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Becca Rogers:<\/strong> I was probably crying most days coming to school like \u2018How am I going to do this? I have no energy. I\u2019m exhausted.\u2019<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> A few years ago, kindergarten teacher Becca Rogers thought she might have to leave teaching altogether. She was having serious health issues.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers:<\/strong> I was like having this immune reaction that Western medicine could not figure out. I was losing a ton of weight, I was having these really reactive experiences with food.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> And every morning, she still had to walk into a kindergarten classroom full of five-year-olds. Little kids who needed help opening snacks and learning how to stand in line. And while she was trying to care for all of them, she was barely holding herself together.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>That\u2019s what was going on. I was a hot mess in education.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Welcome to MindShift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I\u2019m Nimah Gobir<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> When I was little, I thought teachers lived at school. A lot of kids think that. But I think even adults can forget that teachers are carrying entire lives and struggles into the classroom with them. Increasingly, many are burning out.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>National surveys have found that teachers report higher rates of burnout than many other professions. And in recent years, schools across the country have struggled to retain educators. That stress doesn\u2019t just affect teachers, it can shape classroom climate, student relationships, and even disciplinary outcomes. In this episode, we look at what happens when schools start treating teacher wellbeing as essential \u2014 not extra \u2014 and what it takes to support the people who care for kids. People like Becca Rogers<\/p>\n Becca Rogers:<\/strong> It\u2019s easier to show up with a cold and be sick than call the sub.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Calling out sick can sometimes create its own kind of stress. Teachers might need to prepare another lesson plan or be worried about how the day will go without them. For Becca, it was just easier to push through<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>I\u2019m someone who says yes, right? Like I\u2019m a teacher, I\u2019m a union rep. I sit on the board of my child\u2019s preschool. I\u2019m a runner, I am a mom. Like, I have a hard time saying no.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> At one point her colleague pulled her aside.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers:<\/strong> And was like, how are you doing? You don\u2019t look good, you don\u2019t sound good.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers:<\/strong> I was like yeah, I\u2019ve been hiding that I don\u2019t feel good.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>We are hemorrhaging educators across this country<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> This is Lindsey Fuller, executive director of The Teaching Well. The Teaching Well organization works with schools and districts to support educator wellbeing as essential to helping teachers keep teaching.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller:<\/strong> We not only want to recruit a diverse workforce, we actually want to retain and sustain them, because when educators are well, kids thrive<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Schools are often asked to work with outside consultants and organizations. But teachers can sometimes feel like the people trying to support them don\u2019t fully understand what classrooms are actually like. At The Teaching Well, the staff are all former educators.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>\u00a0So we get it. That is one of the things that makes us really stand out as an organization. We all have a burnout story. We\u2019re all building the organization we needed to have stayed and we will always fight for kids.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>Their team is made up of 13 facilitators and therapists and they approach teacher wellbeing on multiple levels.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>The individual, interpersonal, and systemic level.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> In practice, that might mean they provide therapy for one teacher, lead professional development sessions for an entire staff, or coach district leaders trying to improve working conditions.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> For some teachers, conversations about \u201cwellness\u201d can feel disconnected from the realities of overcrowded classrooms, staffing shortages, and impossible workloads.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller:<\/strong> A lot of folks hear wellness and they think it\u2019s all woo-woo, like yoga, Lululemon on the beach. That is not what we\u2019re talking about. There\u2019s rigor and strategy in workplace wellbeing initiatives.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> At Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, the school where Becca works, principal Cynthia Bagby had been watching teachers struggle under increasing pressure. Around the same time Becca was burning out, Cynthia decided to bring in The Teaching Well.<\/p>\n Cynthia Bagby: <\/strong>I\u2019ve always wanted to have a program that would kind of take care of the teachers. And like help them to have balance, but also focusing on how they can manage themselves as teachers. And so when I heard about this organization, I thought, oh it matches my philosophy on taking care of the human that does the work.