Music Teacher Coffee Talk 34: Resiliency
Resiliency is an important skill all teachers should cultivate. In this episode of the Music Teacher Coffee Talk podcast, Carrie and I discuss ideas on how to keep teacher burnout at bay and how to find teacher happiness for a long career.
“When we tackle obstacles,
we find hidden reserves of courage
and resilience
we did not know we had.
And it is only when we are faced with failure
do we realize
that these resources
were always there within us.
We only need to find them and move on with our lives. “
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Resiliency Rubric for Teachers (from Jefferson County Public Schools, Golden, CO)
How's your resiliency? Here's a resiliency quiz.
Know yourself! Here are some personality tests we've found helpful:
Myers & Briggs Test
Enneagram
Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies Quiz
Videos on happiness and resiliency
Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret to Better Work
(SO many great ideas here!)
Simon Sinek on Millenniels in the Workplace
Dan Gilbert: Why Are We Happy?
The ABCs of Resilience
Professional Development
The Organization of Kodály Educators conference is around the corner! (March
Coda: Our professional and personal recommendations of what we're enjoying
Tanya
Russian Doll on Netflix
Carrie
David Walliams Marvellous Musical Podcast
Thank you so much for your podcast - I was so excited to see that you chose this topic! I love feeling connected to other Kodály-inspired teachers (music ed podcasts are certainly part of my own resiliency). I have been experiencing some "burn-out" feelings this school year, but through some research I have been able to identify most of those feelings not as burn-out, but as demoralization. This has been a huge shift in perspective. I found a book by Doris Santoro, Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay. She explores how teachers who are feeling "burnt-out" might actually be in situations where they are not able to be the teachers they want to be. This is common for music teachers - not having an adequate classroom, teaching extremely large class sizes, being harshly evaluated by administrators who are uneducated about the content area, being considered an "extra" class, etc. I appreciated that author goes into the "How they can stay" part - it gives concrete ways to work with these kinds of problems and return to a place where you feel good about teaching.
ReplyDeleteIt has been a helpful perspective for me to realize that I'm not out of steam as a music teacher, but I just need to be in a situation where I can best serve kids. It has also helped to validate my frustrations this year - you can have plenty of resilience but if you are feeling demoralized, the solution is quite different. It can hurt your heart if you know what you need to do for your students but you feel like there are systems in place preventing it - unfortunately resiliency alone won't solve that.
I understand- music teachers need to feel appreciated and in a place where they are allowed to do what's best for kids. Thanks for the book recommendation, it sounds fascinating, (and sobering!) We have a systemic problem with how we view educators.
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