BACK-TO-SCHOOL WITH MINDFULNESS: Nourishing Our Inner Resources

I remember the back-to-school feelings vividly. This period of transition is both exciting and challenging, filled with anticipation and preparation. While the back-to-school season can be filled with joy, renewed purpose, and motivation, we also know there can be dread, uncertainty, and stress.

Recently I have been interested in educator burnout, a significant issue plaguing our profession. With 90% of teachers claiming burnout is a “serious” problem, and 55% of teachers say they’ll leave sooner than initially planned due to burnout and a lack of fulfillment in their position. Most startling, 44% of K-12 educators in the U.S. say they “always” or “very often” feel burned out at work, outpacing all other industries nationally. That’s right, educators are more burnt out than any other career. While these statistics are disturbing, I am always looking for ways to improve a situation within my circle of control (a favorite tool to use with students!). Recently I was teaching the idea of the “Education Apple Tree” created by Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) and brought to Y4C by Esther Brandon. The room full of educators seemed to really connect to this idea that uses an apple tree as a metaphor. It got me thinking about how this concept is tied to burnout.

In this metaphor, we have:

1. Fruit: the student outcomes— the academic and social and emotional successes we see in our students
2. Leaves and branches: the techniques we use in our classrooms
3. Trunk: our presence, the relationships we form with students
4. Roots: our inner resources— a mindful knowledge, understanding, and awareness of our feelings, thoughts, values, habitual patterns, strengths and weaknesses, awareness of what triggers our emotions

So while the fruits (student outcomes) are the end goal, we only get there by first having a grounded root system (cultivating our inner resources), having a strong trunk (relationships with students), with healthy branches and leaves (effective teaching and techniques).

As we start back to school, we will spend a lot of time talking about the fruit— how will we improve academic achievement in our schools? How will we increase graduation rates and state testing scores? This is important— that is the fruit. However, I hope we also take time to nourish the parts of the tree that lead to the production of fruit: the effective leaves and branches, the strong trunk, and the grounded roots. The tree is only made strong and resilient by its root system.  

I encourage you to spend some time thinking about your inner resources. How can you cultivate a mindful knowledge, understanding, and awareness of your feelings, thoughts, values, habitual patterns, and strengths and weaknesses?

As an educator, I know I wasn’t always great about nourishing the roots. I always valued the trunk (relationships with my students); I was constantly learning new innovative ways to grow healthy leaves and branches (professional development on evidence-based techniques); and I was devoted to producing robust apples (improving students’ achievement, attendance, and discipline outcomes). It wasn’t until I learned about mindfulness and went through the Yoga 4 Classrooms training that I realized the importance of the root system.

Here at Yoga 4 Classrooms we are here to help with each component of your apple tree— we provide opportunities to nourish your inner resources, learn trauma-informed practices to build strong relationships, and implement research-based techniques of implementing yoga and mindfulness in schools. And the impact shows that this approach assists in improving student outcomes. We are looking forward to a school year with nourishment at the heart of all we do!

With gratitude,

Sarah, Owner of Yoga 4 Classrooms and former School Counselor