LISA BUSH

wellness

Open Letter to Teachers: A Parent’s Perspective of Remote Learning

Let’s talk for a moment about my daughter’s kindergarten teacher, Ms. X. 

No, that is not her real name, but I would like to protect her identity and “X” has a cool, mysterious sound to it. And Ms. X is very cool. She wears fun shoes and sings. During this remote learning journey, Ms. X has everything done perfectly. PERFECTLY.

She follows the Alberta Education Guidelines. She focuses on basic literacy and numeracy skills. She provides open-ended assignments that follow a clear pattern every week. She assigns a small number of assignments that are fun, hands-on, age appropriate, easily adaptable, and simple. She has one class meeting each week for 30 minutes. 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy as Ms. X (and now my daughter who adores Ms. X) says.

From an educator’s perspective, any family should be able to do Ms. X’s assignments.

Any. Family. At. All.

We cannot do them. On a good week we might turn in two assignments. Some weeks we don’t get any turned in. Sometimes we catch up over the weekend. Sometimes we don’t. From a pedagogical perspective, what would help this situation?

Should Ms. X be more entertaining? No. That is impossible. Her class meetings are better than Netflix. They are the highlight of our week. 

Should she be more organized? No. She is perfectly organized, even by my own high standards. I have very clear expectations of her assignments every week. 

Does she need to start flip-grid conversations or ask me to download interactive apps to engage my daughter further? No. That would send my anxiety skyrocketing and I would most likely shut down completely.

Should she send me emails about my kid’s missing assignments? No, that would anger me immensely.

Basically, there is nothing that Ms. X could do better.

You see, teachers, this is not on Ms. X, It’s on us. It is on me and my family.  And here is where we are. Husband: full-time job. Me: full-time assistant principal. 50+ hours of daycare for my children: gone. 

We do take education seriously. But it’s not our top priority. Our top priority is keeping our kids alive in a very literal sense. Also high on the list is to not do irreversible damage to our mental health and to do the jobs that pay our mortgage (especially critical during these times of economic chaos). And sometimes that is all I can do in  a day. 

So, some days—sure—we turn in my daughter’s journal entry. But most days my children roam the house like feral animals hiding cake under their bed, pulling the wooden boards off our backyard fence to make see-saws, and painting their eyelids pink as my husband and I teach and work online. 

I share this with you because I know that countless families are in similar or more complex situations than my own. 

I know that many of you are in similar or more complex situations than my own. 

So, if your students are not responding well to remote learning, please, please do not take it as a personal reflection of you. Your students love you. They miss you. But that doesn’t equate with them having the capability of turning in all, or any, of your assignments.

Please reach out to them. Check in to see if they are physically and mentally safe. 

But also know that, you are doing an amazing job. Your ability to adapt to this new reality has been nothing short of astounding. Resist the urge to judge your own worth as a teacher by how things are playing out now. And, please, do whatever it is that you need to keep yourself mentally safe and healthy. 

I thank you (and Ms. X) for all that you do.

Why Now is Not the Time

Last week, I was speaking with a friend on the phone. I love her dearly and would do anything for her. 

Almost. 

She asked me for wellness advice. My response was a hard and fast, “No.”

You see, friends, now is not the time.

I have watched with fascination as people online have reacted to the Global Pandemic in various ways. 

  • Some of us turn to humour. 
  • Some of us are consumed by grief.
  • Some of us look for joy.
  • Some of us are filled with anger. 
  • Some of us follow strict daily routines. 
  • Some of us struggle to get out of bed. 
  • Some of us throw ourselves into projects.
  • Some of us create art.
  • Some of us find comfort in household tasks.
  • Some of us go for long runs.
  • Some of us sleep our way through the day. 
  • Some of us are struggling to hold ourselves up.

It’s all valid. 

We, during times of normalcy, have complex ways of handling anxiety, grief, or the unknown. On any given day during the best of times, our self-care routines will and should vary. 

Now, when everything is upside down and inside out, attempting to give blanket advice undermines our own uniqueness. It overlooks our varied resourcefulness we are constantly tapping into just to make it through the day. It’s also negating the fact that our days are ridiculously dissimilar. 

Some of us are working extended days as front-line workers. Some have just been laid off and find ourselves struggling to fill the hours. Some of us are in large, safe, homes close to our families. Some of us have none of these things. 

Now is a time to embrace our own diverse coping mechanisms. They will look very different. And they should. 

I write to many of you who are fellow educators, friends, and family. I am thinking of you and sending lots of love and healing your way.

