A Teacher’s Needs: Time for a Self-Assessment

About two months ago, I began the new year with my junior high English students in not setting resolutions — those never seem to work well — but by choosing one word to help us change, improve, and be, well, better in the new year– all year. You may have seen #oneword posts drifting through social media.

Why one word?

One word is both accessible and lofty. Accessible in that it’s just one word — happiness, joy, success, love. And lofty in that if it were easy, we’d likely already have it — whatever it is.

This one-word project with junior high students (and my college students at DePaul) was in the spirit of mindfulness and self-improvement. A new year tends to be an apt time for self-improvement, but  I hope you’ll find this March weekend to be an equally apt time as I invite you to think about your one word for your teacher self.

Finding one word

In order to find our word, we wrote about and reflected on people we admire in our lives — living and deceased. We thought about the qualities at the core of their being. And we recalled people in our lives that made us feel good about ourselves or believe in the world a little bit more in and beyond their presence. What is it about your godmother’s eyes that made you feel heard?  What is it about your grandfather’s words that made you believe anything is possible? What is it about your colleague or friend or partner that you love?

And we thought about what we wanted people to say and feel about us when they left time and space in our presence.

Do you have some people in mind? Do you have some words floating in your brain?

I modeled the process and did my best to illuminate my thinking about the people who make me feel loved, heard, safe, and even inspired to reach beyond my comfort zone. My husband was one. My godmother another. My sister another. And there are many colleagues and mentors, too.

As my students began to design a social media graphic with their word, I moved around the room to hear about their process. And, the first question that I asked was this:   “What do you need from this word?”

I don’t know why that was my question; it could have been “what does this word MEAN to you,”  but I framed it around NEED rather than WANT. I wanted to know what they NEEDED and where it was coming from. I wanted to hear the story about each word, and I watched as students went to the thesaurus to find a more right, precise word — a word with more nuance, with a different tone or meaning. They were seeking, modifying, and answering this question: What do I need in my life — now?

Here are a few of their words of need:

The narrative about need had different origins from different students — as you might expect. Some words came under pressure from home, beliefs about what they should be in school, in life. Other words came from social and emotional stories, from stress, from a deficit logic in their minds. 

I loved witnessing this process with my students, but this post is not really about them. It is about me. Us. Teachers.

This exercise got me thinking about what I need in my life as a teacher — to be better.  So after thinking about the people in my life who I admire, and after thinking about how I want others to feel in my presence, I came up with a word, cleverly edited with the advice of one of my teacher ed students. Here is my word:

 

Valid18. I want to be that person who makes others feel validated — their ideas, their spirit, their existence. That is the first layer of this word.  However,  I also need self-validation in my role as a teacher.

We work hard, and it never feels like enough or good enough. For every step forward, there’s a setback with a student or a mandate or national trauma. Our work can feel futile, that change is not happening fast enough for the kids who I sit alongside each day.  But that is a narrative that I am absorbing from the media, that I am constructing as a way, perhaps, of avoiding or veiling the value of my day-to-day work.

I need to validate myself and my work for what I am doing every day.

Since January, here are some of the ways that I have tried to validate myself and others:  I decided to publish my first novel— to share my creative writing. I accepted a new “job” of being a columnist for The ALAN Review – -a place to share my passion for young adult books. I’ve written proposals for next year’s conferences and chapters for colleagues’ books. I’ve invited friends to write for this blog: Jaime Lewandowski, Peter Anderson, Travis Crowder,  Maria Losee , David Schaafsma, and Brian Kissel. and I’m here — still teaching after fifteen years. That is validating.

This sounds nice — yes? Perhaps a big bragadocious, yes?  So, of course, I am not happy with my valid18 progress. Do you know why? Well, while I do need do be better with self-validating, and while I do need to do better with validating others, I am losing the capacity to do any of this because I have been overlooking some much more basic needs. 

A teacher’s needs

I gave this talk at a conference last weekend, ECET2 Chicago, which was organized by a great group of teachers (thank you, Sabrina Anfossi-Kareem).

Here are just a few of the topics from the morning session:

All the validating in the world is not going to relieve the stress, the pressing of all these responsibilities the teachers carry: culturally responsiveness, trauma-informed pedagogy, SB100, inclusive practiced,  supporting our students who transition from one school to another in the hopes of finding a safer school only to be lost in the system.  Teachers carry all of this (and more, there as an afternoon and evening session).  The physical and emotional stress in taking up a cause, in doing the work, in walking the talk, in standing in front and alongside other teachers to say “this is the way” and “follow or walk alongside me as we change this, as we make schools  a better, safer, more inspiring place for the kids with whom we’ve been entrusted” is hard.

