Heading 1NDMTSS Conference
Description
Teachers have always needed to know and practice protective strategies in their social emotional first aid kits to manage the daily stressors of working on the front lines of a human-service oriented profession. That need has never been greater given the massive increase in uncertainty and unpredictability in the teaching profession and in one's personal life due to COVID.
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In short, teaching is emotional labor-- the effort required to manage and metabolize strong emotions like anger, shame, guilt, anxiety, and overwhelm, as well as generate and stoke positive emotions like joy, hope, and compassion.
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Stress significantly diminishes a teacher's capacity to regulate their negative emotions and cultivate positive emotions. Ironically, teachers who leave the profession often cite their inability to cope with their own emotional reactions to loss of control, unpredictability, and lack of purpose in their teaching as the primary reason for burnout.
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There are many, many strategies and practices rooted in cognitive and affective neuroscience and social and behavioral sciences that teachers can learn, practice, and integrate into their personal and professional lives as teachers to metabolize stress, manage negative energy, protect themselves from the burnout cycle, and find joy in teaching the whole year through!
Learning Objectives
In this session, teachers will:
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Explore the core elements of the teacher burnout cycle and learn how to protect one's self from the 2 paths to burning out,
Sustained and Strategic Educator SEL and Well-Being Support
for Waseca Schools
“For schools to be well, educators need to be well.”
(Bettina Love, We Want To Do More Than Survive, 2019)
While teachers have always encountered unique mental and emotional stressors in their teaching roles, teacher burnout has become a public health crisis in the midst of a global pandemic and our collective call for social justice in our schools.
“The call to help teachers take a more proactive stance to insulate themselves from the onset of burnout is just beginning to be heard” (Larrivee, 2012), and never has the need for strategic, systematic, and research-based professional development opportunities for teachers to learn how to metabolize stress in ways that stoke mental health, emotional resilience, and social and emotional learning (SEL) been more necessary.
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Present TeacherTM Trainings are intentionally and systematically designed to integrate and intersect with one another to provide educators with multiple layers of experience, knowledge, and insight of the 3 foundational R'S of educator, classroom, and school well-being: REST, RESTORATION, and REVITALIZATION.
Strategic Support Plan
February 28, 2022
7:30am10:30am
Teaching is a relationship-based profession.
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How a teacher positively relates to the self in good times and actively restores the self when stressed has a direct impact on one's capacity to build healthy, trauma-sensitive relationships with students. Core to intentionally building healthy relationships with students is a teacher's connection with their own social and emotional (SEL) development.
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"There is an uncanny symmetry between the way you are inward with yourself and the way you are outward with others."
(John O'Donohue, 2008)
Since relationships are foundational to good teaching and effective student learning, teachers must become relationship researchers. Core to being a relationship researcher is exploring one's personal SEL development.
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We believe teachers must learn relationship resilience skills that stoke their mental health and emotional well-being, cultivate their own SEL practice, and create healthy relationships with students where they share power and co-create spaces of belonging that positively impact student learning and human development.
In this highly experiential foundational session, teachers will explore the core competencies of the Present TeacherTM Impact:
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REST: Utilizing the power of active rest and connecting to the breath to settle a busy mind and reactive nervous system
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RESTORATION: Engaging the potential embedded in stress for educators to metabolize triggers into opportunities to exercise and embody SEL and value-based actions
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REVITALIZATION: Creating the possibilities and opportunities for learning, joy, and belonging in their classrooms through their presence
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Learning Objectives
MIND
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Explore the difference between healthy stress and toxic educator stress
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Discover core elements of the cycle of educator well-being and emotional resilience
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Learn the 3 foundations of mindfulness and how they are related to educator SEL and well-being
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Learn how to cultivate Self-Awareness and Self-Management (SEL) through moments of stress to strengthen body awareness, soul nerve insight, and value-based action
BODY
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Experience (2) mindfulness-based REST practices to settle a busy mind and calm an overactive nervous system
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Discover the power of the soul nerve: what it is, what it does, and how to connect to it and strengthen it in times of stress
PRACTICE
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Reconnect with calling, purpose, and core values as an educator
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Engage the 4 elements the Infinite Well-Being ModelTM for restoring energy, perspective, and self-integrity through moments of stress
Investment Cost
3 hour 1/2 day Retreat: $2,500
Handout printing: $780
TOTAL Investment Cost: $3,280
April
1, 2022
7:30am-10:30am
Present Teacher ∞ Present StudentTM is a synergistic professional development training program. This transformational opportunity combines the philosophies, practices, and strategies of both Move Mindfully® and Present Teacher® into one complete program that provides teachers with concrete mind and body practices to assist the self and students with trauma informed de-escalation and self-regulation strategies that calm the nervous system to promote optimal teaching and learning.
