Supporting Teacher Mental Health with Danna Thomas, Ep. 90 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Supporting Teacher Mental Health with Danna Thomas, Ep. 90 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Chrissy Beltran[00:00:02]:

Hey, coach. Don’t worry. We’ll get to your episode in just a second. I just wanted to let you know that if you’re listening to this in December or January, it’s time for instructional coaching with miss b to take its little holiday hiatus. Every year from December through January, I take a season break. Then in February, the new season comes roaring in, and I share all the latest coaching strategies, troubleshooting, and ideas with you. I plan the season starting in January. So until then, I’d love to hear from you. Head to buzzing with miss b dot com slash survey to share your thoughts on the podcast. You can help me plan episodes and chat with guests that really help you with your everyday coaching work. I want these episodes to be meaningful and helpful, so please tell me what you’re thinking. If you complete the survey, you’ll also be entered to win a $25 gift card from a place of your choosing as long as I can grab it online. Head to buzzing with missb.com/survey and let me know what you think about Instructional Coaching with Miss b, the podcast, and enter twins, sir, the giveaway. I’m also using this hiatus to share some of the most popular episodes from the last six years. I know. Crazy six years. Maybe you’ve missed some very special gems that would help you out in this next semester. So keep looking for an episode every week in your podcast player. And, of course, you can listen on the blog at fussingwithmissb.com/podcast. Happy holidays and happy coaching everybody. You’re listening to Buzzing with Miss b, the coaching podcast, where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach, and every coach does too. I’m Krissy Beltran, an instructional coach, resource creator, and coffee enthusiast, and I’m your host. Stay tuned for practical tips and honest coaching talk that will help you coach with confidence. Hey, coaches. Welcome to episode 90. This month, we are talking all about matters of the heart and so far we’ve chatted about feelings coaches have in episode 88 and how setting boundaries can make you a better coach in 89. And then today, we’re actually talking about coach and teacher mental health and what coaches can do about it. So we all know coaches are not counselors, although sometimes you might feel like you are. But

Chrissy Beltran[00:02:15]:

there are some things that we can do to support the mental health of our teachers and ourselves. Today, we are going to get into all of that and give you some ideas, some things to think about, and some tools that can help you to really support mental health and at least mental health awareness on your campus. Coaches, we spend so much time trying to give to our teachers. It’s time to do something for yourself. The teacher care crate by the designer teacher is such a fun way to treat yourself, and the best part is it’s delivered right to your home. Even though it’s called teacher care crate, it’s full of things that coaches will love. Each month’s crate is a different theme, and it includes items to brighten your mood, day, and home. Self care items include artwork and decor, fun supplies, cute teacher stuff, wearable items, treats, and more. Head to buzzing with missb.com/teachercrate to get your first box. Using this link doesn’t add anything to the cost, but it does mean I will receive a small amount from your purchase that helps keep keep this show going. So head to buzzing with missb.com/teachercrate today. I’m going to make an assumption and you tell me if I’m wrong. You feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. I know it’s true. There are always too many things to do and too little time. If you’re like me, your boss will walk down the hallway and shout, go home Beltran. That’s why I am telling everyone about the forty hour work week with Angela Watson. Angela was a guest on this very podcast back in season one, and she shared her ideas for managing your time, teaching and stuff to help you make the most of your time at work while making time for home too. But that was just the beginning In her membership, the forty hour work week, Angela helps you focus on what matters to have a purposeful and productive work day and then go home. Angela helps teachers find on average eleven hours a week that they can take back for themselves while still being a great teacher. The best part is that Angela has a new membership especially for coaches. She partnered with my friend and coffee buddy, Nicole Turner of Simply Coaching to create the forty hour work

Chrissy Beltran[00:04:17]:

week for coaches. Check it out at buzzingwithmissb.com/40hourweek and get your time back. So let’s welcome Danna to the podcast. Welcome.

Danna Thomas [00:04:27]:

Thank you so much for having me. I am so thrilled to be here. So grateful to be among so many amazing guests that you’ve had. So I am thankful for the space and for everybody who’s tuning in and listening.

Chrissy Beltran[00:04:38]:

Oh, that’s wonderful. Well, that’s such a nice way to start our conversation about mental health. So that’s wonderful. It’s thankfulness, gratitude. I really appreciate you being here. I know it’s such a busy time. We’re actually recording this over. You know, what where many people are on a winter break, not everybody. And, so I’m I really appreciate you squeezing me in. I’m trying to be on top of it. I work from home with little ones, and, you know, my time is not my own. So I just try to squeeze it in where I can, so I appreciate you getting in here this week. Could you introduce yourself to our listeners and talk a little bit about who you are, how you ended up here, and what kind of work you focus on?

