Recognizing the Need for Self-Care
This chapter has explained why taking self-care seriously is important to maintaining the integrity of the teaching profession. In the next chapter, we’ll learn a variety of selfcare strategies teachers can use inside and outside of school. These strategies will help teachers maintain a sense of control over their health and career and prepare themselves each day for whatever the classroom has in store.
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and morale, it is no longer an option for schools to hope that teachers “get their minds right” or “find a happy place” on their own. In service professions such as teaching, there is sometimes a stigma associated with considering anyone besides those being serviced. But schools are communities, and while students are correctly the focal point, teachers should never hesitate to acknowledge their own limitations or needs as they relate to their roles within those communities. As long as we can count on constant change and reform, teacher self-care will remain a relevant and necessary topic in education. It must feature just as prominently in our professional conversations as pedagogy, credentialing, and technological trends do.
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