Burned Out? Tweets of the Day (5/22/12)

Last staff meeting of the schoolyear

This is the last week of school for our district; it's probably close for the rest of North America, too.


It isn't that we don't love our jobs, care about the kids, are devoted to our careers. But after about 180 school days, please put us out of our misery.


There are some tweets today that should help educators to reinvest in our own well-being.

Dr. Judy

 
Dr. Judy Willis (@judywillis on Twitter) is an authority on brain research as it relates to learning. She is a regular blogger at Edutopia. You can also find her online at RADteach. 



 I have read many of Dr. Judy's articles, particularly on student learning, and they are very helpful and encouraging. All those little synapses so busy. But if you need some Me Time to recover from the schoolyear, here is an excellent article:


How to Rewire Your Burned-Out Brain: Tips from a Neurologist

 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-burnout-neurology-judy-willis-md

 To be honest, this sounds kind of like Post Traumatic Stress. But I do believe we can rewire ourselves back to higher level responses. Or, just chill out, so to speak.


Here's another link about stress, we probably should have read about two months ago.

Teachers Helping Teachers: Eight Ways to Prevent Burnout

 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/preventing-teacher-burnout-katy-farber

 Katy Farber

A teacher, blogger, and the author of Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus (Corwin 2010) and Change the World with Service Learning: How to Organize, Lead and Assess Service Learning Projects, (Rowman Littlefield 2010). She is also the author of a popular green parenting blog called Non-Toxic Kids where she writes about green living, environmental issues, activism, and education.

With Katy being a mom, teacher, and writer, I'm think she probably knows something about stress.


Here's another blog about burn-out we should have read two months ago:

Andrew Miller

5 Tips to Avoid Teacher Burnout

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/tips-to-avoid-teacher-burnout-andrew-miller 

Andrew Miller (@betamiller on Twitter) is a National Faculty member for the Buck Institute for Education, an organization specializing in 21st century project-based learning, as well as for ASCD, an organization providing expertise in a variety of professional development needs. He is also a regular blogger for Edutopia.

Andrew also mentions using other teachers as a resource.

 This is one of my big questions about teaching: how some schoolsites have great colleague support and others eat each other alive. Could someone please write a blog helping out with this? I'm at a loss. 

These blogs are from Edutopia.

Hang in, teacher buddies. Rejuvenate.