Danna Thomas [00:05:15]:

Yeah. My name’s Danna Thomas. I’m coming to you right now from Baltimore, Maryland, home of the Happy Teacher Revolution headquarters. And, also, Baltimore is where I had my own experience as an educator, as a Baltimore City public school teacher for seven years. And the reason I became a teacher was because my educators were my heroes who I who I refer to as my emotional first responders who supported me when I was in crisis. Because when I was in high school and college, I represented the one in four Americans who grapples with a mental illness. I represented the one in five college students who had contemplated suicide, and I represented a statistic that the onset of mental illness most frequently occurs between the ages of 17 and 24. And so when I was grappling with anxiety and depression and panic attacks, I spent a lot of effort and energy and time in hiding that from my parents and hiding it from my friends, but I couldn’t hide it from my teachers. And it was miss Balderson, miss Goro, professor Orr, professor Samson. Shout out to my educators who truly, honestly, you know, notice the subtle changes in behavior as warning signs, encouraged me to seek treatment and to get help. They were the ones who truly saved my life, not only just offering the differentiation and accommodation for me when I was in crisis so I could make it to graduation, but so I could make it here to be chatting with you today. And so they’re the reason I became a teacher myself. And it wasn’t until I became miss Thomas, so to speak, that I realized the lack of preparedness as well as ongoing support when it came to the social emotional demands of the job and when it came to working with students who had experienced trauma firsthand. There were no courses or practice questions or professional development at the time around compassion fatigue or toxic stress or caregiver burnout and those types of things. And, you know, I very much recognize the need for this. And I also recognize that in some places, like the in where I was, I didn’t necessarily have supportive leadership at the time. And the traditional structures and chains of command with which to follow, you know, I did not feel supported by. So Happy Teacher Revolution

Danna Thomas [00:07:24]:

started as a grassroots support group for education professionals, for anybody who wanted and craved the time and space to feel, deal, and be real about the social, emotional, intellectual demands of the job. And so as I was researching burnout and turnover and the impacts of teacher well-being on the school to prison pipeline, all these things, I thought, oh my gosh. There really needs to be a type of professional development space to support student teachers, new teachers, veteran teachers, you know, all of us and school psychologists and social workers and you know, anybody who serves and supports students. I was really, really concerned about their mental health and well-being. And so after seven years in the classroom, I made the leap to work on Happy Teacher Revolution full time, and that’s where I am now and serving and supporting our pilot sites across 30 different states in The US and Canada. We’re expanding in different countries all of the time, and so it’s really exciting to be able to offer that support for folks. So I’m excited to talk with you today and and to share some more action steps and strategies and noticings that I’ve had in doing this work and especially in the midst of COVID and beyond, because really, we are we are in a pandemic of teacher burnout as well as the pandemic of COVID, as well as the pandemic of social injustices that we’re facing. So it’s so important now more than ever as we’re reflecting, you know, going into the rest of the school year when folks are listening and beyond what sustainability looks like in this work.

Chrissy Beltran[00:08:58]:

Oh my gosh. You just said, like, a 100,000 things that were so good.

Danna Thomas [00:09:02]:

I kept talking and talking. I was like, oh my gosh. Now I need to wrap it up because No.

Chrissy Beltran[00:09:06]:

It was really good. Really good. It was just yeah. I mean, it just everything you said, it just was so, I guess, relatable, you know, and and so true. I remember starting teaching and I had no training in anything. I knew nothing about, you know, about mental health in students. And, I mean, they teach you to look for certain things for very specific situations and that’s it. And so many of my kids had been through significant trauma, and I had very little clue on how to help them. And, you know, so many times we kind of revert to how we were raised. That’s how we interact with children, and that’s not helpful necessarily with kids who are coming from a completely different framework. And so it was, yeah, it was a really tough road, and that does burn you out. It real it’s exhausting because you really do have good intentions, and you don’t have the tools to do it. Mhmm. So, yeah, that’s huge.

Danna Thomas [00:09:56]:

And that feeling of powerlessness and the craving specifically for autonomy, you know, that’s one of the things that we measure in the data and evidence around researching the impact of Happy Teacher Revolution is, you know, before the pandemic, we were evaluating and measuring burnout. We were losing using the Maslach burnout inventory. That’s what we were hyper hyper focused on. And then I realized we really need to reframe our mindset and rather than just measuring, okay, how how are we surviving, but rather how we how can we thrive? What what about the folks who are practicing and sustaining their mental health and well-being? And let’s measure that. And let’s try and replicate what that well-being looks like in those principles of well-being, one of which is autonomy. So it is really, really important for for our educators to know that, you know, they have control, they have choices. That’s one of the things we also utilize in the Happy Teach Revolution meetings are the 12 choices, which are adapted from Vicki Davis’ 12 choices to step back from burnout. So things like, I choose to prioritize the relationships that matter. I choose to I choose to schedule and prioritize what really matters. I choose the battles worth fighting. And no matter how the school year started, I choose to finish well. And so that’s something that we use in our happy teacher meetings because there is such a sense of powerlessness that I think our education staff is facing.

