What is it that stresses us out?  I wrote a list about it.  Want to read it? Here it goes…

• Papers to grade
• Lesson plans
• Emails (especially in the evening or on weekends)
• Colleagues to assist
• Meetings that could’ve been an email
• Dealing with students and parents
• Conflict with administration or coworkers
• Sometimes feeling like you don’t have a voice
• Not having what you need to teach
• Professional development
• Managing your home/work life
• Not knowing if you’ll be safe when/if you return to work in person
• And a whole host of other things with remote learning 

I could go on and on, but I won’t.  Teachers wear so many hats, there’s no wonder that week after week we feel stressed and overwhelmed.   

How do we handle that stress?  How do we take care of ourselves?  Self-care needs to become a priority among educators.  So much focus is placed on students, the school environment, and data, but never really on how all of it impacts us.  Physical, mental, and emotional well-being affects how effective we are as educators, so why not invest in personal development as much as professional development, even if we have to do it ourselves? Hence, self-care.  See where I’m going with this?

I want to highlight the stresses of teaching and even daily life; all the things we whine, vent, and complain about.  So, each week, we can “wine”, vent, and complain as much we want.  But, like any good teacher, we are taught to be solution-focused.  For every problem, we need a solution, right?  Not just the wine either lol. The solution here is how we take care of ourselves after a stressful day or week of teaching, not how we can improve our teaching practice or our work environment.  That’s an uphill battle we shouldn’t constantly fight because things change so often in education, we will lose ourselves trying to keep up. So, let the focus be on you for a change.  

Instead of crashing and sleeping your troubles away, get that glass of wine, whine about your day or week, and find a great way to take care of yourself.  We are all in this together.  I want to share my experiences, which I’m sure many of us share, and explore self-care options to help with the many, many stresses of teaching. Let me be that teacher-friend you gossip with in the halls during bathroom breaks lol.  Hope to see you back, with your glass of wine! Or whatever you like to drink 🙂