What happens to our great work, our innovations, the change, IF WE CANNOT SUSTAIN OURSELVES in this profession.

I thought it might be helpful to revisit an old friend we were likely introduced to in teacher education program:

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You may recall reading Abraham Maslow’s 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” or seeing the pyramid graphic at some point. You likely learned about this theory for the sake of your students: healthy human beings have certain needs, and if the most basic needs are not met, the person will abandon a  higher stage in order to have more fundamental needs met.

The levels, however, are not linear, sequential, or fixed but rather dynamic and need our ongoing tending.  Someone who has little financial security may have a community or a partner, close relationships with family and friends — so safety may not be met, but community and belonging needs are. Additionally,  if a person suddenly experiences a threat to safety or shelter, in order to maintain this survival, that person may leave off the pursuit of esteem or belonging until the threat to safety passes.

Maslow argued that failure to have needs met at various stages of the hierarchy and at various times in a human’s life could lead to physical, social, and emotional issues, which leads me to urge you to take another look at this theory through the eyes of your teacher-self.

For teachers, this means that if we neglect our needs, it becomes rather difficult to lead to bring about the changes our schools, our students need.

So this pyramid of needs is for you, dear teachers. If your physiological needs are not met, you may become ill, physically or psychologically. If you move into our work without a community and a support network, if you neglect those who love you because of your dedication to your cause or work, well, you may experience depression or anxiety or an illness, and WE need YOU healthy if we are to bring about significant improvements in education.

What do you need to lead and sustain yourself in this profession?

 

How is your ESTEEM?

If you are reading this blog, you are, perhaps, in the space of esteem. You have to have a degree of self-esteem if you are presenting today or view yourself as a teacher leader; you have reached a degree of mastery — which means different things in the teaching world right? Mastery is not having all the answers; it is knowing enough to seek understanding, ask questions, know that there is no such thing as best practice but rather responsive practice. We are reading education blogs and “liking” and “hearting” social media posts because we can offer one another in our reading, writing, speaking, listening and being respect for what we have accomplished in our pursuits and dedication to our profession. Self confidence and acceptance from others are important components of this need.

How is your SELF – ACTUALIZING?

You are reaching this elusive self-actualization. You are, and it is amazing.  Few people ever get here: fulfilling your truest potential as a human being, following your calling. For most of us, that calling is in the classroom, but I imagine many of you are feeling called to something beyond or alongside the classroom. Something you are imagining, some place where you will be useful, needed, where you will “make a difference.”  The people who follow this blog and the places in your teaching tree can help you get there.

How is your BELONGING?

Perhaps you feel alone at school — the only one who wants to challenge the status quo or try something new. We are here for that sense of belonging and community. We need this to assuage whispers of doubt, to validate our work, profession, time, passion. To know we are not alone. But here– among us — you belong. Finding places where you belong, where you are accepted like organizations such as Excellence for Education, TeachPLUS, NCTE, IRA, ILA, and our YA Summit in Las Vegas this summer:  conference and organizations for teachers focused on social justice and change bring you into a shared space with teachers like you, your people. Of course, we hope that you have found your people at your school. 

How is your SAFETY and PHYSIOLOGICAL being?

Let’s think about this pyramid – -to mix metaphors — as holding a mirror. Let’s think of our colleagues, friends, family, students — holding up a mirror to us. What would they say you need? I can tell you what my husband is saying: I don’t drink enough water; I don’t eat enough; I don’t sleep enough; I don’t give him (or anyone other than my students) enough attention; I don’t invite people to help me, to hug me.

Are you safe? Are you healthy? Can you sustain your work at this pace? In your current environment?

A needs self- assessment

On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the most satisfied need, how would you score your needs in each of the five categories of “a teacher’s needs”? Here is mine NEEDS assessment:

 

A new word

Since doing the one-word activity in January, I have improved my validating, but I also had a visit to the emergency room due to dehydration and exhaustion ironically just one month into the new year. Thus,  I have a new word closer to my more basic needs, a need I have to find a way to manage if I am to sustain my teaching life and be in the best mental and physical condition to continue this work:

Enough. I am enough. I can only do so much. That is enough (for today).

Have you changed your word, too? Now that you think of your needs a bit more broadly? What is it? Which need do you most need to nurture?

Our minds and hearts and hydration and rest — do matter if we are to sustain ourselves in this great work that we do.

I thank you for who you are. I thank you, dear teacher, for all that you do. And am here to tell you that you ARE enough. 

I invite you to share your word. I invite you to share your needs assessment and reflection on what you need as a teacher. Let’s be a source of belonging for one another, and please, please, hydrate.