How teacher wellbeing impacts us all with Meg Durham

0:02 A listener production. This is Crappita Happy and I am your host Castune. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of. Course author of the Crappy to Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Meg Durham is a former teacher who learned very quickly when she entered the profession that being a teacher does not just involve educating our kids. There's also a whole lot of responsibility for their mental and emotional wellbeing. There's the cognitive load of knowing where they're up to in their lives, and also dealing with parents. She also saw firsthand the devastating impacts of teacher burnout and exhaustion from carrying all of this responsibility.

1:00 She decided that she had to do something about this, and so she has dedicated her professional life to improving the health and wellbeing of teachers. Meg believes passionately that if the people around our kids aren't looking after their wellbeing, then the flaw and effect for the kids can be dire. I thought it was really timely to have this conversation with Meg. Having just come out of two years of teachers having the pressure of remote learning, we know how challenging it has been, so in this chat, Meg takes us behind the curtain and explains why teachers are so burnt out and what can be done about it. There are lessons here relevant to everyone, So even if you are not a teacher, if you're a parent or just someone struggling with your own wellbeing, then I think you will get a lot out of this chat, and I know that you're going to love Meg as much as I do.

1:50 Meg. Welcome to Crappy to Happy. Such a pleasure to have you here. Cas, thank you so much for having me. You have been I'm a huge supporter of Crappy to Happy and I've been following the work that you've been doing and loving the impact that you are having and make you. As we explained in the intro, work in the space of teacher well being. So let's just start by introducing you to the listeners and tell us a little bit about the megstory and how you came to be so passionate about well being in schools and with teachers. Well cas For me, it all began when I was a little girl playing schools. I was one of those little girls that played schools. I had my little library, I had my pretend students, and all I ever wanted to be was a teacher. Wow, I never waivered. That's all I ever wanted to be was a teacher.

2:42 That's amazing that that never changed along the way. Never changed. The only thing that changed was what type of teacher, and that depended on who was teaching me that year. So sometimes I wanted to be you two teacher, you five teacher. Then I wanted to be my PE teacher, my science teacher. So I ended up becoming a primary and secondary PE and science teacher. Wow. I didn't actually realize there was such a thing as a primary and secondary teacher. So with PE you can do that across both. Is that normal that you can? Yeah? Right, yeah, you can teach primary through to secondary. And a lot of schools that have phized specialists a P to twelve and so you do primary and secondary.

3:23 And it's really interesting because when you're teaching primary students, they have so much will, so much motivation, not so much skill and then when you're teaching secondary students, they've got a lot of skill, but you have to really get them going to get that motivation. Ah, that's relatable. And so you fulfilled your dream, you became a teacher, and then how did that evolve into what you're doing. So my first day in the classroom, I felt like I had won a gold medal, like I'd finally had my class list, I had my students that were sitting there, I was getting paid to be a teacher, and I thought. This is it. I have absolutely made it. And as every teacher knows, your first year is like a tsunami. It is so full on. It's like buckling in for a roller coaster and you do everything you can to get through that first year. And for me, it was survival, get home, have a nap, get up, do my reporting, do all my assessment, and go again.

4:22 Wow. Pretty fullng, really full. On, and people don't understand unless you're in it. Sometimes I think of it a bit like parenting. It's one of those things like, oh, yeah, I could be a parent, that's you know, that's fine, and then you become a parent, like whoa. There is so much to this that you can't articulate until you're in it. And so that's something that I really was challenged with when it came to teaching, because there was so much that I wasn't prepared for, so much that I wasn't skilled in, and yet it was expected that I could do it. So tell me what some of those things were that you were not skilled in. So pretty much anything to do with a human element of teaching. When I was training, I trained in the content, not the context, And so when it comes to context, we're not supported in how do we work with young people, how do we navigate challenging parents, how do we deal with the difficult conversations in the staff room. It's all that human element that we're not supported in. It's almost like when I went through my teacher training that the students will arrive, you'll teach them, and they will leave.

