Recharge Your Teacher Soul

This has been a hard year for teaching and learning. In the Fall, every week seemed like the first week of school and every teacher felt like a first year teacher. To the normal anxieties of teaching (Am I reaching all of my students? Is there enough time to plan for everything? Have I done all the proper paperwork to get the right kind of help for each kid?) were added some new ones: What if I get sick? What if I bring the virus home to my own family? What do I do with my own kids who are learning remotely when I am asked to teach in person? What about all the kids I cannot reach, physically or emotionally because they are muted behind a black Zoom square on my computer screen? 

In the midst of all this, I had a new job. I had gone back to instructional coaching after three years in the classroom. I was excited to be part of offering the dual language program in two of our middle schools for the first time. I had an awesome team of four teachers to work with. But this was not the best time to start something new. When principals are trying to figure out how to open the doors to in-person learning while keeping safety measures in place, I felt out of sync trying to talk about Spanish signage around the campus. Asking for time to present to teachers about the tenets of dual language while everyone was trying to learn how to use Pear Deck and Google Classroom and Zoom seemed tone deaf. 

I had felt for a long time, even before the pandemic, that we were ignoring the spiritual aspect of teaching. We, teachers, parents, children, are more than our brains and our bodies. We are souls. What feeds our souls are things like love, kindness and the truth. Very rarely do we even acknowledge that we need these things to thrive and survive. 

There emerged the idea of creating a space to uplift one another, to tap into what feeds us spiritually and sustains us and thus was born Recharge Your Teacher Soul - a monthly gathering for teachers and those connected to teaching to encourage each other. But more than just a feel-good space, I was hoping to also gather knowledge. The best knowledge is created by those working in the field coming together, studying an aspect of their practice, making plans for a small step, going out there to act on it and then coming back to reflect. 

Beyond a place of solace and refuge for teachers, this space has offered me a chance to learn about transformation. As we deepen our understanding of how to nourish our own souls by keeping our spiritual self in the forefront, we are learning how to use the same principles to build just and equitable classrooms where every student is also seen as a soul in need of nurture and nourishment. 

We have had Recharge Your Teacher Soul Zoom sessions for six months now and with each one I have met new friends, gained new insights and felt more confident that meaningful, genuine, loving conversations are a radical approach to transformation. 

Join us for the next session on April 1st to recharge your soul!