5 Unconventional Wellness Tips for Health Educators
It’s easy to lose yourself during the back-to-school season. Health educators are likely to have multiple preps in addition to advising clubs and teams, and are often the adult students turn to in times of need. It’s easy to spend all of our time caring for others and leave little for our own well being. Check out these 5 unconventional wellness tips for health educators.
Teacher Wellness Tip #1: Practice What You Teach
If you haven’t yet noticed…life is a master class in skills-based health education. We can know an awful lot, but if we can’t DO it, it doesn’t matter much.
If you’re teaching skills-based health…work right along with your students. While you might not call yourself one, you are a trained life-coach. When we practice the skills we teach our students, we create the space necessary to quiet our minds, to be present, and to actually take care of ourselves. If you need a daily reminder…grab this printable post-it and post-it somewhere you’ll see everyday.
Teacher Wellness Tip #2: Create systems and routines
We can’t have down time if we don’t have time. As teachers, we’re great with routine…I mean even our bathroom breaks are scheduled, right? Help yourself by bringing that structure home. In my house, we’ve streamlined our weekly chores (after being inspired by this article).
🧹Mop On Monday: I give my two kids one room each to sweep and I do what’s left.
🚽Toilets on Tuesday: Again, each of us cleans one bathroom.
🧺Wash it on Wednesday: My kids sort the laundry into baskets and we get a couple of loads started. (It’s also my day to work – I try not to do school work at home any other day).
📂Tidy Up Thursday: By Thursday the house looks like it has exploded, so we clear surfaces and get things put away.
🏁Finish on Friday: Anything we haven’t finished because of games & practices we try to finish on Friday so we can enjoy the weekends
Having the system helps me (and my kids) get things done without feeling overwhelmed by a whole day of cleaning. When my house is less of a wreck, I find it’s easier for me to actually relax and enjoy my time at home with the family (even if it is only an hour here and there between everyone’s activities).
Teacher Wellness Tip #3: Find Your People (and go for a walk)
Between the subject matter and the confessions of students, being a health teacher can be emotionally exhausting. Connecting with positive, like-minded people at school helps, especially when you connect with staff members that support students. When a student confides in you about an unhealthy relationship, self-harm, or troubles at home, having connections with your school counselors, psychologists and social workers can alleviate some of the stress associated with finding help for your most vulnerable students.
I’ve also found a great deal of relief just from exiting the building, especially when it’s with another staff member. If you can, take 15 minutes to walk the school grounds, breathe fresh air and see the sky. It’s a great way to reset and recharge before you have to get back to teaching. Bonus points if you can keep your conversation positive and solution-oriented. Share your feel-good stories and avoid the endless cycle of complaints that arise at the countless meetings you’re asked to attend.
Teacher Wellness Tip #4: Simplify Grading
If you’re like most, grading is one of your least favorite parts of the job. Here are some tips to make it a little easier:
👨👩👦👦Try group grading (but don’t tell your students). When students work in groups, give every student a handout or assignment. When they finish the assignment, collect everyone’s paper but only grade one per group. You can tell them you’ll choose a paper randomly to grade and they’ll likely monitor each other’s work to make sure they get the grade they want. This means you’ll have one quarter of the grading to do, while inspiring collaboration and cooperation in your students.
📢Rather than having students turn work into you, have them verbalize their responses. This works particularly well for jigsaw activities. Each group has a different task and they need to report back to the class. Grade their responses as they share with the larger group. This allows you to finish all of the grading during the class period, leaving you with no work to take home.
✅Be really clear about what you’re assessing and only assess what you plan to. My favorite trick is to add the words “Did the student…” in front of any performance indicator or standard. I award 5 points to a student if the answer is yes, 3 points to a student who attempted to meet the standard but didn’t quite get it, and 0 points if an attempt wasn’t made.
Learn more about this concept in my 2021 microblog from #slowchathealth.
Teacher Wellness Tip #5: Nail Down Your Curriculum
I think this is the single-most important step health educators can take to curb their stress levels. Imagine if you knew what you were teaching every day. Not only would you have more time for yourself, but you’d likely be a more effective teacher.
Here’s why.
- If you are not scrambling to plan your day-to-day lessons, you are left with time to reflect on how each lesson went. Making small changes to update content or tweak methods becomes a more sustainable endeavor when it is not combined with planning each lesson from scratch.
- It also allows time to look for gaps. You have time to identify what standards you might be missing or which could be taught more effectively.
- Having a fully established curriculum makes it easier to share with families, particularly when they may be concerned about particular content.
- When teachers have fully developed curriculum, they have the time and flexibility to innovate. They have the time to develop relationships with students, to help tackle school wellness efforts, and even better, the time to take care of themselves.
And this is exactly why I created Health At School. I want to make your job just a little bit easier. I’ve spent close to 20 years presenting about skills-based health at conferences. It’s there, where I’ve met so many hard-working health teachers, who tell me about trying to write curriculum for multiple preps on their own, without enough time, support or relevant professional development. I want it to be easier for you to be effective and to actually enjoy your teaching life (and your personal one). I’ve built skills-based lessons that I actually teach in my classroom and include everything you need to test them out in yours.
Join my mailing list to learn more about upcoming free trainings as well as fully developed lessons and materials you can use in your skills-based health program.