Chrissy Beltran[00:11:13]:

Yeah. When you said autonomy, you know, I thought about how whenever I was a new teacher, I was fairly autonomous. I our principal was like, get it done. You know? And it was, nobody really told me anything to do, which was not great. It would have been good to have some direction. And then over time, you know, we got a new principal, and I was still fairly autonomous. And I loved it because I could do what I thought was important, and I could spend time on what I wanted. But that that is no longer in existence. I don’t know anybody who’s autonomous as a teacher anymore. It just over the years, things have really tightened up. And, so teachers’ choices are so limited. So it’s interesting that the choices that you’re focusing on with teachers are things that they really can control and not necessarily about fighting the battle of school culture from a from a teaching position for autonomy.

Danna Thomas [00:12:00]:

You know,

Chrissy Beltran[00:12:00]:

you you can’t necessarily change the way that your school works in that specific area, but you can look and see what choices do I have within, you know, these very limited things that I can control. Mhmm. Exactly. So I really love the goal that’s on your site. You it says we aim to build mentally healthy teachers who can subsequently build emotionally healthy students. And I think that’s so I just really loved it because it seems so essential. Would you share a little bit about why you settled on that goal?

Danna Thomas [00:12:28]:

Yeah. I appreciate that. And and that’s been a huge goal for us because of the research behind the importance of supporting teacher mental health. I mean, this is a relatively new frontier, but from the studies that are out there that do exist, there’s a study from, the University of British Columbia that measured the stress hormone that we call cortisol in teachers and that of their students through saliva samples. So they had teachers and kids spin into these test tubes that they said that the students loved. They had a really fun experiment for the middle schoolers. But what they found were that teachers with higher levels of cortisol have correspondingly students with higher levels of cortisol, which means to say that stress is contagious. There’s also studies from University of Arizona that linked teacher depression to low student math scores. And also, research from University of Wisconsin that ninety three percent of teachers experience these high levels of stress, and the this was also data that was taken from before COVID. There’s a study as well from the Yale Child Study Center, that linked early childhood teachers as low job satisfaction and high levels of burnout with a disproportionate amount of disciplinary action, referrals and suspensions, those types of things of students of color more than white students and boys more than girls at a rate of four times as much. Wow. And so the idea is that if we’re not supporting the mental health and well-being of our teachers, we’re not adequately supporting our students’ emotional health, their mental health, their academic achievement, and it’s perpetuating the school to prison pipeline. So it’s become an equity issue. And so, really, you know, I think back to when I was a student who was struggling. Thanks to my educators that they were mentally well and were pouring into their own cup, we were able to nurture and build those relationships and have those noticings. And so the whole concept of happy teacher revolution, the revolution part of it, is revolutionizing with which we the lens through which we support our students by saying, okay. If it takes a village to raise a child, who’s taking care of the village? I’m worried about if those folks are okay, because I believe the best social emotional learning curriculum that’s out there for students is that of the adult.

Danna Thomas [00:14:39]:

Is how is the adult modeling social emotional competencies like self awareness, social awareness, relationship skills? Our students are so bright. They watch. They learn. They’re seeing what’s being modeled to them. And so, unfortunately, you know, from my experience working in schools, there’s a lot of adults that I met and worked alongside who did not master some of these social emotional competencies themselves, you know, frankly. You know, how do we teach kids not to bully one another when there’s adults bullying other adults in some school buildings and school cultures and climates? And so, you know, what this is really all about is is modeling to students being the ultimate social emotional learning models for for our students in terms of demonstrating those those CASEL competencies.

Chrissy Beltran[00:15:19]:

Yeah. That’s huge. That’s and that’s so true. The study you mentioned about stress being contagious, it’s so it’s so intuitive that that would be the case.

Danna Thomas [00:15:26]:

Right. Exactly. We’re like, duh. But signs Right. It’s like, duh. Yeah. But there’s gotta be an article that we signed and

Chrissy Beltran[00:15:33]:

Right.

Danna Thomas [00:15:33]:

And and and for good measure. Right? I think in health care and also in education, it is very slow to change because it does need to be research based and evidence based, and the data needs to be there because of that huge potential impact, whether positive or negative, what that looks like. And so there’s a lot of this that is very intuitive that teachers are like, yeah. We knew this all along. Hello. Right. But it’s having that that background and research behind it and continuing to to show up and measure and and to demonstrate that this is an ongoing practice. It’s an ongoing field of discovery. And, you know, this is an opportunity for us to not just have the self care piece, but the community care to do this alongside one another and reduce that sense of isolation and and increase that sense of belonging.

Chrissy Beltran[00:16:16]:

Yeah. That’s amazing. So where why are teachers so very unhappy? Because, you mentioned that this is there is a pandemic of teacher burnout right now. And where is this coming from? Like, what is you know, is it societal? Is it, you know, structural? Where where are these the where is the misery coming from for all these teachers?

Danna Thomas [00:16:33]:

Yeah. All of the above. I mean, if you Google why does America hate, the first thing that comes up is that why does America hate teachers before Nickelback. Turns out America hates teachers more than Nickelback. Can you believe it? I just thought considering

Chrissy Beltran[00:16:46]:

how I feel about Nickelback. You know? That’s good stuff.

