Happy World Teachers Day & Mental Health Week - a correlation? Take care of yourself!

It is very interesting to receive best wishes for World Teachers Day from AITSL yesterday on 5 October and then to be reminded today that it is Mental Health Week in the lead up to Saturday.

Our Students
With the increase in prevalence of anxiety, depression and similar mental health issues in our youth, we really need to look at what we can do to help in schools. Even though I believe that the problem lies elsewhere and may be a result of some family situations that include both parents working, stressed or anxious parents and wrapping kids in cotton-wool.

One are that I think we really can take notice is homework. In already stretched home environments where children are over-scheduled and experience their parents late at night stressed after getting home late from work, what right do we have as teachers to give students challenging work that they must complete at home. Rather, I would promote the flipped model of lower order tasks being completed at home when necessary. It is not always necessary.

As a Mathematics teacher, I may be a little biased, but the main homework that I believe students should be doing throughout the middle school is a little bit of Maths homework each night (10 minutes) and some reading for pleasure. I will write further my experiences of setting maths homework and I apologise to those students that I taught in the first few years of my career!

Our own mental health
As teachers, we need need to make sure that we take care of ourselves both physically and mentally. Thank goodness we have holidays to recharge and refresh ourselves. We can now at the start of term energetically and enthusiastically engage with our students, encourage them and challenge them at whatever stage they are at.

There are high pressure points throughout the year and I know that as Term 4 rolls on, we will again be at that point where it will be report-writing season. We need to carefully plan for this and take care of ourselves.

If you struggle at any point in your teaching career, I strongly encourage you to seek help from a professional. We can only help our students if we are functioning on all cylinders.

Remember above all the significant difference that you are making in the lives of the next generation!

AITSL 2014 World Teacher's Day video