Analog Monologue
How Liz started on the path to Mindfulness, SEL, and Grief Support
“Well, how did I get here?”*
I know, I know, another blog. I didn’t intend to include a blog in my website, but I realized that sharing my experiences and what I have learned from others is what got me to this point.
I am here to share why teaching Mindfulness to students and sharing Mindfulness with staff, teachers, and administration is so important to me. Those who know me know that sitting quietly and paying attention to my breathing has not always been my thing. I am a talker! If you don’t know me well, here’s a little bit about me. I just finished my 16th year teaching 2nd grade at Del Mar Elementary in Santa Cruz, California. I came to teaching fairly late in life (33 years old) and on the reverse teacher trajectory: I started working in Classified Human Resources at the District Office for San Jose Unified School District and after working in Academic Human Resources at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), decided to get my credential and go up the ladder to the classroom.
So what does this have to do with Mindfulness? As a worker, I have always liked a job that kept me busy. Like many of you in the course of our working lives, I have worked in a lot of different jobs. Restaurants, retail, baker, cake decorator. I actually left my office job at USCS because it was too quiet. Yes, be careful for what you wish for. About 6 years ago, I noticed that teaching hadn’t gotten any easier with experience; after a decade it seemed to be getting harder. I had a parent complaint that went all the way to the Superintendent and I disagreed with how it was being handled. I got pissed. Really pissed. Pissed at the parents. Pissed at the district. Pissed at my union. I dropped all but one of my many school volunteer jobs and my union site representative position immediately. I stopped working for free as much. I stopped caring about nonsense busy work the district assigned and just filled out the papers, folders, and safety quizzes and turned them in. Unfortunately, that didn’t change the difficulty of the job. It STILL kept getting harder.
So I did some research and it seemed that I wasn’t alone. I listened to some speakers and found out about trauma and adverse childhood experiences. So maybe there is something that is traumatizing my students and their families. Maybe there is something traumatizing me. How about school shootings? Active Shooter training? Lock down drills? How about personal loss? How about anxiety? How about CPS calls? How about student/family/colleague trauma? How about not being able to get students all the support they really need? How about yard duty? How can we not be traumatized? Am I the only one?
I am a talker. I am a doer. I also like free stuff. About two years ago, I got a free offer from Calm.com. I thought, “Why not give it a try?” Since the fall of 17-18, I have learned a lot more about mindfulness and how it can open up awareness as well as space. I have personally found it supportive for working with grief and loss. I have found it helpful in giving me permission to stop and respond, rather than react. I have found it helpful to send my ego into the back of my classroom and bring someone who doesn’t have all the answers to the front. I have found that I am a better teacher now because I really want to know “How are you today?” and if you aren’t fine, I see you. I hear you. I might not be able to help fix what isn’t fine, but I can acknowledge your feelings. I can notice that you might need something different today or this hour.
Mindfulness helped me give my self a little breathing room. I hope it can help you give your self some breathing room between the every day annoyances and giant punches in the gut that life sends our way.
*from “Once In a Lifetime” by Talking Heads and Brian Eno
The masks we were wearing before Covid 19.
Masquerade
We have been wearing masks for months. We worry about having to teach with them. We worry about kids having to wear them. Honestly, we have been wearing masks for years. Some of us for decades. They didn’t get in the way of our smile or our teacher face, but they did get in the way. They got in the way of empathy, honesty, and compassion. “Fake it ‘til you make it!” “Never let them see you sweat!” I don’t know who gave me this advice when I started teaching or student teaching, but it took me years to realize how wrong they were. I know I gave that advice to many student teachers myself. The problem I found with this advice is that I kept doing that year after year and then woke up a decade into my job and I was still faking it.
I had developed anxiety. I was pissed off. I was probably sweating. I wondered, “Why is this job still so hard?”
About two years ago, I started practicing mindfulness with my class because I got a free trial to Calm.com. I wasn’t one for sitting quietly under a tree in the lotus position, but I am a big fan of free things and at that point in my teaching career I thought it couldn’t hurt. It didn’t. I did some reading. I took some online courses. I saw speakers and went to workshops. I went to a silent retreat. Me! No one could believe I could do it, especially me. In silence I found myself behind the masks. I started to loosen my mask. I’m glad I did. Once it started coming off, people saw me. They saw my loss, my grief, my hope, my sadness, my joy, my struggle, my humor, my determination, my love
During all of that research and study, I suffered one of the most devastating losses of my life and then within a few months, another. I didn’t put the mask back on. Mindfulness gave me space to feel the feelings and not put my mask back on. While that may seem scary and unprofessional, I have found that students and parents also have loss, grief, anxiety, and trauma. I don’t wear my trauma on a sandwich board, but I don’t mask it. Now my compassion and empathy are real. My uncertainty is real. Guess what? It has all been ok. Actually, it has been better than OK. I see students and they see me. Parents see me and share with me. The wall between us is starting to come down. Colleagues share with me. We share with each other and we lighten our collective load.
We have a big year ahead. It is filled with uncertainty. It is filled with anxiety. It has a big trauma blanket laying on top. Mindfulness can’t breathe away those things for you, your family, and your students. It isn’t a cure all. It isn’t easy. It isn’t great every day. What it might do is give you time, space and awareness to be present, respond rather than react, and be compassionate. What it might do for your students is bring awareness, invite compassion, and recognize gratitude. Those seem like the ingredients for a healthy, happy life.
This article originally appeared in the Live Oak Elementary Teachers Association June 2020 Newsletter.