Danna Thomas [00:16:51]:

Of course. I know. Right? So so there’s a number of things. I mean, so like I had said before, I would say it’s the layers of the pandemic. There’s the ripple effects of COVID nineteen, what the grieving process looks like, this huge amount of death and loss, not only for our students, but stakeholders, community members, colleagues. There’s, you know, over fifteen hundred teachers who have passed away as a result of COVID. And so, you know, I think that’s a huge part of it. The social injustices, this that the pandemic, of of grappling with, you know, supporting our our students in the midst of their own adverse childhood experiences, whether our students have experienced any type of trauma in their lifetime or current ongoing trauma or generational trauma. Trauma in a child’s life can range from any number of things, whether it’s losing a pet or losing a parent, moving neighborhoods, moving countries, experiencing a natural disaster, witnessing an act of gun violence or police brutality or surviving through a pandemic, all instances of trauma. I think another reason teachers are feeling so unbelievably overwhelmed is that there has to be it seems like there’s just this unbelievable amount of flexibility that’s required for the job, and yet this, like, lack of autonomy, like we had mentioned before, and even, like, knowledge around the game plan or the shifting game plan that keeps happening. That it’s like, okay, things are changing all of the time, literally with a moment’s notice, and educators are expected to just snap their fingers and have everything prepared and ready to go. I think another thing that’s been challenging for educators and all of these things have been challenging before the pandemic, but I think it has been exacerbated in terms of setting boundaries. Now teachers’ kitchen tables have become their classrooms and vice versa, and I think it has been incredibly challenging for teachers to disconnect and attach with love when it comes to setting those boundaries for their work life and their personal life, and, you know, potentially deleting email off of their phone or deleting the notifications, buzzing all the the time. You know? Or having very clear boundaries and expectations for parents, families, and stakeholders as to when and when you are not available, and how to find you and what those what those containers, look like

Danna Thomas [00:19:02]:

for an educator’s time. I think it has been incredibly challenging for our teachers who are also parents and or caregivers maybe of their own elderly or aging parents or family members and those types of things. I mean, like, showing up and constantly feeling like you have to pour out of an empty cup, without sustaining your own well-being is something that is is facing our educators big time now more than ever.

Chrissy Beltran[00:19:26]:

Yeah. I mean, those those are all so many of those issues are just enormous. They’re wildly huge. And so I’m wondering how much of it really is in teachers’ control in terms of, you know, finding their own happiness. And and you talked about setting boundaries and and, and pouring into their own cups. How much of that can teachers really control out of all of this?

Danna Thomas [00:19:47]:

Yeah. And I think, you know, it is really challenging to consider because it very much starts at the individual level Mhmm. And it must be systemic. So what I mean by that is teachers need to say no. They need to use their sick days when they are sick. The education system has been built on the backs of individuals who are predominantly women, who are oftentimes giving of their time, energy, and labor for free, going above and beyond those contractual obligations and those contractual hours. And I think that has been absolutely normalized, in fact, celebrated when we cheer for the teachers who never take a sick day, and it’s like they wear like a badge on, I got forty seven days. I got sixty. I got seventy days. Well, guess what? When I left the system, I didn’t cash I didn’t get to cash out any of my forty one days or hours. Right? Like Yep. So why was I why was that something that I you know, why were we celebrating the teachers who stayed at work until late at nine, locking up with the custodial staff, getting there first thing in the morning, you know, taking their big bag of all the work and graining to be on home. Rather, celebrating the teacher, changing the narrative around who wins teacher of the year as someone who is prioritizing their well-being, as someone who actually has time for their family on the weekends, as somebody who has a life outside of of the job. Right? So I think that is that’s huge as it does start with us as individuals saying no and standing up and self advocating, and also realizing that when we take care of ourselves and prioritize our well-being, that is the revolutionary work as well. Because guess what? Historically, teachers weren’t doing that. Uh-huh. Like, for foreverness, that’s something that we just didn’t do. So why not try something different and and see what happens? I think the other thing, yes, it is an individual level and it has to be systemic. This has to be something that’s adopted large scale at the district level where the folks who write the checks or the folks who are calling the shots or the folks who are taking care of their workforce have to invest in their workforce’s well-being. We see major successful

