Maddie’s Journey to the Classroom

  https://i.pinimg.com/564x/5c/33/60/5c3360ba93b1b5e6c7711928b992466c.jpg                PART 1: Teacher Self-Attention: Cultivating Inner Peace, Calm, and Compassion                  I believe that it’s crucial for teachers to take care of their mental and emotional health so as to not suffer burnout. When teachers feel grounded, they can better serve their students and not feel like they are running on a hamster wheel. When teachers are overwhelmed, they aren’t always the happiest and are even short-tempered. This does not foster a kind, respectful, and engaging classroom as the students will be more focused on how the teacher is feeling and how to avoid attention from them. When students sense that you are in a good place, they feel more at ease and that they can come to you with just about anything. How can we expect our teachers to do their jobs as students when we as teachers are struggling? When we have all our ducks in a row and feel at ease within ourselves, we can h

  Section 1: “Starting with the Self” 1.) Please write a reflection on what you noticed about intentionally creating some HEADSPACE in your everyday life to self-calm and direct attention to the self! Write about your experience, insights, observations, etc. of listening to the guided meditations on the App as well as creating SPACE every single day to self-connect, breathe, calm down, and see anew.             Creating headspace is something I tend to forget to do. Being challenged with finding 10 minutes across 10 days to create headspace wasn’t actually as hard as I imagined it could be. Each day I set aside the time I commuted to and from my school site as the time to ground myself. I chose to focus on my breathing and how I was feeling. On the way to my site, I was able to let go of things that may have made the morning a bit stressful and to get to a place where I was ready and calm for the day. At the end of the day, I was able to let go of the stress of the day before I entered