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> She says many teachers enter the profession with deep care for children.<\/p>\n Cynthia Bagby:<\/strong> They really want to make a difference in the world. And then when they get in the classroom, it\u2019s challenging.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>Teacher stress is closely tied to high turnover rates, especially in schools serving high-needs communities. Cynthia hoped The Teaching Well could help sustain teachers by giving them the tools to care for themselves and each other.<\/p>\n Cynthia Bagby:<\/strong> When people feel supported, of course they could show up differently. And then you\u2019re not teaching out of fear, but you\u2019re teaching out a love you\u2019re teaching knowing that someone has your back.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>Partnerships with the Teaching Well are designed to last 3-5 years. In these long term relationships with schools they\u2019ve been able to retain 85% of teachers they work with.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Lasting change usually depends on whether school and district leaders are willing to shift the conditions teachers are working in. Cynthia was willing to work directly with teaching well staff to be more responsive to teachers<\/p>\n Cynthia Bagby:<\/strong> I also receive coaching with them too. I get to hear their perspective from the like general feedback they get, maybe from the teachers, kind of keep me to see if I\u2019m aligned with what I believe about leading a school.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>Improving teacher wellbeing involves buy-in from administrators and a long term commitment. But there is more that can be done to help teachers thrive. We\u2019ll get into what happens at the group and individual level after the break.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>Each month the Teaching Well comes to Redwood Heights to do professional development after school. Executive director Lindsey Fuller greets people at the door. About twenty educators come in to sink into chairs arranged in a circle. teacher Becca Rogers is there and so is principal Cynthia Bagby<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson: <\/strong>How y\u2019all feeling? One\u00a0 to five, as five being high,\u00a0 One being a low, can I get a number? I just want to see\u00a0 what I\u2019m dealing with today. Okay.<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson:<\/strong> I\u2019m seeing some twos, threes.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> At the front of the room is facilitator Marc Anthony Robinson Robinson. He starts the session with a somatic practice \u2013 These are breathing and movement techniques designed to help regulate the nervous system.<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson: <\/strong>We can\u2019t silence stress, right? But we can turn down the value. So the intention today is to find the knob for the volume. How do we turn that down?<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>He asks teachers to close their eyes.<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson: <\/strong>Place one hand over your heart if you have your hands available and your belly<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson:<\/strong> Now take a slow, steady breath in release. Take another one in through your nose this time and exhale through your mouth like a soft sigh. Now we\u2019re going to begin to notice, starting from the top, going down. Start at your forehead, your jaw.\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Around the room, shoulders drop. A few teachers lean back in their chairs and exhale deeply. For a couple minutes, nobody is redirecting behavior. Nobody is answering emails or prepping lessons.They\u2019re just paying attention to their own bodies.<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson: <\/strong>See if you could turn the volume down just one more notch\u2026.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>When the exercise ends, teachers slowly blink their eyes open. A few nod quietly to themselves, almost like they\u2019re saying: okay. I\u2019m here now. The sessions are designed to help teachers recognize how stress shows up physically and emotionally. At one point, educators are handed worksheets with car dashboards printed on them. Lindsey explains what they\u2019ll do with them<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>We\u2019re gonna get to do some coloring today, um designing your own dashboard. So we\u2019re going to do a little car metaphor play. Uh and then we\u2019re, we\u2019re gonna help you think about our stress management sequence.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> The idea is to think about the warning lights going off internally. She says some stress signals are temporary \u2014 like a seatbelt alarm. Others are more serious. The kind you can ignore for a little while, but not forever. She tells the group what is going on in their bodies when this happens.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>The amygdala is a part of your brain that helps alert us when there\u2019s a problem. It says, hey yo\u2026 something\u2019s going off.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>We\u2019re gonna take about four minutes here, and then we\u2019re gonna invite you a couple of folks to share out. Okay? So let\u2019s get connected. Feel free to turn and talk.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>Teachers sit coloring in dashboards with colored pencils, They\u2019re talking quietly with one another about burnout, frustration, and overload.