Danna Thomas [00:21:48]:

companies like Google, for example, Google pretty successful, is investing in the mental health, well-being, happiness of their workforce. And when they do, they find that Google employees are happier and they take less sick days and they’re more likely to come back the next year and they’re not on FMLA and there’s not, you know, all of this kind of stuff. They’re more productive. And so imagine if the individuals who are supporting and serving our students are well rested and happy and showing up joyfully for for their job, you know, day in and day out. What could that potentially lead to in the graduating workforce of young people who have an adult in front of them who are modeling these SEL competencies each and every day. And so it really you know, at Happy Teacher Revolution, in terms of supporting individuals, we call them revolutionaries, the folks who initiate, lead, and launch launch happy teacher revolution meetings in their own communities. Mhmm. We’ve supported revolutionaries, individual teachers who’ve launched happy teacher revolution, and they didn’t have the support of their admin, and they didn’t have the support of their district. They thought, you know what? This is needed. I’m gonna start this. And we also have had districts who’ve pilot this piloted this large scale with a large cohort of revolutionaries, and that’s what’s been really cool is that we’ve been able to see, wow, when a district buys in to actually offering well-being and self care as part of a teacher’s contractual professional development, they see well-being as the PD. That’s a that’s a best practice for students. We’ve seen really incredible shifts in terms of supporting staff well-being, the impact on students, as well as the impact on increased belonging and reduced isolation. So it’s really gotta be a both both hand.

Chrissy Beltran[00:23:20]:

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And so, yeah, there’s some things that teachers can do and then some things that they have to maybe work up the pipeline to do or hopefully their administrator’s listening today that will say, oh, you know, this is something that that I can start looking into for my own district or my own school.

Danna Thomas [00:23:33]:

Mhmm. And a happy teacher revolution, it is by teacher, we define teacher as anyone who is in a relationship, caregiver intensive capacity that serves and supports students. So Okay. This is happy principal revolution. It’s happy superintendent revolution. It’s happy instructional coach and mentor revolution. It’s happy secretary revolution, happy nurses, happy lunch ladies, happy bus driver, like, everybody. Okay. And so it really is something that we think, and believe in supporting our students through supporting all of the adults who who work with them.

Chrissy Beltran[00:24:04]:

Okay. Cool. So you mentioned a couple of times the word self care, and that’s a big buzzword and it’s used in a lot of different ways. And so I would like to hear how you define it. And if you and and tell us a little bit about, you know, how does it work? Is it enough? You know, what does it look like when we do it right?

Danna Thomas [00:24:20]:

Yeah. So that’s a really good point. Self care, definitely. It’s funny because it was not trending when I started happy teacher revolutions. It was not trending as a hashtag or when when I even started our Instagram. I started our Instagram account when I was crying in the staff bathroom because I felt so alone and bullied at work. And I thought, you know what? My team isn’t actually on my team, so I’m gonna try and find a virtual team of folks out there who also believe in self care and well-being and these really crazy wacky concepts that were not trending at the time. Mhmm. And now it’s so wild to believe that our Instagram following has grown to nearly 60,000 teachers at the time of this recording and that I am not alone. There are other people who believe in prioritizing educators’ mental health and well-being. And so for self care for me, self care can be defined as the investment in oneself. Self care to me is the best return on investment anyone can make, the best ROI, and that’s a business concept in terms of, you know, the the time and space that one offers oneself, to prioritize their own needs. So oftentimes, self care is confused and replaced with self numbing or self soothing. So for me, self care might be a little bit uncomfortable to take time to meditate or might be a little uncomfortable to take time to journal or it might be a little uncomfortable to say no to those social obligations or to say no to those committees or whatever has been this, anticipated expectation around setting those boundaries. But self care has been misused in terms of the monetization of self care, especially in The United States and Western world. It’s become a $10,000,000,000 industry, and self care very much has a privilege type of perception and lens. So it’s like self care is, first of all, very individual. It’s like how many bubble bath, spa days, manicures, these types of things. That is not self care. Because even when I was spending a bunch of money, all of my income on those those types of things, I would still drive to work the next day and cry in the parking lot to muster up any strength I had to walk into the building. Mhmm. So for me,

Danna Thomas [00:26:24]:

I I I prefer to use concepts and phrases like well-being, which is more grounded in the research of the positive psychology movement. And so we use the RIF scale of well-being as our main metric, but that compose is composed of six different principles under this lens or umbrella of well-being, which are autonomy, environmental mastery, positive relationships with others, personal growth, purpose in life, and self acceptance. So that’s a better breakdown for me when it comes to redefining what self care or rather well-being actually looks like for educators.

Chrissy Beltran[00:27:02]:

That is so interesting. I haven’t heard of the risk scale before, so that gives me a lot to think about, even just categories alone. So what are some basic actionable things that teachers or coaches can do to help provide for their own mental health?

Danna Thomas [00:27:15]:

Mhmm. So the first thing I would say is to prioritize and schedule what really matters. And so the first thing is, you know, every Sunday this is a practice that I have every Sunday when I’m scheduling my my week just like oftentimes every Sunday our educators are lesson planning. And this might be a great way actually to combat the the Sunday scaries, but the idea is to really schedule and prioritize what well be self care or I’d rather use well-being looks like. And so to schedule in those things very deliberately in your calendar and I know some people do, like, Google Calendars. I’m more of a paper and pencil calendar, but I actually write in the and schedule time for myself. Because if it’s not in the schedule, it doesn’t happen.

Chrissy Beltran[00:28:02]:

Yes. Oh my gosh. I see that all the time.

