Working With People Is Stressful
Schools are people places filled with multiple relationships. By its very nature this contributes to our stress levels as we have to work with a range of people, with different personalities and a vast array of factors impacting on their mood on any particular day. One of the things that we know through working with a student whose behaviour is challenging is that WE can’t change OTHER people’s behaviour. We can’t really FORCE another person to do something if they really choose NOT to. We can’t change other people’s behaviour. Successful behaviour management strategies provide an environment where students are ‘encouraged’ to make better decisions. Ultimately the only behaviour that we can control is our own. Understanding and accepting this…
Struggling to Disconnect – Try Box Breathing
In today’s fast-paced world, the concept of “busy” has taken on new dimensions. With the constant influx of emails, notifications and social media updates, many people find themselves perpetually engaged, unable to switch off even when they need to. The line between work and personal life has blurred and many people find it difficult to switch off. As a result, the modern mind is in a near-constant state of activity, under load and struggling to find moments of peace. The Challenge of Disconnecting The digital age, while offering unparalleled connectivity and convenience, has also brought about a significant challenge: the inability to disconnect. Whether it’s the pressure to respond to work emails after hours or the allure of endless scrolling…
60 000 Thoughts per Day
Scientists say that we have over 60 000 thoughts each day. That is a scary, huge number! However, what is even scarier is thinking about which thoughts we listen to without even realising it and which ones we let fade off, out of our minds just as quickly as they arrived. I like using the analogy of our minds being like a busy train station. Our brain is the station and our thoughts are the trains coming in and out. Thousands of trains pass through the station on a daily basis and most of the time we jump on board the first train that goes past without even being aware of where it is going. We don’t think too much…
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
I’m not awesome at using spreadsheets and it’s not a significant part of my role. Is it helpful for me to spend hours trying to be ‘good’ at spreadsheets? It could be, but I can probably guess that I would be frustrated at least 80% of the time. I would have some serious self-doubt and self-loathing going on and I would be feeling down about myself when I realise how much I actually don’t know but really wish I did. So why bother? I know an amazing person at school who would gladly help me with any spreadsheet questions I have. When I leave his office, I always feel wonderful and proud of myself knowing I have been productive and…
Top 5 Reasons Why Some People I Work With Are So Difficult
Whenever I speak in workplaces about difficult managers and co-workers, there is always one question that always comes up… ‘How do we get rid of difficult people?‘ But I think a more important question to ask is, ‘Why are they so difficult?’ If you believe that the answer to that question is that they are … “100% pure evil!”, “They cannot help it” or “They are beyond help”, it will certainly affect the way you interact with that person and possibly make a bad situation much, much worse. Here are my top five, less-sinister explanations for difficult people at work. Although these explanations do not excuse their behaviour, they certainly can help you see their behaviour in a kinder light…
Feeling Overwhelmed – Simplify Things
At times we can try to be all things, to all people. However, this can be to the detriment of our own well-being. The following strategies, inspired by author Kelly Exeter, are intended to help you slow down and bring some calmness to your life whenever you are feeling at risk of becoming over-whelmed. Reduce the Number of Decisions You Need to Make Decision making is incredibly tiring. Staff in schools make hundreds, if not thousands of decisions each day. The pure volume of decisions that we make leads to cognitive fatigue. Establishing routines and pre-planning are great strategies for reducing the number of decisions we have to make each day (or at least reducing the number of decisions that…
Why Would You Want to Work in Schools?
During my career, the status of the teaching profession has declined. A generation or two ago parents generally were more supportive of teachers. In times gone by, when issues arose parents were more likely to back and support teachers than immediately jump to the defense of their children and ‘attack’ or question the teacher’s judgement. The cartoon depicting an angry parent questioning a teacher about a student’s grades, that is found in many staffrooms, is an illustration of this shift. There are many factors contributing to this change in status. These include increased stress levels of parents, the competitive nature of an aspirational society and how busy and time poor most people feel. People under stress are quick to blame…
Worry Less – Smile More
In the fast-paced school environment, we can often find ourselves overwhelmed with concerns. From staff and resource shortages; curriculum changes; unrealistic expectations of some parents; leadership issues; struggling students; to poor behaviour, it’s easy to fall into a cycle of worry. Will Billy have a meltdown today? Will that cranky parent complain about me? Will this lesson work? Will my students engage and behave? Will my hours get cut? Will the wifi crash? Our days can be filled with worrying. However, most of the things we worry about, never actually happen. Worrying is a natural human response to uncertainty and potential threats. However, research shows that a significant portion of our worries are unfounded. A study by the University of…
7 Ways to End Your Day Feeling Happy and Satisfied
1.Reflect on what you achieved One of the challenges of working in schools is we can’t necessarily see what we have achieved each day. Take a few moments to review how you used your time today. Clean up for a fresh start tomorrow Clutter, physical and virtual, takes a surprising toll on your energy. Tidy your desk at the end of each day — after saving your open work — close all of your computer’s unneeded windows and browser tabs. Cleaning up today, gives you a fresh start tomorrow. Prepare tomorrow’s to-do list in order of priority Doing this has two benefits. First of all, it gives you a sense of completion when you hand off tasks to another day.…
Serotonin Seeker
What you eat and when you eat it, the amount of exercise you take and the amount of sleep you get are among the key factors that affect the production of neurotransmitters. This means that by controlling these factors you can control your internal ecology to maintain abundant supplies of your feel- good chemical, serotonin. Humans appear to have a survival instinct to eat fat. Fat is OK – you need some fat on your body to function. But if you’re carrying excess weight you’ll feel low because you’re placing extra load on all your physical systems. Losing unwanted fat is a crucial step in achieving and maintaining a natural high but the worst message you can send an overweight…
Technology is NOT a substitute for teaching (Part 2)
In part 1 last week, I described an activity utilising technology to present student research. Producing the movie took much longer than doing the research. Whilst the additional learning is beneficial, the problem here is two-fold. First, the actual subject-relevant learning portion of the assignment (research and writing) took up a tiny fraction of her time. The additional learning (how to use the video-making software) may be valuable as a future workplace skill but the actual process of making the movie was really ‘busy work’. Once you’ve edited images to match one 5-second audio segment, you don’t learn anything more by editing the remaining 59 segments! It was an utterly ineffective use of potentially valuable study time. Second, the point…
Technology is NOT a substitute for teaching (Part 1)
Infusing education with technology is a wonderful idea. Classrooms with access to the internet and mobile devices have marvellous opportunities to make learning relevant to 21st Century students. Technology offers new ways to enable and encourage self-learning, engage students with content and build capability in vital workplace skills. However, as with every other educational strategy or tool, technology is only effective when embedded in a well thought out learning experience and specifically applied to support learning outcomes. Unfortunately, the rush to incorporate technology into our schools and classrooms (eg BYOD) has in some cases served to undermine fundamentally sound teaching and learning strategies. The overwhelming notion seems to be that, if we incorporate a computer, mobile phone or iPad somewhere…