Our curriculum draws upon the following evidence-based practices that support educators in developing RESTORATION practices:
Mindfulness
SEL
Regulating Movement
Trauma-Responsive Classrooms
Healing-Centered Design
Learning Objectives
MIND
BODY
PRACTICE
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Explore the impact of trauma/stress on the nervous system and how to utilize mind-body practices to regain a sense of safety, stability, and connection
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Explore the 3 stages and manifestations of teacher and student burnout
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Learn evidence-based practices to metabolize burnout to engage healing
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Explore strategies to cultivate and embody the 5 competencies of SEL and mirror and model adult SEL and well-being to youth through presence
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Learn how to cultivate Responsible Decision Making and Relationship Skills (SEL) through moments of stress to strengthen mental health, emotional resilience, and compassion
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Explore the (2) mindfulness-based RESTORATION practices to stoke body safety and secure self-attachment (for the educator and the student)
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Experience student-centered strategies to "regulate, relate, and reason" in moments of distress and learn how to sequence self-soothing practices for students that stoke resilience and emotional adaptability
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Experience and practice how to stave off the onset of burnout and engaging healing from toxic stress through the 4 elements of the H.E.A.L Infinite Well-Being ModelTM
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Develop practical research-based interventions to assist students with self-regulation, focus, de-escalation, community connection and overall well-being
Co-Presented with Kathy Flaminio,
Investment Cost
(2) 3 hour 1/2 day Retreat Sessions: $6,500
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8:00am - 11:00am for K-6 educators
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12:00pm - 3:00pm for 7-12 educators
Handout printing: $780
TOTAL Investment Cost: $7,280
June
15, 2022
Summer Institute Wellness Retreat
Educators will be invited to integrate and extend their SEL and well-being practices through the restorative and rejuvenating experience of the MEP summer wellness retreat.
Options and opportunities for practice sessions are:
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Guided Body Scan (15-30 minutes)
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In this practice, educators will take a comfortable position and be guided in directing their attention in a gradual sequence from their toes to the tops of their heads.
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A body scan is a great mindfulness practice to release physical tension, calm a busy mind, break the cycle of tension, improve healthy sleep, reduce pain, and improve immunity.
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*A body scan can be added to the two yoga practice forms below.
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Flow and Glow Yoga (30-60 minutes)
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In this standing mindful movement practice, educators will be guided through a sequence of slow and gentle poses guided by the breath designed to improve strength, balance, and flexibility in the body and the mind. Yoga means to "yoke breath with movement," and in this simple flow, educators will feel the cumulative impact of strategically stressing the body in ways that promotes positive energy, vitality, and glow!
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Yoga is a perfect practice to stoke the body's natural feel good chemicals-- dopamine and endorphins. These feel good chemicals naturally activate the parasympathetic nervous system (calming center of the body) while stoking self-awareness and self-regulation.
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Flow yoga (where there are a series of standing poses sequenced together) increases mental and emotional energy, boosts alertness and enthusiasm, improves balance and body-awareness, and helps to reduce inflammation in the body that leads to disease.
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ALL bodies and yoga practice experience welcome!