Danna Thomas [00:28:05]:

So that’s the first thing, big time. And the other thing is noticing, like, how easy or challenging it might be to uphold those appointments with yourself. You know? For me, I realized when I first started this practice that more often than not, I was more likely to bail on the commitment to myself than I would be to bail on a Zoom call or a meeting or a parent teacher thing, whatever. I think the neck the next thing is to find opportunities to disconnect and detach from a place of love. That can be disconnecting and detaching from technology. That can be disconnecting, and detaching from, you know, some of those things that might be weighing on you, you know, coming home from work or thinking about all the things on your to do list, those types of things. Sometimes folks have used a physical cue to code switch from, like, going from miss Thomas to Danna, so to speak, or like doctors when they take off their white lab coat

Chrissy Beltran[00:28:56]:

at

Danna Thomas [00:28:56]:

the end of the day and they’re transitioning to their personal life. So whether it’s having some kind of gesture or cue of, like, closing your door and putting something on the shelf, or maybe it’s taking off your lanyard that has your work ID and hanging it up, or maybe it’s coming home and changing clothing immediately, or something like that. Having some kind of physical cue of code switching, and delineating those boundaries between professional and personal. I also think it’s really awesome if folks can delete, their work email from their phone even if it’s temporarily. I even have talked to folks who delete it, like, and reinstall it every single day. But it’s sort of their thing at the end of the day, they’ll delete it off their phone

Chrissy Beltran[00:29:31]:

and then reinstall

Danna Thomas [00:29:32]:

it the next day, which, you know, that for me, I I don’t I couldn’t keep up with that. But, but it is something to consider, in terms of how often you’re plugged plugged in. You know, I think about the metaphor of our cell phones. Like, I plug in my cell phone even when it’s at 98% to try and squeak in two more percentages of juice. You know? I’ll still plug it in. It’s not at a 100. And the idea is, you know, when I when my battery starts to glitch out and I’m not near my phone charger and it gets to the single digits, the apps aren’t working, it starts getting wonky and those types of things. So the idea is, you know, don’t wait until you’re glitching out to plug into self care and well-being. Still plug into those practices even when your battery’s at 98%, and don’t wait necessarily till you get to those emergency levels.

Chrissy Beltran[00:30:14]:

That’s such a good tip. And I I that’s something I really struggle with. I always have struggled with it, as a teacher, as a coach, and now as a work from home mom with no childcare. It’s it’s, it’s always a bear. And I I mean, right now is not a great time for me to to do too many things that are not, like, with my children. But I’ve been thinking a lot about about how I can start at what point can I start adding in, you know, something that I get I used to just take walks after they go to sleep, but then there was a whole nightmare with waking up, and they’re not great? One of them is not a great sleeper yet. She’s still a baby. And so, yeah, just trying to find a place to to do something for my own well-being has been a real challenge, and I even feel like that would happen on the summer. You know? Over summer, whenever you’re off, people are so used to this work work work mode, so sometimes they don’t even turn off then, you know, and do things for themselves. So and that’s just, like, this habit that we perpetuate all the time. We always put ourselves last, and then we’re, like, surprised whenever we run out of fuel. You know? Exactly. So what can coaches do to support teachers in their mental health? Because we know that coaches serve sometimes as like a like a intermediary. They’re in between teachers and admin. They are they hear a lot of the code of the teacher challenges. Teachers do vent a lot to coaches. Coaches can sometimes control certain elements, but not like the big picture. So what are some things that coaches can do that you you could just any suggestions that you have that, that that that school personnel can help teachers with?

Danna Thomas [00:31:43]:

Yeah. I think first and foremost to consider the same type of relationship building, you know, the opportunity to build relationships we do with our students, like offering that opportunity to do that with one another, with our colleagues, with the folks that, you might be mentoring or just working alongside. I listened to a podcast, recently about the crisis of compassion, a compassionate care in the workforce, specifically in health care workers or doctors and nurses and those types of things that that it doesn’t take a lot of extra time to be compassionate as a physician, and that the results are quite phenomenal in terms of folks grappling with, you know, the health conditions that they have, in terms of, you know, the effectiveness of the treatment, all these types of things. And compassion is free and it doesn’t take a lot of time, and it and has a huge impact. And so the same thing with our students, it’s like that goes for ourselves and for with each other. I recommend there’s a video by Brene Brown. She is just absolutely amazing, and and I play this in my keynotes. It’s a from one of her TED Talks about the difference between sympathy versus empathy, and that empathizing is really a it’s a hard choice, but it’s a vulnerable choice, especially for our leaders, or folks in these coaching and mentoring positions. And it’s this idea that you don’t necessarily have to have the answer or the action plan or the solution, and you have to be the one to fix it and give it tomorrow, and here’s the, like, automatic but rather, it’s it’s offering the time and the space to say, listen. I don’t even know what to say right now. I’m just so glad you told me. I’m just so grateful that we can hold space to to connect with one another, because I think that’s really like, our teachers don’t feel listened to. So to have that opportunity for empathy is really huge.

