In The Aftershocks: Relience Or Badassery?
Are Educators Resilient or Just Plain Badass!?
OK, I said it . . . how was that to hear? It's pretty much where I’m landing these days. Acknowledging teacher's resilience, or even their hard work, just doesn’t quite capture the courage and perseverance they've demonstrated over the past three years.
In TeachWell we focus on emotional intelligence and mindfulness in our work with educators. Let’s be clear about what that means: We ask them to get real about their passion and their pain, both of which can be a force of nature. We invite them to enter the brave space of connection and vulnerability with each other to be healed and supported. We encourage them to meet their edge and soften so that they can build their window of tolerance for unpleasant feelings and increase their capacity for meaning and joy.
There are numerous old adages: You gotta feel it to heal it. You gotta name it to tame it. What you resist persists. And not one of these is necessarily an easy path, but we believe it is a profoundly necessary path. Thank you to my partner Shyla Batliwalla for her keen attention to the impact of trauma over the past three years and for the insight and guidance she offers in her article below. Thank you to all of our partners who are dedicated to educator well-being, and to those working diligently toward education reform. And, a deep bow of gratitude to our badass educators who do the not-always-glamorous work of showing up for our children every day! We see you and we are a steady partner in this journey with you.
Beyond the Crisis: Lessons Learned from a Collective Trauma
By: Shyla Batliwalla
This week marks exactly three years since our world turned upside down with the arrival of Covid-19. While we are now navigating the “post-pandemic era,” the aftershocks of months and months of school and community closures, sickness, and loss are still reverberating. It will take years for us to fully understand the long-term effects of this global crisis. With life sprinting forward and Covid in the rear-view, I am constantly wondering if we've taken the pause to process the learnings and loss of this singular time.
When I think back to March of 2020, it’s hard to believe this is something we lived through and not just a fantastical movie. I vividly remember the feeling of heartbreak watching my four year old doing Zoom hokey-pokey with his preschool friends for the first time. I remember getting scammed into buying some super expensive off-brand toilet paper from Amazon that never even showed up out of sheer desperation. I remember fighting with my elderly parents about how many happy birthdays they sang while washing their hands or how many days they let their mail sit before they touched it—I was terrified they may not make it out of this alive. Those first few weeks were a level of fear, anxiety, and chaos I’d never seen or felt before. I also remember the stillness, the quiet, the space to reflect, and the hope that from this crisis we would collectively emerge stronger and better.
Our teachers are navigating their fourth year of pandemic teaching. In year one they were pulled out of their classrooms and forced to learn how to make learning happen virtually. In year two many were still home, isolated, and teaching through a screen. During that third year schools were back—we were masked and we were scared. While this academic year might feel and look like the most “normal” one in half a decade, the social and emotional needs we are seeing in students, teachers, and families is far from normal.
Teachers across our partner sites have shared that they are seeing the most challenging behaviors of their careers. Kids are struggling with the ability to be independent, knowing how to collaborate with peers, with a loss of core academic skills, and an increased level of fear and anxiety. Teachers are struggling with burnout, apathy, being overwhelmed, and with a lack of support. Families are still figuring out how to reconnect with their community, support their students’ social, emotional, and academic learning loss, and navigate their own wellness after years of living in disregulation.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a once-in-a-generation collective trauma. As teachers and practitioners of mental health, this moment of let’s bounce back to normal feels jarring; what we endured epiotmizes abnormal. After any trauma, humans need time to process. We need to unpack what happened in a supportive space, to practice self-care, and to educate ourselves on the long-term impacts of sickness, isolation, and loss. If we are not offering this space to ourselves and the grown-ups in our community, are we offering it to our kids?
As teachers, parents, and community leaders, we encourage you to discuss these last few tumultuous years with the young people in your life and name this loss. Emphasize and normalize these feelings. Ask them:
Do you remember what it felt like to be home for so many months? What did you like about that time? What felt tricky?
Do you remember what it felt like to finally return to school?
How did it feel to wear a mask for so long?
What are some parts of making friends that feel easy? What are some parts the feel tricky?
How might you describe living through the pandemic to your kids one day?
We also encourage you to engage in your own reflection and self-care:
Acknowledge grief and loss: It's normal to feel a sense of grief and loss for the way things were before. Seeing, accepting, and processing these feelings help us move forward.
Self-care: This can look like exercise, mindfulness, and spending time in nature. Self-care can also look like sorting your mail, doing the laundry, taking a shower, going to the doctor, and the actual acts you need to do to take care of yourself.
Seek support: Whether its therapy, support groups, or connecting with community, seeking support is crucial for processing the pandemic and its effects on our lives.
Focus on gratitude: Reflecting on a few small things to be grateful for each day can be a transformational practice, especially during a period of trauma and loss.
The hope I felt during those dark first few weeks of lockdown was not unfounded. Today, I try to life with more gratitude for my health and my family. I am in awe whenever I have a moment of connection with a large group of friends (especially at an indoor place!). I’m able to take some of the peace of the slower pace of life we felt during that time into my life today and be ok with less plans and more time for rest and spontaneity. As we gain space and time from the pandemic, my hope is that we continue to grow, learn, and emerge stronger and more thoughtful than we were before.