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Yin Yoga (30-60 minutes)
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Yin yoga is different than traditional yoga. Yin yoga is done laying on the floor, and one is slowly guided through 4 poses that are designed to melt tension while cultivating inner awareness. Yin yoga is designed to provide moderate amounts of healthy stress to the body's joints, connective tissue, and ligaments so to increase the flow of energy through the body's systems. Yin yoga is a deeply meditative practice that simultaneously calms a busy mind while stoking resilience and strength in the physical body.
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Yin yoga is a gentle form of yoga that is soothing, compassionate, and nurturing. This practice of yoga alleviates tension, relieves stress, and increases the circulation of energy in the body.
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Yin yoga directly benefits educators who have experienced burnout and toxic stress by providing a safe space to reconnect with the sensations in the body without being overwhelmed by them (Greenspoon).
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ALL bodies and yoga practice experience welcome!
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Mindful Walking (30-60 minutes)
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Mindful walking is a strategic mindfulness practice where walking is used as a practice to become aware of one's surroundings and how one's body and mind feel while moving. Immersing one's self in nature invites the use of all 5 senses and has many health benefits for time-starved teachers. First, mindful walking is a great way to practice slowing down the speed of the body while still moving, it promotes bringing awareness to the current experience (vs. seeking to get through something to achieve something else), and it stimulates appreciation and gratitude. Educators will learn the fundamentals of mindful walking: directing attention to the sensations in the body, noticing the natural environment, and connecting movement with the ground so to evoke a sense of groundedness.
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Mindful walking promotes present moment awareness, reduces anxiety, increases dopamine (the feel good chemical), lowers the risk of heart disease, lifts the mood, encourages perspective taking, and improves cognitive functioning.
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Investment Cost
$1,500 for the day
November
7, 2022
7:30am-10:30am
The Present Schools ProjectTM is an innovative professional development training designed to engage school staff, educators, and administrators in expanding their knowledge and awareness of embodied equity. We believe that if we want to both teach and equip our students with the necessary skills, practices, and habits of mind of SEL, well-being, and anti-racist ways of being in the world that inspire and enable another to live their life with joy and dignity, WE must first be well, become skilled in our own SEL competencies, and embody a Presence that engenders trust and respect from our students.
Our curriculum draws upon the following evidence-based practices that support educators in developing REVITALIZATION practices:
Mindfulness
Neuroscience
Adult Transformation Theory
Learning Objectives
MIND
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Learn about the 5 core competencies of embodied equity and explore how they are tied to mindful awareness, SEL, and well-being
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Learn about Transformative SEL: what it is and how to embody it to create healthy relationships in schools
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Explore the origins of compassion fatigue and learn how compassion fatigue and burnout manifest as depersonalization and "bad othering"
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Explore the 4 practices of "sharing power" with youth through relationships with adults who mirror and model their SEL and well-being
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Learn how to cultivate Relationship Skills and Social Awareness (SEL) through moments of conflict to strengthen empathy, perspective taking, and appreciation of difference
BODY
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Engage a REVITALIZATION practice of Empathic Listening
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Engage body centered practices for settling the nervous system, safeguarding the body, and strengthening the soul nerve
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Engage school personnel in experiencing and practicing the 4 elements of the C.A.R.E Infinite Well-Being CycleTM stoke coalitional consciousness, embodied equity, and unconditional positive regard
PRACTICE
Co-Presented with Nuhu Sims,
Equity Director
Brooklyn Center Community Schools
Investment Cost
(2) 3 hour 1/2 day Retreat Sessions: $6,500
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8:00am - 11:00am for K-6 educators
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12:00pm - 3:00pm for 7-12 educators
Handout printing: $780
TOTAL Investment Cost: $7,280
Investment Cost Quick Glance
2/28/22 The Present Teacher Impact
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$3,280
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4/1/22 Present Teacher ~ Present Student
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$7,280
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11/7/22 The Present Schools Project
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$7,280
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TOTAL INVESTMENT (with handout printing): $17,840
TOTAL INVESTMENT (without printing): $15,500
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Summer Institute Retreat
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$1,500