Those who go back over the years know that the mental health piece has emerged, percolated to the top, as the most important thing we discuss here. So as we now start moving into the thick part of the year, we need to reinforce, always reinforce, our mental health. Otherwise, this job is just too hard, one of hardest jobs on the planet. I don’t know what it will look like here through winter, but rest assured that my own primary focal point will be on the mental health piece.
It wouldn’t be such a bad idea if PLC members who, having survived the October Collapse but may be wobbling a bit on the drive to Christmas Break, click on the “Mental Health” category on the right side of this page to get some support if they’re wobbling. Anyway, here is what I am wanting to share this morning on the most important topic on this PLC:
As teachers, we know that saying what we really feel in class can get us fired. And yet, most of us are bombarded by thoughts and feelings during class, and they need our attention.
But we can’t address those feelings in class – we have to teach. If, on some days, we were to react like a normal person to the seemingly unending moments of rudeness that seem to pepper our days now in these days of degradation, we really would get fired.
So yes, we bury our feelings during class, but when do we feel them? Between the end of the day and bedtime there seems to be no time, not in today’s insane world. And I gotta watch my Don Lemon so there’s more time lost.
But people are always telling us to feel our feelings. We ourselves want to do that. Sometimes it feels like hippy talk but in truth it’s good advice.
So where do we go to vent? For many of us home doesn’t work, as stated. The teacher’s lounge might be a good place in the right school but few teachers trust each other in a school building – nor should they – so that’s out. The gym? No – we can sweat out bodily toxins but not emotional toxins there. Hmmm.
We could wait until Friday or Saturday night and drink. That’s what many of us learned to do in college. But that’s out for many of us too because what we thought was normal behavior in college for many of us turned out to be unworkable, to use a charitable word, and extremely dangerous, to use the right word.
What to do? Gotta do something!