Systems of Care

“This is a hectic time of the year…” I hear that more often than not when I meet new teams of educators. Regardless of when on the calendar that meeting occurs, here’s what you might overhear from a typical first (or second, or 53rd) meeting: “Hi, nice to meet you. It’s really busy around here. We have [insert something] coming up and we’re running behind on this [insert any other thing], and, oh, [third thing here] too!” What I’ve learned is to, shall I say, welcome this frenetic energy, and even embrace it in my partnerships with school communities.

As a result of the busy, intense logistics of a typical Tuesday school day (or an entire year of figuring out how to teach in a global pandemic), you want to know the first thing I do when I work with teams? Breathe. C’mon, let’s go for a walk together, stand up, take a few deep calming breaths to clear our minds, embrace the quiet, and smile, yes, smile at one another.

Feel better? Good. Me too. Now let’s note how we feel, and that it took about 3 minutes. Now we all have more space in our hearts and minds to tackle what’s next. Let’s make it part of our Looking Back to Look Forward ritual. Whether it’s the end of the school year, the start, or smack dab in the middle, choosing to prioritize time to pause and reflect in ways that set us up to leverage all that we’ve learned, in order to design a year ahead of us that is built on that learning, is well worth the time.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of tools and techniques you can use in your professional learning communities, let’s think globally at the systems we have (or are currently building) in place to support a community of evolutionary professional growth and learning.

Systems Thinking when Looking Back to Look Forward

Systems Thinking means, for us today, all of the parts working together. In a school community, there are a lot of parts, and a lot of people that all need to work well together in order to reach the ultimate goal. All learning leads to being the best version of ourselves. I repeat: All learning.

In this 3 part series, I’m asking you to examine just three systems that can support healthy communities of professional practice:

1. Care

2. Communication

3. Collaboration

System 1: Care

Decision fatigue is alive and well in classrooms across the globe. We’ve got a lot competing for our time and attention. How do we collectively as an entire professional field prevent burnout? Below you’ll find a list of questions to start a discussion with your colleagues. Take a few quiet minutes (after you’ve gone for a quick walk, completed some calming deep breaths, and smiled at a colleague) to jot your thoughts in your favorite notebook. Then, invite a dialogue. What do you notice? What questions surface? What ideas come up? List a few ways in which you can commit to self care this spring and as a through-line for next year’s plan.

Grab your favorite notebook and pen and spend a few minutes to stop and jot your thoughts to these questions before having a conversation with your colleagues:

● How do I prioritize self care?

● How does our community define self care?

● What’s the culture of self care in our school community?

● What are techniques I can add to my daily routine? With students? With caregivers? With colleagues?

● How can we leverage frameworks that are already in place for a few minutes of care each day?

Example. Try a breathing technique before the morning announcements as an entire school community
Build in mindful movement transitions throughout the day

Your turn!

What kind of ideas did you and your colleague/s generate? Feel like sharing? Tag us on Instagram @readwritethinkrenee with #RWTCare and let me know what your team thinks about and designs.