It’s past time to talk about it…teacher stress, burnout and overwhelm!
With all our best intentions, Internet and school supported resources, endless hours of planning and preparing, why is it so hard to slow down, simplify and care for ourselves? It seems as if our most sincere efforts to be everything for everyone, school and home, has put us further and further behind.
Why are we so afraid of letting go at the end of the day?
More and more teachers are finding that in the midst of the striving to do enough, to be enough, and to cover all of the bases for everyone, it comes at a great cost to the soul. The teaching profession by nature requires a great degree of selflessness but even to a greater degree when teaching during a global pandemic. The level of feeling overwhelmed and stressed is off the chart.
If you’re like me, you’re finding yourself malnourished, if not starved, when it comes to compassionate self-acceptance, awareness, and care in the midst of all we’re trying to learn as we do blended, hybrid, hyflex teaching.
We yearn for simplicity but struggle to find it. We ache for balance but there are simply not enough hours in the day. There seems to be no time to juggle it all, home, parenting, staying healthy, taking care of yourself, your students, their parents, while meeting the expectations of the curriculum, all while standing our heads!
Most traditional approaches to professional learning are one size fits all and do not model or maximize the potential of connected community, connected technologies, and coached learning, based on your interests and self-selected needs.
Announcing the Instant Impact Collaborative Cohort
…the guided journey that brings instant relief!
After more than a decade of application, years of study, deep inquiry, and personal experience, here’s what I know for sure:
- For teaching and learning in a blended environment to be sustainable, you need to put yourself first. You won’t make a dent in reducing the stress and overwhelm until you’ve developed a clear path forward. We feel most secure when we know what to do and when to do it. If you don’t feel safe, you won’t let go. Ending teaching overwhelm is an inside job that begins and ends with you.
- For overwhelm to subside you need to change your mindset. Reinventing is not something you “do” or squeeze into your life. It’s a way of living – a paradigm – that doesn’t always add up, make sense, or go in a straight line. Addressing teacher overwhelm is not about “getting rid of.” It’s about letting go of the things and thoughts that get in the way of realizing your best life both in and out of the classroom.
- Reinventing your practice means new pedagogy and new ways of doing things. You want to take the best of what worked in our f2f settings and combine it with the unlimited potential of connected learning. Clearing old habits that didn’t work well anyway and reimagining the teaching and learning process in creative ways that are applied consistently over time will keep the rigor while inspiring passion.
- The learning should drive the learning, not the tools. Focusing on what you want kids to learn and how you want them to learn it, and not the latest, greatest tool is the real game changer here. Allowing students to be producers of knowledge, not just consumers and your classroom to be a community of learning, not just rows and columns in a digital screen is the key to loving what you do again.
Here’s the answer, Instant Impact Collaborative Cohort
…the end to teacher overwhelm!
This program has been a long time coming. It distills over a decade of experience leading, teaching, and nurturing in online communities of inquiry and connected spaces of collaboration.
It’s a learning opportunity of choice, growth, rest, and recharge, with you deciding how much, how far and when.
…what does it include?
The self-paced course is packed full of stories, tools, tips, new strategies, and techniques, examples, downloadables, printables and so much more.
The lessons are designed to be menu driven, based on your needs.You can cover as much or as little of the content as needed, no one is looking over your shoulder with a red pen.
Caring coaches are available in both 1:1 and small group formats. Monthly, live meetings to talk about the theme and check-in on your journey. A walled garden community connects you with other like minded educators determined to end teacher overwhelm (just like you) who are looking for ways to bring work, life, harmony back into their lives.
Topics Include
- Instant Impact and Connection
- Get Organized: Planning and Communication
- Creating a Safe Place to Learn
- Creating a Connected Classroom Culture
- Assessment, Feedback and Data Collection
- Accessibility and Equity
- Going Deeper: Best Practices for Online Teaching and Learning
- Instructional Design and Pedagogy
Sample of “Ending Overwhelm” Strategies
(content outline can be found on the webpage)
- How to cultivate self-help within a teaching environment of extreme self-care, slowing down, and simplifying
- Learn to balance on and offline learning by unplugging, do less and be a lot more.
- Learn to set clear boundaries with your time and energy.
- Develop a reset plan for both you and your students that works towards deep retention and passion driven learning.
- Find your purpose and help your students find theirs.
- Break old patterns that keep you attached to last year’s way of doing things.
- Connect with home – yours and theirs
- Being enough
- Leaning into constraints as a means to creativity
- Moving beyond self-actualization in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Breaking the paralysis of perfection. Good enough is good enough.
- Breaking the myth of waiting it out.
- Do you know, what who you know, knows?
- Forgiving yourself and others
- Flourishing
Give Yourself This Gift of Time, Support and Collegiality!
The Instant Impact Collaborative Cohort kicks-off on November 9th, 2020. Now is the time to invest in you. To feed you.
A year to explore…
A year to recharge, reenvision, remake, retool, reimagine and rededicate…
A year to connect, collaborate and create…
A year to let go of all that’s overwhelming you!
Free Gift
When you sign up you immediately get six downloadables to start you on your journey of self-care and personalized learning.
Get Started Now
This is your chance…walk away from teacher overwhelm once and for all and get your life back!
We are offering sliding scale pricing for this program:
- $395 Community Rate: For folks who need financial assistance
- $550 Sustainer Rate: Base cost of this program
- $750 Supporter Rate: For folks who can afford to pay a bit more, you’ll enable others experiencing financial difficulties to join at a lower rate!
If none of these price points work for you, there are payment plans and a limited number of scholarships available.
Jennifer Bloomingdale
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