5:29 That's it. And it's nothing like that what you. Said before, Meg about you don't know it until you're in it. And I've run a couple of sessions in schools over the course of my the work that I do in terms of well being and positive psychology and mindfulness, and that is the thing that I hear back from schools and people bringing me in. Is they say, our teachers they almost do a sprint for eight weeks or ten weeks, and then they crash and burn, and then they come back and they sprint and it's this peak valley kind of situation where they are fully spent depleted. By the end of a term. Is that sounding like what you experienced.

6:15 Absolutely, it's a complete boom and bus cycle. So if we didn't have the holidays, we wouldn't be able to go again. And years ago in teaching, in the first few weeks it was quiet, we were settling in, we're getting to know students, we're getting into our curriculum, and then it would slowly build. But now from week one to week ten, it is on. It's fast, it's furious, and it's intense. I don't know if you are familiar with just little side topic. Becks Barrow, who has obviously been a guest on this podcast as well, and Madonna King also has been a guest on the podcast, and they both work in this the Bust journalists by training, but they work in this area of sort of students well being, and they've been having some discussion about the nature of the Australian curriculum and that's probably not a conversation for us to have today, but it sounds like that's what you're alluding to make the way the curriculum has changed, and the amount of pressure that is being put on teachers and students to cover ridiculous amounts of content at a ridiculously high level in a ridiculous amount of time, and so that's just kind of increasing the pressure at all levels in the education system.

7:26 Yes, and the curriculum is just one element of what's putting pressure on our educators. It's not the whole story, and it is a big element, but there's so much more. When you think about the day of a teacher, the emotional load that they carry is significant. A secondary teacher will be teaching from one hundred to two hundred students in a week or two weeks, and they're expected to get to know every student, their strengths, their weaknesses, to be in contact with parents. Sometimes there's two parents involved, four parents involved. There is a lot of dynamics that come with every single student that is a very heavy load to carry, and it's very invisible. So when a teacher walks into a classroom, they will look at a student and think, oh, I've just got an email that their dog died yet last night. And this student they're going through a divorce in their family. This student really needs us to break things down because they've got some additional needs. This student's just had a fight with someone in a locker room. And there's something for every student, and that emotional load is so heavy and we're not supported to deal with it.

8:33 So how did that coming back to your story? Then? Meg? Like? Where did that take you next? So what happened for me was I got more and more interested in this human element. And there was a moment that I remember really clearly. I was teaching year eight science at a beautiful school. It had everything that open and shuts, and this student looked like her life was all together, was all fine, and she said could I have a with her? I said, yeah, no problems, I'll have a quick chat to you on my way out to yard duty. Happy to help my chat with students all the time. And then I looked in her eyes and I realized that she wanted to really talk. It wasn't a talk that we could have on the way to yar duty, and so I made the space to talk with her, to get someone else to do my yard duty, and what this young girl shared with me just broke my heart. Here I am twenty two dealing with a young girl that's heart is breaking, that life feels like it's falling apart, and we're not trained for that, and I thought, what am I going to do?

9:35 I've got no idea what to do, and so instantly I thought, what would mum do? Mum would listen, be empathetic, be understanding, make them feel okay, not to judge them, and get them to help. And so that's what I did. But it was one of those moments casts that once you see it, you can't unsee it. So that student that looks like everything's going well on the surface, it isn't always the same internal. And that's when I really started to notice that there was so much going on for the young people in my classroom and the adults that were in my staff room, and the parents that I was talking to on the phone. It was this human element. So that's why I went to study my master's in education in Student well Being over ten years ago now, because I wanted to learn how can we do this better? How can we support the humans in our classroom so they can learn.

