"A Magnanimity of Spirit": Supporting Educators in Building Resiliency

I didn’t expect tears when I led a professional development session for a group of early childhood educators on doing our “inner work” and building resiliency.

Often, when we think about the preparation of educators, we only think about technical preparation. We put significantly less emphasis on the emotional component of teaching, which is arguably just as important. After all, the purpose of education is to be an aid to life, to support positive human development. This is a far loftier goal than simply transmitting knowledge and demands much more than technical preparation.

Over the course of my development as an educator, it was my inner work and resiliency, which my mentor Pat Ludick helped me develop, that has kept me in the field. Pat wrote the following quote in her paper, “The Positive Personality of the Montessori Adolescent,” which continues to resonate with me to this day:

Perhaps we come to see that serving our young people takes a generosity beyond comprehension, a magnanimity of spirit. We are cast into the realm of understanding life (often our own lives), of clarifying citizenship roles (often our own), of sorting spiritual and social dilemmas, of dealing with the grand mysteries of life on this planet and then embracing the wonder of human development, all on a daily basis

- Pat Ludick

The emotional response to my session reminded me of just how important it is to explicitly support teachers with their inner work. The educators I worked with talked about combatting perfectionism, not knowing how to say no to overbearing administrators, and feeling like they were not prepared with strategies to navigate the emotional stressors of their school and personal lives, particularly when those worlds collide. I am hopeful that, in this blog, I can bring the same reflective practice to you that I brought to them, supporting you in building your own resiliency.

The First Step: What is Your “Best?”

If we are going to prepare ourselves to be our best in the classroom, we must have a vision of what our “best” is. Each person works with students at a unique intersection of grade level, content, location, culture, etc. It is for this reason that I dislike the term “best practices,” because it assumes that good teaching looks exactly the same in all contexts.

Take a moment to journal on the following three questions. They can be reflective, in thinking about experiencing your best in the classroom, and also forward thinking, about what you want to experience in your work with students.

• When you’re at your best, what does it look like?

• When you’re at your best, what does it feel like?

• When you’re at your best, what does it sound like?

By reflecting on these questions, you can build a concrete idea in your mind of your best, which is the first critical step to actualizing it in the classroom.

The Second Step: Barriers to Your “Best”

A common phrase in education is that as teachers, we “leave our lives at the door” when we enter our classrooms. The reality is that we carry the emotional weight of our personal lives into the classroom whether we want to or not. Often, our cultural practice of ignoring what triggers us or what is bothering us prevents us from bringing our best to our students.

Take a moment to journal on the following two questions. This may be difficult. I encourage you to see that difficulty as an invitation to look inward at your own personal and professional development as an area for growth.

• What gets in the way of being your best self in the classroom? Generate a list of generalities and specific examples.

• Categorize that list into two categories: factors inside of school and outside of school.

It is important to consider the compounding effect of these barriers and how they can impact us when occurring at the same time. This will be unique and personal for each person, and I encourage you to take some time to reflect fully on these barriers, even the ones which you may have normalized.

The Third Step: Designing Resiliency Strategies

While it’s often hard to reflect honestly on these barriers, it is necessary to enhance our wellbeing as prepared adults who seek to serve our students in their development. Knowing our barriers and triggers gives us choice as to how we will respond and how we will intentionally care for ourselves.

This is where the third step comes in: Take a look at your list of barriers, and create a list of possible solutions to overcoming those barriers. They might be as simple as taking a walk during your break or setting aside 30 minutes to read before bed, yet those simple routines can make a critical difference in your ability to be fully present for your students.

Find a place to keep your list handy, in your Notes app in your phone or posted in your home or work space, so that you can continue to refer to it and add to it. This inner development never gets easier but we can become accustomed to making it a part of our daily work as educators.

Building Resiliency to Elevate Our Practice

It is critical that when we talk about building resiliency that we frame it explicitly about elevating our practice to a heightened level of service to our students. Our resiliency is not supposed to allow us to maintain the status quo, but to transform ourselves to best serve our students and their positive development. Building resiliency allows us to do our work more fully and step into new roles as enlightened guides. Maria Montessori said it best when she wrote:

“The point is that the teacher must not learn a new method but must acquire new attitudes. The more the teacher has been able to lose or forget their old position, the more able they will be to become a good teacher in this method.”

-Maria Montessori

So many of us don’t talk about our inner development as educators. Yet this inner development is intimately tied with our pedagogical development. If we avoid inner development, our pedagogy will be hollow and won’t fully meet the needs of the students in our care. We will yell at students. We will blame them for failure without reexamining our preparation or what we provided of them. We will grow bitter of those who would suggest alternative approaches. And, ultimately, without inner development, we won’t stay in the profession for long.

If this was helpful in thinking about your inner development, please like this post or leave a comment to let me know!