Chapter 1: Why Well-Being Matters
Beyond Self Care
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Book Club Notes & Take-aways
Using data to build a business case for well-being
Education as a vocation
Noticing stress in our bodies
Presenteeism
Different things light us up
Guests
Dr Brendan Kwiatkowski is a former secondary school teacher in BC and his research focuses on adolescent boys’ relationship with masculinity and emotions. He is passionate about many things including social emotional learning, social justice, and helping foster healthy and healing relationships within oneself and others.
Vanessa White is currently a district principal for your safe and healthy schools in the BC School District because we're getting K-12 as a teacher a counselor and has focused much of her career on social emotional learning educator wellness and resilience
Dr Shirley Giroux has worked with Learners from Early Childhood to post-secondary she's a registered clinical counselor and the school counselor where she works half time at the elementary school and half time at the secondary. In 2021 Shirley completed a certification as a compassionate systems leadership Master Practitioner at the Center for Systems Awareness at MIT. Based on her PhD research, Shirley works on behalf of school-wide and particular educator will be in a variety of settings across Canada and beyond.
“My big thing is about teaching social emotional skills and learning to students and I think that as much as education systems are moving towards that, at the end of the day one of the most powerful ways to teach students is to model that. If teachers are having a sordid relationship with their own emotional well-being and mental health it’s going to impact their ability to actually demonstrate regulation skills in real time.”
The conversation was sparked by a simple question: Where did you highlight or put sticky notes?
Use data to build the business case
Vanessa White - I'm a highlighter person and I have to say I think the big one that stood out for me in this first section on why is that you included some data around the business case because that's often where I find we end up needing to push in order to get this work moved forward. It's such a nebulous topic in terms of being able to prove that what you've done has actually made a difference because you can't really un-prove that you didn't make a difference. … I have to make a lot of decisions around budget and I have to make decisions around where I'm going to be putting resources which are always limited. So having some data can really help in those tough decisions. Having that data really can support making those tough decisions.
You know in your heart it's the right thing to do but explaining that saying “but it's in my heart” sometimes just isn't enough for those people that are in charge of those big financial decisions. So being able to say there's research that shows we're saving this much money in the long term can carry some clout.
Dr. Shirley Giroux - There's also research on teacher retention and how financially the costs are less if you can retain a person in an organization it extends far beyond education. I have a particular connection to rural and remote locations and in those settings, in particular, I know that it's not just here in the north, but we have a shortage of teachers. I think it's particularly salient nowadays to think about what are we able to do to better support the teachers who are already in these places to help them to stay in communities where we traditionally have had a hard time finding people to come and work, let alone stay. We can't do that without addressing these systems level needs.
Dr Brendan Kwiatkowski - How backwards it seems that new teachers are often thrown a dog's breakfast of what to teach, whereas once you establish yourself then you teach the same course you've taught again and again. I just think it's kind of the old school mentality of do your time and then you can relax. But you get really highly motivated teachers right out of school and give them things that they might not be as expert in and just get them martyr themselves right away. It's not the type of approach that I think is healthy but one that probably increases attrition rates and decreases retention rates.
“Sometimes it’s just starting up the conversation that says - why do we do it like that? is that the way it has to work? We have a system that’s existed and a way of being that when we just start to talk about it through that lens of well-being we may make different decisions or at least try different things. ”
Education as a vocation
Dr. Shirley Giroux - I think the piece that stood out was actually in the introduction and just that idea of how do we nurture and sustain teachers in their work and how do we build those systemic structures to foster that well-being and to help people stay connected to the pieces that likely brought them into teaching in the first place. I know that teaching is one of those professions that is often seen as having a vocational aspect to it. People feel like it's something that they're drawn to or called to do in some way shape or form. That idea of purpose and being able to stay connected to that sense of purpose in the work that we do as Educators, whether it is as a classroom teacher at any level, a support teacher, or a school counselor. How do I support the adults in this building so that collectively we can have this environment where we do feel cared for and that you know it when you walk into the school? How do we create and sustain these spaces where people are able to be connected to those those deeper, personal reasons that they might have which are tied to that sense of vocation which is very much connected to a sense of overall well-being.
Vanessa White - It wasn't until I switched and went to Elementary and realized there was a whole different way of looking at education that you can teach more to the person and looking at that social and emotional piece just as well as our content piece and how do you weave those two things together?
