Refill Your Cup: Finding Balance in Teaching

Joy is the oxygen for doing hard things.

– Gary Haugen

There are certainly a lot of things in this world to be stressed about.  Big things.  World altering things.  But I was trained as a teacher of young children.  And because of that fact, I have developed a kind of built-in optimism.  Thank goodness. Last year, I was introduced to the book, Teach Happier This School Year by Suzanne Dailey by Erika Victor, a blogger and educator at an international school in Cambodia. You can read Erika’s post here.  Erika’s experience of having using Teach Happier to reflect on teaching practices throughout the year gave me inspiration.

This school year, I decided to start a book club for teachers centering on that one book.  I wanted to start small.  I wanted to create a calm space for teachers to share their ideas once a month. Our first meeting was this past week.  We have taken on a lot of new projects this year:  a new 10-day schedule, a new lunch schedule, a new opportunity to look at our curriculum, and of course new students in which to engage and teach. I thought that reserving a little time for reflection would be helpful to my colleagues.  It seems that I’m the oldest of our staff now.  I’m not sure how that happened, but I kind of like being the experienced one, the one who can look back at the big picture, and possibly guide my fellow teachers.  This is not to say that I have all the answers.  I don’t.  But I think I have a unique perspective that might help teachers to be happier in their increasingly more complex roles.

I reserved a quiet space on campus, close to the dining hall, to have our meetings, so that members could arrive and depart with minimal stress.  I typed up some discussion questions from the first thirty pages of the book, cut them in strips, and put them in a glass bowl, which I place at the center of our lunch table.  As we settled in with our lunches, I explained that I did not want to be the leader of the book club. Rather, I wanted teachers to have a place to informally chat with each other.  Everyone nodded as they chewed their food.  I picked up one strip of paper from the bowl and read one idea from the book: Equal balance between home and life is not a stagnant thing, not always 50:50.  The balance changes according to circumstances.  That got the ball rolling and everyone began to share how they felt about the beginning of the year, how they were trying to balance work and home obligations, and what they do to destress.  I noted that I loved how the author saw her “cup” not as full or empty, but as refillable.  Seeing the cup as refillable is the mark of a rational optimist. Remember, your cup is refillable! Reframing the cup metaphor in this way helped me to not feel drained at the end of the day or in the midst of a learning crisis.  I am thinking of painting a picture of a refillable cup to keep in a prominent place on my desk as a reminder.

Another idea conveyed in Teach Happier was the idea:  There are no mistakes on class rosters! Each and every adult and student in your classroom is there to teach others something. This quote spoke to me because I used this idea when I was a classroom teacher in reference to some of my more difficult students.  When I came upon a student or parent that tried my patience, I developed the habit of asking myself, “What is this person trying to teach me?  What can I learn from this experience?”  I explained this experience to my fellow book club members in hopes that when they experience students or parents or peers as difficult, they can turn their frustration  into a learning opportunity.

Our half-hour lunch book chat went by fast.  By the end of our time together, there was no tension in the air.  The book club members felt good taking time to talk with each about the ups and downs of teaching.  I’m glad I was able to carve out a little space in our day for this.   It’s a small, simple act, but one that is very much needed.

Joyful Moment of the Week:

As part of my shift towards happiness, I vowed to reflect every week and find joyful moments, what Dailey calls “weekly wins.”  This week, my joyful moment came in the form of a little second-grade girl named Victoria.  Victoria rarely smiles and usually speaks in a whisper.  Her writing, however, is full of sophisticated humor.  I know that there is a sparkly little girl inside her somewhere.  As Victoria came up to me during our afternoon carline dismissal, I smiled at her and sung her name.  “Victoria, VIC-tori-IA!” I crooned.  Victoria looked up at me stone-faced.  I continued, “Now, you sing my name,” I requested.  Victoria remained quiet. I continued, singing my own name, “ Mrs. Emer-Y, MRS. Emer-Y!”  Still, Victoria was silent with no expression on her face.  Suddenly, her mom drove up, and I opened the car door to let her in.  Victoria climbed into her car.  Then, she turned around and smiled at me singing, “MRS. Emer-Y, Mrs. EMER-Y!”  I chuckled, bidding her a good afternoon.  As I shut the car door, I smiled.  I knew there was a sparkly girl inside Victoria.  And I know, it will be one of my goals to let that sparkly little girl shine some more this school year!