Chrissy Beltran[00:33:32]:

Yeah. I I can speak to that, the compassion of physicians firsthand. I you know, before my second daughter was born, I was in the hospital for five weeks and, while I was pregnant. And so she she was trying to come early, and we were trying to keep her from coming early. And there are lots of other things going on. But I had this high risk specialist who was so incredibly compassionate and just kind, you know, really kind. And it didn’t take him a lot of extra time, although he didn’t ever seem as rushed as many of my other doctors did. And he would he would listen and, you know, he couldn’t fix all the problems. There were things he could not do, you know. But he would say, yeah, you know, I I know that that’s probably hard and you’re probably struggling with this. You have a little one at home and you miss her and just that he understood that was that he acknowledged that was more than I was getting from most other medical personnel, and it really did make a difference. And I actually looked forward to see like, other ones would come busting in in the morning and I was still asleep. I was like, seriously? But he would come in in the morning. I was like, I’m in the hospital. At least let me get some sleep. At least let me sleep. But he would come in and and, you know, I actually didn’t mind seeing him, and he was just a really nice person. So it does make a huge difference even when they they can’t even when they can’t fix a problem. He couldn’t fix everything. You know? He just kind of could stay the course, and just that he would listen and acknowledge was was huge.

Danna Thomas [00:34:48]:

Mhmm. Exactly. Wow. Thanks for sharing that.

Chrissy Beltran[00:34:51]:

Yeah. So do you think that that can lead to teacher retention, just even just that basic act of empathy? Or is there something else that coaches can do specifically to keep great teachers in the field? Because we do lose good teachers all the time due to overwhelm and frustration and always being the ones asked to be on the committees and always being the ones getting the kids who need the most support. So what can coaches do for retention specifically?

Danna Thomas [00:35:15]:

Yeah. Absolutely. We’re seeing more teachers retire early now than ever. Fifty percent of teachers leave in their first five years are new teachers. And now after COVID, there’s been a five hundred percent increase in teachers’ stress, anxiety, and overwhelm, and one in three teachers currently is considering leaving or changing the profession. We’re also seeing this, not just in education. There is there’s been a seemingly mass exodus in many different professions, so not necessarily just education. But when it is happening in education, it becomes really incredibly expensive. There is the effect on on our students as well as other colleagues, like, in the building sort of those unnamed effects of losing great staff, losing great teachers. And so that is something that we are working on in terms of collecting the data so that we can absolutely say happy teacher revolution 100% leads to an increase in the, retention of talent, the retention of our workforce. It is a little bit harder to measure because people do leave for different reasons whether, you know it’s interesting. Like, when I left the district, there was no exit interview. There was no exit survey. There was no data collection around, like, are you leaving the school district for another district? Are you leaving to teach out of state? Are you leaving teaching altogether? Does mental health or stress or anything have anything to do with why you’re leave there’s just no no data on it. So I think that’s really the first step is to get, you know, really clear and deliberate around collecting data about teacher retention. I think the powers that be are are kinda scared about that, but we’re spending the money. We gotta see we have to have that self awareness, and awareness around what that risk the teacher retention actually looks like. So in terms of what coaches can do specifically to keep great teachers in the field, I mean, the first first and foremost is, like I had said, to build those relationships, nurture those relationships. It’s the people there are studies in in workforce psychology that have showed that it’s the folks who are on the perimeters, who are vacillating whether or not they should stay or leave. If those individuals leave, that impacts the people that they’re surrounded by who might not have been likely to leave in the first

Danna Thomas [00:37:24]:

place. And so, really, the idea is to create targeted interventions, multi tiered system of support, MTSS, for adults so that we can intervene in these opportunities where folks might be on the fence or might be considering, to to say, look. We care about you. We care about you holistically as a whole human. We we care about you, you know, and your sustainability in this work. We want to keep great people in the field. And so really what that looks like is coaches also advocating to their leadership. You know, we need professional development, research evidence based professional development, like Happy Teacher Revolution or like, you know, other PD options that are out there, so that we so that so that the messages that the folks at the ground level are getting is our our leadership, our principle, they’re bought in. They stand behind this. They they’re they’re for this. They’re advocating for this. They kinda need that permission. They they need that, like and and one of the things they do is, like, writing a permission slip for yourself. I give myself permission to prioritize my mental health and prioritize well-being. So I think that that’s really huge is for coaches to continue to advocate for the mental health well-being of of the folks that they work work with, work for, as well as for themselves. Because our coaches mean it it’s isolated. It’s lonely at the top. Really, really hard to be on the receiving end of of these things. Also, that you feel like you can’t control or out of your control. The vicarious trauma of in terms of the trauma that those teachers might be experiencing. That, no, you weren’t there when the student did x, y, and z or the parent did x, y, and z. You didn’t witness that. You weren’t didn’t happen to you. But if you’re on the receiving end of of hearing these stories and sharing and being that support, I think that’s that’s hugely helpful. So in terms of, like, what’s the first thing a coach can do tomorrow to support their team? I would say first and foremost, join Happy Teacher Revolution. Check out our website, happyteacherrevolution.com or www.happyteacher.info if you wanna check out some of the resources and the statistics and the research that I had mentioned. And we also have example slide decks from

Danna Thomas [00:39:23]:

different presentations and free webinars, those types of things. Just so that you can know that, like, there is a curriculum out there, there’s methods out there, support out there already, free resources already, and there’s opportunities to keep growing and to get certified. So I’m thank you. Yeah.

