With September being suicide prevention month and self-care awareness month, I feel like this is a good time to discuss mental health and well-being in education.
As teachers, we are so much more than a child’s teacher. We are a counselor, a therapist, a nurse, an advocate, a person that is a constant in their lives each day they come to school and so much more. If we truly just went to school to just “teach” there would be a huge difference in the outcomes of our children. We as educators go into teaching because of two things:
1) We love to learn and educate others in a field we are passionate about.
2) We love kids.
With that being said, there is so much that is lacking when it comes to mental health and the well-being in our education system. Not only do students fall through the cracks but so do teachers. I can’t even tell you how many times over my teaching career that it was easier just to go in than find a sub, make sub plans (because it was more work to call in or take off than to just go) or that I felt guilty for using my “personal/sick” days. But with that being said I have seen and heard so many of us having to “prove” our absences or being reprimanded for not using the “correct” day appropriately. This all plays into the mental health of not only our teachers but our students.
If our teachers are not taken care of then how can we expect them to be there and take care of our students?
I feel that we have become so focused on data and student numbers that we have forgotten what teaching is truly all about. Teaching is letting teachers go into their classrooms and do what they do…TEACH our kids. I feel that if we let go of all the demands, data, crazy expectations for students and teachers that not only would everyone be happier but I have a feeling that everyone would thrive too. Would it hurt to try?
Over my 15+ years of teaching, unfortunately I have seen the costs of mental health issues not being addressed in staff and students, leading to unrecoverable circumstances. I have seen teachers go on leave due to their mental health, I have seen teachers leave the profession all together due to their mental health, and I have seen students not get the appropriate services during their time at their school due to their mental health leading to greater consequences in the real world.
One of the biggest heartbreaks was losing students because they thought the only way out was to take their own lives. I will never forget sitting in our auditorium for an impromptu meeting before school and the principal starting off with “We have some sad news to share, one of our students took their own life last night.” The saddest part of this was this was one of a couple “impromptu” meetings during my career there. It still gives me goosebumps to this day and the most hurtful part is that one of these kids was my former students. And let me tell you, never in a million years did I think this student was suffering. Always smiling, laughing and just the biggest goofball I knew! But sometimes unfortunately their is a lot of pain behind those laughs, and to this day I wish I saw it sooner.
As Robin Williams said “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
So with that being said, let’s all just try to be kinder to one another. Because at the end of the day we don’t know what battles everyone is facing or what someone is going through. Let’s not be the person that has to be right or have the last word. Let’s try to show random acts of kindness each day with a mere simple smile or a friendly hello, this just might make a BIGGER difference in that persons day than you know.
Know that you are LOVED and are IMPORTANT in this world. You are here for a REASON and we NEED you!
As always, I hope this information was useful and helpful to you.
Merci,
Amanda