Mental Health Discussion
First we discussed how to take care of our student’s mental health, whether that be through helping them find professional help, or teaching them how to develop self-regulation strategies so that they can help themselves
Some Important Points of Discussion:
- It’s important to “investigate” family life to see if they need help too, or if they’re the main root of your students problems.
- Teach students how to take breaks and explore mindfulness
- Encourage students to identify and express their feelings of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems to either a friend, teacher or trusted guardian.
- It’s important to recognize when your students are not in a healthy headspace, because it affects their abilities to learn and communicate effectively.
- Humanize yourself to your students! Let them know that sometimes you struggle to and that everyone is here for one another in your classroom.
- Foster emotional intelligence and a growth mindset by discussing and modelling healthy communication and coping mechanisms.
The second half of our mental health discussion focused on the mental health of teachers, and how it is sometimes crucial to our our mental health above our job.
Some Important Points of Discussion:
- Because we can never “switch off” when we are teaching and must constantly appear positive and happy, it’s normal for teachers to feel emotionally drained and over stressed.
- Its important as teacher to take breaks and time for ourselves!
- This includes time off from class, emails, meeting, phone calls and other forms of teacher-focused discussions!
- Create a space where school life does not invade, such as no phone calls or answering emails when you are at home.
- You must be in a good headspace when you’re in the classroom, so it’s very important to take care of yourself first so you can be positive and present to your students!
- Don’t hide what you’re feeling from your students (to an appropriate degree), it’s important to let them recognize you as a human, not just an authoritative figure!
- But it’s also important to remember that you are still their teacher, not their parent!
Classroom Management Discussion
I chose “classroom management” as my second EDcamp session. Our discussion focused largely on how every teacher is different, and that there are a variety of classroom management strategies that work best for for different teachers. However, it was agreed that building relationships with your students is one of the most important strategies!
Some Important Points of Discussion:
- Attention grabbers! We all had a different go-to method of catching and maintaining our students attention, whether that be clapping rhythms, flickering the lights, singing a melody or simply standing there in silence. There are many different methods, so you must experiment and find what works best for you!
- Our biggest point of discussion was the importance of building and maintaining relationships with your students. Get to know them and let them get to know you, but be careful not to cross that barrier of teacher vs parent! Your students will respect you more once they know better, and they will also likely care about your approval more!
- Another important classroom management technique is communication with both students and their parents! Beginning conversations and relationships with positivity will help break the ice and build deeper relationships with students and their families!
Overall Takeaway
Overall I gained a lot of insight from my fellow teacher candidates about mental health and developing classroom management strategies. It was very comforting to hear that many of us carry the same passions and discomforts when it comes to our future teaching practices. It was nice to be reminded that we all have each other, despite the differences that we all also may share! The two EDcamp experiences that we’ve had so far have gotten me really excited for the “real” EDcamp experience that we will get to experience as future educators! I’m hoping I get another one of these experiences with my fellow classmates sometime soon!