Chrissy Beltran[00:39:40]:

Could you tell me a little bit more about how it works, about how Happy Teacher Revolution works? I’d just like to know. I know other people would like to know also.

Danna Thomas [00:39:47]:

Yeah. So our our Happy Teacher Revolution training works in two different ways. The first is if folks wanna join, if individuals wanna join and get certified and become revolutionaries, they can join our online asynchronous certification platform at www.happyteacher.info, where you can find out more about our revolutionary certification. If you’re not quite ready to lead meetings yourself and you kinda just want the dip your toe in the self care and well-being intro, we have a self care and well-being intro course for folks as well. And another way, if there is an opportunity, if there’s folks listening, who are interested in piloting, Happy Teacher Revolution is a pilot program, large scale. So beyond just the one off individuals who can get certified to lead Happy Teacher Revolution meetings to join our pilot, I would love to connect with you, or a member of our team. You can find my email, hello@happyteacherrevolution.com, because our pilot sites are really exciting. That’s when our online training is condensed into one or two days in person for folks to actually be able to demo the Happy Teacher meetings and be able to lead and graduate from the Happy Teacher program just after a single day of professional development. So if that’s something, that folks are interested in large scale, we have that opportunity as well.

Chrissy Beltran[00:41:03]:

How neat. Is there anywhere else that people can find you online or in the real world? I gave your your site and your address email address. Anything else?

Danna Thomas [00:41:10]:

Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, check us out again at happyteacherrevolution.com. You can email me hello at happy teacher revolution dot com. Follow us on Instagram at happy teacher revolution. We also have a private Facebook community for folks as well. We’d love, if you’re interested to sign up for our newsletter so that folks can hear more about different, events and opportunities to participate in Happy Teacher Revolution. And I’m just really just so grateful for for the time with you today and and and connecting with your audience.

Chrissy Beltran[00:41:39]:

Oh, thank you so much for joining us. I know this is gonna be really helpful to people because it’s a real issue. It’s always an issue, and it seems like it’s just it’s become even more, like, terrifying right now for people, like, you know, more stressful. So thank you for sharing all of your ideas and, resources, and I’m sure somebody will check you out.

Danna Thomas [00:41:56]:

Awesome. Thanks, Christy. I really appreciate it.

Chrissy Beltran[00:41:58]:

Thank you. Wow. That was a lot of information, and I’m sure it gave you a lot of food for thought to think about how you’re going to apply some of these ideas on your campus and in your own life. So if you’re ready for more on this topic, I have some resources for you. Episode 45 was about self care for coaches. That was an episode a solo episode that I did by myself. Episode 46 is the teacher’s guide to self care by Sarah Forrest, and episode 47 is mental health and mindfulness with Celeste Navarres. So those are three episodes you can check out and and get some more information about this topic. You can also visit buzzingwithmissb.com/episodeninety. That’s episode e p I s o d e, number nine zero, And you can get a free download with tips for coaches for self care. It’s the coach self care download, and you can grab that on the blog. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you should see a place to get it at the bottom whenever you enter your email address. I also have a resource about SEL, and she mentioned Danna mentioned SEL several times because it’s such an important, topic, and I have a bonus. We’re gonna talk about that next week. So I have a resource in my TPT store, SEL for instructional coaches. You can check it out. You go to teacherspayteachers.com and search for Chrissy Beltran, buzzing with miss b. And my my latest resource is SEL for instructional coaches. It’s full of ideas and strategies for you to use to support teachers. So the next steps I want you to take is to think about your school, think about what’s in place to support you and your teachers and identify something that you can do even a small thing to make it a more supportive place. If you have any great ideas you’d like to share, I would love to see them. Just share your thinking on Instagram and tag me at buzzing with miss b. Next week is episode 91, and I am talking to Haley O’Connor of teaching with Haley. We are chatting about SEL, that social emotional learning for all. Kids, teachers, coaches, everybody. Because everybody, deserves to be treated like a human being that has more than just an academic and work

Chrissy Beltran[00:44:05]:

side. So I will see you next week for that episode. And until then, happy coaching. Thank you for listening to Buzzing with Miss b, the coaching podcast. Want more coaching ideas? Check me out at buzzingwithmissb.com and on Instagram at buzzing with miss b. If you love the show, share it with a coach who would love it too, or leave me a review on iTunes. It’s free, and it helps others find this show. Happy coaching!