\u00a0 For teachers like Becca, being asked how they\u2019re doing \u2014 and being honest about the answer \u2014 was a major shift.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir: <\/strong>The group sessions are one part of The Teaching Well\u2019s model. But teachers can also receive individual support through one on one\u00a0 mentoring and clinical therapy. Becca has used both.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>It\u2019s a space for me to talk with someone about what\u2019s happening in my life and in my classroom and seeing what they can provide me. We do a lot of somatic practices or just thinking out loud or touching base what\u2019s actually happening.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> In one mentoring session, Becca tells Teaching Well\u2019s Marc Anthony Robinson over a video call that it is hard to separate teaching from the rest of her life.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>It\u2019s just nice to just sit for a moment. And it\u2019s good for me because after this, I\u2019m going straight to another thing. I\u2019m gonna the new families event for kindergarten.<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson: <\/strong>So you gotta be back on in a minute.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>I do. I do have to do this back on again. I know, it doesn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>All these children I hold in my brain when I leave here. And I\u2019m like showering and trying to go to sleep and eat. And I\u2019m, like, how can I support this kid better? How can I show up in a way that supports what they need<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>\u00a0I have to like, it\u2019s okay. You do not need to like hold that when you leave, you know?<\/p>\n Marc Anthony Robinson: <\/strong>I\u2019m really just honored to be doing this process and this journey with you because I\u2019ve seen you maneuver through a lot and I\u2019m excited for what this new year is going to bring for you school year wise. It\u2019s like it\u2019s going to feel different.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> In addition to mentoring Becca has also used the therapy services through Teaching Well. Therapy has also been shown to reduce stress and burnout in teachers, but waitlists and cost can make access difficult. Through Teaching Well, teachers can have up to 16 therapy sessions. And if a teacher needs more, Teaching Well helps them get a therapist through their insurance.\u00a0 Lindsey says that mental health services are becoming more available, but oftentimes they\u2019re just for students.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller:<\/strong> What no one is funding comprehensively yet, and we are looking for, is who is funding the mental health grants and programs for the educators that receive those students, that work with them day in and day out.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Educators are often absorbing students\u2019 trauma. This is called vicarious or secondary trauma.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller:<\/strong> A lot of why people are leaving is burnout or because there\u2019s a tragedy or school community violence and there\u2019s no real outlet to process it.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> The clinical therapists at the teaching well are also former educators. Which addresses a pitfall that is common in many free therapy programs for teachers.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>They\u2019re spending so much time trying to explain the context of working in a school that they don\u2019t get to get to the healing. It just cuts to the chase and gets them directly to the service that they need to be able to be retained.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> When teachers are well students fare better too.<\/p>\n Lindsey Fuller: <\/strong>We\u2019re seeing a direct correlation between a dysregulated teacher and elevated rates of exclusionary discipline. In other words, when a teacher is unwell, they\u2019re more likely to kick a kid out of class and refer them.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Three years after Becca thought about leaving teaching, she\u2019s still at Redwood Heights. And she says she no longer feels like crying before school every day. Having space to talk about teaching to her mentor and her colleagues helped her reestablish herself and her values<\/p>\n Becca Rogers:<\/strong> It gave me this like opportunity to be very meta and think about myself and my practice. And me as a human in the context of teaching<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Now, when stress rises in the classroom, she notices it earlier.<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>When I feel myself getting stressed in the class, I find that\u2019s a time for somatic practice for me and I share that practice with my students<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>We also do a lot of breath work. Whenever we come in from lunch, recess, we know before we do anything, it\u2019s time for breath work so we can help with that transition.<\/p>\n [breathing exercise]<\/em><\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>I think it\u2019s also allowed me to view my students in a different way, like thinking about a trauma informed response and like what I need, maybe what they need.<\/p>\n Nimah Gobir:<\/strong> Becca has more empathy now. More capacity to stay present through hard moments with her students<\/p>\n Becca Rogers: <\/strong>They\u2019re really navigating something too, right. They\u2019re human, I\u2019m a human and we\u2019re having this experience together.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n