Dr Brendan Kwiatkowski - I was just thinking about the start of this conversation talking about the shrewdness to talk about the business aspect of social emotional support support for staff and educators but also kind of the essence of can we cognitively logic our way to our hearts and to our bodies and to feeling. I think sometimes that is a path towards our bodies and our hearts but I wonder how much skepticism or biases ingrained in people that don't want to be too touchy-feely to get to that place. Your book really highlights the importance of the body.
Noticing stress in our bodies
Dr Brendan Kwiatkowski - I think, at the root of so many ailments in society, and I don't think you ever use the word but you're definitely talking about embodiment and the importance of getting back to our bodies and our nervous system. The parts about the stress cycle and the contagion effect are key things. In your chapter, you have to notice it happening and what you're referring to there is noticing what's going on in your nervous system as a teacher who's trying to survive. …One of the things that I've learned in my own therapy is that we can get addicted to stress and our nervous systems recognize chaos as something familiar where that feels normal. Then if you don't have that chaos it can feel unsettling. …Your essence of the first step is noticing it happen, noticing in your body what is going on takes time away from the stress. It's hard work.
Vanessa White: When you said become addicted to stress, it's not so much an addiction it was more like I was immune to what my body was saying. I just kept going and going and didn't like the way I was feeling but couldn't take the time to become self-aware enough to be able to say this isn't good. It was sort of like I just compartmentalized that off and I'm super busy and I'll deal with my physical stuff late. What I was dealing with the busyness was actually causing a lot of the physical ailments and social-emotional piece. I think a lot of our kids see their health that way too you know they think their social emotional stuff is all kind of from the neck up and their physical is all from the neck down. They don't necessarily get the connection between what they're thinking and feeling is impacting how their physical body is acting.
Dr Brendan Kwiatkowski - one of my favorite pieces of research is that our bodies send nine times more signals to our brains than the brain sends to our bodies. Our bodies are sending us so many messages!
Gail Markin - which also that brings out that whole thing about the fact that the adults haven't necessarily been taught any of this. When I work with groups of adults I often ask the question about where do you feel feelings in your body? At first I was really surprised how often people didn't know the answer to that question.
Presenteeism
Dr Brendan Kwiatkowski - I don't know if I've ever heard this word before but I instantly knew what it was and I really liked that I got introduced to the term in your book: presenteeism not absenteeism. Educators who are there but not giving it their all or don't feel valued so they arer not showing up fully due to capacity or willingness.
Gail Markin - It's actually a human resources term, it's quite descriptive and we all know people who are there and it's a self-protection kind of mode. It's certainly not only in education, it’s a workplace word. It’s I'm gonna do what I need to do but I'm not connecting and I'm not doing the work with enthusiasm . It comes from a place of hurt or feeling not valued. Can you imagine being in a workplace that you just don't want to give yourself to? That's hard for yourself and the other people that you're serving.
Vanessa White - I think the recognition of the value of your time and what you give and when that is noticed and when that is compensated for in (money or even just a thank you) Just a recognition that you have spent time and given time freely is so important for keeping people engaged.
Gail Markin - I think we could probably all think of somebody who's been in that [presenteeism] situation, if not ourselves. I'm imagining about people that I know that I think have been in that situation where they're just closing the classroom door and not connecting outside. I get back to that heart thing - imagine how that must feel for someone to have to be that protective. It goes back to the contagion effect too - what does that behaviour do to the culture of that community of that school? Let's talk about things like presenteeism because no one's wanting that!
Different things light us up
Dr. Shirley Giroux - Teaching is also a profession that happens to be very closely bound up with identity. Teachers identify very strongly with themselves as their work and that's not true for all professions. Where identity and work are very closely intertwined so when you do have that presenteeism that is definitely going to be having negative repercussions on that person.
When you are asked What do you need? sometimes people aren't going to have the capacity to even begin to imagine what they might need or what they might do. It can be an affirming thing to say well I noticed that you seem to really light up during that unit that you did with your students when you had them in the hall building catapults I noticed that you were just like you lit up I could tell that that's something that you really engaged with how can I help you do more of that thing that was so obviously life-affirming for you that so obviously filled you up? How can you teach who you are? How can you make sure that you have that congruence between who you are what you value and what gets you excited? How are you you going to bring that to this work because if you're excited then the kids will be excited. Just being able to have those kinds of conversations and recognizing that this is something that's closely tied with people's identities. We all have different things that light us up.
Thank you! Listen to the audio for more depth, stories, and examples!