However you chose to make it through COVID19, I honor you. Take care. 

9 Wellness Tips for Educators, Writers, Feminists, & Those Changing the World

I am so excited to share with you 9 of my absolute favourite wellness practices. These are the tried and true practices that have kept me on a path of mental and physical wellbeing over the years. There is no particular order to them. I actually jotted them down in a journal while bathing my two small kids (Because that’s how my life is right now. Let’s go with it.). Take them. Share them. Make them your own. I hope you enjoy!

  1. Be your full Self. A lot of time we fall into the trap of trying to keep the peace and in doing so we deny our own ideas and our own potential in life. Author and feminist, Chmamanda Ngozi Adichie, writes about women, “Her job is not to make herself likeable, her job is to be her full self, a self that is honest and aware of the equal humanity of other people.” So my practice for you is not to make yourself likeable. Your job is to unapologetically be your own beautifully brilliant self.
  2. Failure is necessary. Failing is not a top ten favourite activity of mine (or a top 100 activity for that matter) but, the way I see it, if you are not failing, you are not trying new things. And if you are not trying new things, you are not growing. So does it suck and hurt your ego? Yes. But it is ABSOLUTELY an essential part of growth and change. View failure as a sign that you are challenging yourself and growing as a person.
  3. Don’t try to do it all. The day before winter break I had 3 people come up to me and say, “I don’t know how you do it all.” My reply was, “I don’t.” My husband takes my kids to school in the morning and picks them up most days. He does all of our grocery shopping and cooks most meals. If you are a family member or a good friend of mine, you received no Christmas cards this year. Because I didn’t send any. Don’t try to do it all. It is impossible.
  4. Surround yourself with those who inspire you. The people who you surround yourself with have a huge impact on your life. Make sure that people in your day-to-day life are those who lift you up. It could be their awesome outlook on life, or a wicked sense of humour, or an inspiring spiritual life.
  5. Take small steps. We live in a time when big sweeping actions are all the rage. 20-day juice fast! 90-day yoga challenge! Write a novel in one month! One of my favourite wellness writers, Dan Tricarico, warns against that. He says, “A commitment to the smaller action builds the habit.” I agree. If you do small actions over time, they create a habit. A habit over time has the potential to create remarkable change. Let’s embrace the small consistent actions. They have the power to change our world.
  6. Keep experimenting. There is no one way to achieve wellness. Your own wellness practices will change through time. This is good! Your practices can and SHOULD vary and develop based on your own needs, your work demands, your circumstances. Last week we had a Polar Vortex sweep through Alberta (It’s a real thing. You can google it). Temperatures were between -30 and -40 Celcuis. Did I even attempt to go to the gym or wake up at 5 am do my yoga? No! I allowed myself to hibernate in a big way. This week will look different. Experiment. Play around. Try new things.
  7. Know the WHY behind your wellness. Why are you keeping yourself healthy? Why is your health so important to you? Here it is for me — I want to be healthy because I have two young children and my gosh I need every ounce of energy possible to keep up with them. I want to be healthy because I am writing and publishing my first novel (more news on this soon!) and working full time as an assistant principal and that requires me to be at my optimum health. Knowing this gets me on my yoga mat or to the gym or eating broccoli when I would rather have cheezies (just writing that made me want to find those cheezies.). Know the WHY behind your wellness.
  8. Spend time alone. In a recent Instagram post, author Elizabeth Gilbert writes, “Isolation is when you cut yourself off from the world; Solitude is when you open yourself up to it completely, but with no distractions from anybody else.” Amen, Elizabeth! Spend time in solitude. Meditate. Pray. Write. Journal. Open yourself up completely to the world.
  9. Do more of what fills your heart with joy. This week I wrote in my journal, “I need to waste more time.” What I mean by that is I need to do less of the things that I HAVE to do or that I feel that I SHOULD do. And I need to do more of what fills my heart with joy. Like going for long walks outside. Or wandering aimlessly through the library. Do more or what you love.

Wishing you a fantastic last week of January! And here’s to changing the world! One small step at a time.

— Lisa

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Eat. Drink. And Be Healthy!

If we want to be the best possible version of ourselves, we must put our wellness as teachers as a top priority.

This post is challenging for me to write, as I would be generally content to spend December living off of frothy coffee drinks and holiday cheese balls. Except that when I have previously attempted this ‘Eat anything! Drink anything!’ holiday mentality, my energy plummets. My immune system is shot. I feel sluggish. I can’t think clearly. It’s not the ideal way to end the year.

