Happy Professional Development Day! For today’s journey in education I am coming to you live from my parents living room in the very snowy Salmon Arm, my hometown. I am spending today sitting with my mother, an incredible educator in School District No. 83. She is the reason I am where I am today so it is so special for us to be engaging in professional development together! I am also excited to join with educators from SD83 today. I have been meeting new people and being exposed to new perspectives and a new district culture which I believe is so powerful as a tool to open our minds.
Our learning this morning has been a program centred around Everyday Anxiety Strategies for Educators (EASE). As someone who struggles daily with anxiety, this learning is very close to my heart and I am so grateful that it is being addressed within districts in our province. The session was great, filled with resources that I will not only be using with my students, but could also use for myself! In the session, EASE techniques were broken up into primary and intermediate for the elementary school teachers, but all techniques could easily be adapted for an older audience such as high school and beyond! I’d quickly like to note that for many people myself included, anxiety will not simply “go away,” but exercises such as these can help us to lead a more manageable life without feeling overwhelmed. I will not highlight a few of my favourite techniques demonstrated:
The calm breathing lesson: In this exercise, you close your eyes and begin to focus on the thoughts in your head. One by one, you focus on a thought, and take it out of your head and put it in an imaginary Ziploc bag, until all the thoughts have been tucked away. At that point, we focus on breathing deeply, in for four seconds and out for six seconds. Breathing is repeated until the anxiety has been tamed. I really liked this exercise because it reminded me of the brain dumping exercises that I have been doing! In brain dumping, thoughts are written out and explored, and in this calm breathing exercise, the thoughts are zipped away, but both have the goal of clearing the mind.
Grounding: This exercise is very simple. It involves getting students feet on the ground and allowing them to push the energy away from themselves and into the ground. Eyes closed, breathing in and out, and focusing your energy into the Earth. Love it!
Peaceful Place: This exercise is I believe a form of meditation. It involves closing your eyes, and retreating to the most peaceful place you can think of. Once in this place, the teacher can guide the student through each of their five senses. What can you see in this place? What can you hear? What can you smell and taste? What can you touch? I like this exercise because it reminds me of an anxiety management technique that I personally use, involving the five senses! Although my technique was not discussed during this Pro-D, it is valuable so I will describe it below.
Five Senses: Upon overwhelming feelings of anxiety, look around and pick out five things that you can see. Next listen for four things that you can hear. Reach out to three things that you can touch. Sniff for two things that you can smell, and lastly one thing that you can taste. The goal of this exercise is to bring you back into your place and your body, away from all the “What Ifs” and worries.
One of my favourite parts of today’s session, was our introduction to the MindUP program. This program uses Neuroscience, Positive Psychology, Mindful Awareness, and Social-Emotional Learning to teach children the skills and knowledge that they require in order to regulate their stress and emotions, form positive relationships, and act with kindness and compassion. Furthermore, their results are great! Over 80% of children who use this program report being able to boost their own-wellbeing, improvements in pro-social behaviours, and continue use of the program at home! Fantastic! I love that this program is based in research and science, and from what I can tell so far, seems to be an amazing resource to provide a foundation for safe and positive schooling and enhance children’s abilities for success in learning and life! This program seems like everything I would want in a mental wellness program for my future classrooms, and I cannot wait to explore it further.
Finally, a few more interesting take-aways from today:
Use the word “peaceful” over “safe” when speaking with children. For many children, their lives simply are not safe, and using this word would be dishonest and a hinderance towards fostering trust. Peaceful is a more genuine word because it describes an attainable experience for many students.
Reduce the use of “What Ifs” in our classrooms and our students. Many students who struggle with anxiety have constant streams of “What if…” running through their minds. Helping them to reduce these thoughts can have a positive impact in controlling anxiety.
Finally, our favourite tool, open-ended questioning. Open ended questioning is so helpful in so many areas of teaching, and anxiety management is one of these areas. In using this type of questioning when addressing students’ concerns, it allows them to fully express themselves and their thought processes without the teacher having any expectations.
All of these tools and strategies will be coming with me into my future classrooms, and I am so grateful to have participated in this learning alongside my mom – my forever favourite teacher!
