Teachers health is more than avoiding illness. practical coaching for teachers on the subject of teachers health and work-life balance is - unfortunately - extremely popular in the context of the counseling activities of teacher.
How do you stay healthy as a teacher?
One of the most criminally neglected issues in teacher training is the issue of "maintaining teacher's health". If it is discussed at all, then often as a filling topic after completion of the actual training, in the last seminar sessions before being released from the preparatory service and mostly reduced to the topic of "burnout". Teacher advocates giving teachers health the importance it deserves - even outside of teacher training.
Teacher training as a prelude to a stressful professional life?
One of the biggest misunderstandings in teacher training is that in many seminars one seems to believe that teachers are going to "toughen up", to fit them into the "system" with the mark of the grades and to have to be "suitable for civil servants" by training as designed psychic boot camp.
In our counseling for trainee teachers and prospective teachers, countless dissatisfied, out-born, disillusioned and sometimes even mentally troubled teachers of all ages and experience levels report that they are pushed to their limits (and sometimes beyond) in the legal clerkship or in everyday teaching life were and will.
Through a hammer-hard "best selection", which mostly consists primarily in determining the grade - the only relevant recruitment criterion - hundreds of teachers are prepared for a professional career in each run, which in most cases will never be so intensive and problematic again is like in the very special Kosmos legal clerkship.
In our experience, the foundation stone is laid in many places for teacher training in order to permanently damage the health of teachers. Anyone who is already "cracked" into working life has no good cards for doing his job successfully in the long term without paying for it with his own strength and energy.
Teachers health is more than avoiding illness
Burnout is known to be the number 1 occupational disease among teachers - not only in this professional group, but it is clearly prevalent among educators. The question that has to be asked urgently is why this is so and whether it is inevitable. Burnout is usually a condition that actually describes the end of development. It is time not to worry about the result of a negative spiral, but to start at the root of all evil.
Our offer of practical coaching for teachers on the subject of teachers health and work-life balance is - unfortunately - extremely popular in the context of the counseling activities of the teacher. We originally started this after inquiries such as "suicidal idea traineeship", "quitting as a teacher", "leaving the teaching profession" and "overwhelming as a teacher" had been among the top search terms for visitors to our site for weeks. This list of the essence of the experience of young teachers after often only a few years of work and the descriptions of trainee teachers about the course and content of their seminars show one of the main problems of the teaching profession.
“Teachers health” is more than just avoiding illness, it should actually be about creating a breeding ground for positive experiences, building a robust nervous costume and a strong mental state in general. What has long been known and popular among Waldorf educators as "salutogenesis" has so far not reached many teachers in the "classic" school system because it was not conveyed to them during their training and they often only deal with it themselves when it actually does is far too late?
What can teachers do to stay healthy?
Of course, you should do sports (even if you were not a teacher), of course, you should go on vacation regularly (even if you are a teacher and only has the next "lesson time" for it), of course, you should eat healthily (especially as Teacher) and of course, you should be in love happily (this is generally recommended). But apart from that, you can do a lot more for yourself, especially as a teacher in practical work.
First of all, after successfully completing their training, many teachers often make a mistake that only has an impact years later: they stop deliberately reflecting on themselves and their teaching style - perhaps because in the legal clerkship it usually meant "tearing apart" their own work. and sometimes ended in most personal criticism.
In addition, they no longer observe their colleagues - often because they are happy to have escaped constant surveillance and want to make this possible for other teachers. Not infrequently also because the burden of a full position hardly seems to leave any time for the further development of your own teacher personality - unless you actively try to do what requires an enormous amount of discipline.
But that's already the next topic. As part of our practical coaching for teachers, we often experience that discipline in the classroom has remained a theoretical construct for most teachers since their training, which has never really been put into practice. Many basic approaches have often remained unsettled. Here is an excerpt from the top questions that are repeatedly asked in our teacher | student coaching sessions
- The guys in the back row don't get their mouths shut and if I admonish them, they get cheeky. What else should I do?
- Anna's parents told her she didn't have to do what I asked her to do if she didn't want to. How am I supposed to get Anna to work when her parents get in the way?
- I don't feel taken seriously by my class. If I admonish them, it will be fine for about two minutes and then everything will be as before. Is it my young age?
- I feel like the class doesn't like me no matter what I do. I try so hard. What should I do?
If you are familiar with one of these questions, you do not know how you would react, or you may not recognize the connection to “discipline in the classroom”, you may also have some catching up to do in this area and coaching from teacher | pupil might not be one bad idea.
If you are familiar with one of these questions, you do not know how you would react, or you may not recognize the connection to “discipline in the classroom”, you may also have some catching up to do in this area and coaching from teacher | pupil might not be one bad idea.
This list could go on and on and shows one thing: discipline, but above all its practical application, is the be-all and end-all for maintaining teachers health. This insight is often new to many teachers, as they are used to the fact that discipline is mostly seen as a tool for the benefit of the students. Already in the teachers' own way of thinking, the teacher mostly falls “behind”. Starting here can save many follow-up problems.