Which is why I remind myself over and over again, “If we want to be the best possible version of ourselves, we must put our wellness as teachers as a top priority.”

Especially in December. 

When the daylight hours are few, our energy is low, and our ‘to do’ list seems to never end, it is critically important to take care of our basic wellness needs by eating, drinking, and being heathy.

I have no expectations of myself (or my readers) to train for a marathon this month or embark on a keto diet, but I think it is crucial that we hold fast to the basic pillars of wellness in December. Basic, folks. Nothing fancy. Here are a few guidelines that have worked well for me:

Eat:  Eat foods that you can put into your body that will actually give you energy and sustain you as opposed that those that will give you a quick jolt of energy that will then drop at 3 p.m. (think more carrots and pineapple, less of the plate of donuts in the staffroom or the tray of nanaimo bars at your kid’s holiday party). Ensure that you are feeding yourself nutrient-dense foods at regular intervals throughout the day.

Drink: I feel a bit hypocritical as I am writing this, since this time of the year I could live with a mug of coffee superglued to my hand, but here we go: Put down the coffee and sip water throughout the day  (I wrote that as much for me as I did for you.) Water is essential to your health. Bring a water bottle and keep it on your desk. Add lemons or mint leaves if you like or pretend it is a clear caramel macchiato but keep drinking water All. Day. Long. 

Be Healthy: December is a ridiculously busy time for teachers. It is easy for us to say, “I just need to get through the holidays and then I will …” (Fill in the blank here with whatever: catch up on my sleep or return to a regular gym routine…). However, I implore you to avoid abandoning your selfcare routine at all costs. Instead, focus on the best way to take care of your mental and physical health this month. For me, in the madness of the holidays, this is usually a solitary activity like writing or walking. And I do it daily. 

Yes, daily.

Even in December?

Especially in December!

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The most important life skills that students learned in my class…

November sees us wrapping up the term. Often, that means our students are slammed with multiple deadlines and tests. For some of these students, the anxiety of the end-of-term deadlines can be paralyzing. 

We find ourselves telling our students to “Work on your project, it’s due soon!” or “Don’t forget to study!” But, ask yourself, when was the last time you taught your students how to work effectively or how to study in addition to telling them to do so? And, when was the last time you told them why they are doing it?
 
It was not until much later in my teaching career (when I began examining my own health and wellness), that I took the time to really delve into the How’s and Why’s of time management and studying, first with myself and, eventually, with my own students. I cleared my class schedule, and dove into the rabbit hole of neuroscience to discover positive ways to deal with anxiety, effective time management strategies, and the optimal environment for learning, 

In retrospect, my dive into health and wellness gave me some of the most important life skills I could pass on to my students. 
 
As a way of saying “Thanks!” and “Welcome!” for giving me your trust and time, below you will find my 4, most-trusted lessons in time management and studying. I hope you will find these lessons useful and share them to your students.

Lessons in Wellness
What Students Should Be Doing and Why

  1. What: Avoid cramming for a test; rather, study in smaller periods spread out over time.
    Why: Studying in short bursts over a long period of time is effective due to repeated retrieval. The act of forgetting information and then remembering it spread out through time leads to durable learning. Studying for 60 minutes spread out over the course of three days is more effective than studying for 60 minutes the night before a test. Cramming the night before a test increases anxiety, which leads to the inability to remember and retain information. Getting a full night’s sleep is imperative to moving information from short- to long-term memory.
  2. What: Put away phones and devices and clear desks of everything while writing (or studying in class or taking a self-quiz or a test).
    Why: Multitasking does not exist. Every time you look at your phone to check a text or to find a new song to listen to, your brain is having to change tasks. Not only does task shifting completely interrupt your thought process and creative flow, it increases your levels on anxiety (which leads to forgetting information) and lowers levels of productivity. That means that you would have to spend longer to complete a task while task shifting than someone who was focused on one task at a time.
  3. What: Get up and move. Take a body break.
    Why: Most of us are not getting enough exercise. The act of exercise releases a brain fertilizer (BDNF) that helps us store memories. Exercise also releases glucose, which is food to our brain. Exercise increases our alertness and focus.
  4. What: Keep all devices outside the bedroom at night. 
    Why: Children need eight to 11 hours of sleep per night, depending on their age. Students who unplug and keep devices outside of their room on average get 42 more minutes of sleep per night. Lack of sleep leads to depression, cardiovascular disease, obesity, inattention, and concentration difficulties.

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