10:26 And so a master's in education. So did you do that, like leave and do that full time or did you go and do that on top of while you were continuing to teach. I was doing that while I was teaching, right, and I was also teaching aerobic So I'm painting a picture of an AE plus you know that a type personality. I was just desperate to learn how to do it. And I remember going along to a lecture on a Thursday night. It went from five o'clock I think to eight o'clock and it was so tiring to do the program, but it was also so inspiring to think, there is this whole body of knowledge that we know of that's evidence based, that helps people, and why aren't we learning this as educators and why aren't we teaching this to our students?

11:11 So you came back then and continue to teach make or did you come back. More into a well being? Like? How did that evolve for you? So I continued to teach, but then I continued to get frustrated because now I knew the knowledge. I had the knowledge, but there wasn't spaces to share it. There wasn't opportunities to explicitly teach it, and I believe that we need to explicitly teach the skills of well being, just like we teach numeracy, literacy, any other subject. And so eventually I was at a school that really saw what I knew and they gave me the opportunity to write my first student well being program for girls in year seven, eight and nine. And how did that go down?

11:53 It was amazing to be teaching well being education like a say object. It was that moment of this is what I'm here to do. This is the subject that I want to teach to see young people find out that they're not alone, that everybody has these thoughts, everybody has these experiences because they are human. Permission to be human, permission to be sad, happy, jealous, all of the things, and give ourselves a language. It was so much fun, Like I absolutely loved teaching students, but then I became really passionate about supporting educators to provide this information not only for their students, but for themselves. What did you.

12:40 Observe in terms of the change in those students, you know, what were the results that you were able to actually see in terms of how they managed themselves in their lives. Well as a basic understanding. We did a lot about energy management. Who is responsible for how you feel each day? And we surveyed the whole group of your age students and said, who is responsible for your energy? My parents, myself, my teachers, or other. When we first surveyed yourate students, the overwhelming majority said, my parents. It's my parents. It's my parents like making me go to bear the doing all of this thing. It has to be my parents. Who else is responsible for my energy? And then at the end of the year we asked the same question, and overwhelmingly they realized it was me. My choices have an impact on the way that I experience life. And then from that foundation of autonomy and responsibility, we started to notice that students weren't having big blow ups as much.

13:38 They were dealing with small things. They were dealing with little niggles, and they weren't going straight to a teacher every time there was a little issue because they had the skills to navigate it, they had a language to navigate it. They talked about flipping their lids and it's okay, we do that. Let's just not dig a hole and they had a whole new language to communicate with each other, and so there was less drama and also more learning. Wow, that is brilliant. I mean, just you know, Meg, Like, imagine if every student or and every teacher you know had that as a foundation, how much stress it would save, and how much drama it would save, and how much energy it would free up for people to be able to focus on the things that that are really important for them to focus on.

14:26 And this is the ideal world. The ideal world is where we can explicitly teach these skills with teachers that are really highly trained in this area. However, the way that education is set up at the moment, it's not what happens because teachers aren't getting the support, they're not getting the resources what they need to feel confident to walk into that well beeing classroom. So, for example, if you're a mass or a French teacher and you're expected to teach well being, how like I wasn't trained. Would be like asking me, as a phizzed teacher to teach French. It's like, well, that's not my skill set. I don't feel comfortable teaching that. Yes, we're all human, yes, you know, we've all been to school. Yes we have relationship things, but being skilled is really important and feeling like you can walk into that classroom with the confidence that you know what you're talking about, that you know this content area.

15:19 It's not just something that we pick up a book and we just start talking about it. And I'm being a master of French teacher, You've already got enough on your plate to teach. Yeah, You've got so much on your plate to teach, and teachers have so much on their plate. So we've talked about the emotional load, we've talked about the curriculum. Well, we haven't talked about is the engagement factor. So since remote learning, it has been harder and harder to get students engaged because they've had two years on their screens where they can mute, they can turn their cameras off, go to the fridge, text their friend, all these things and to walk back into a classroom. It is so hard to get students engaged. And it's not just a school thing. I was talking to a professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine from Stanford University last week and she said she can't get her medical students into university because they want to watch her on double time, having a latte, talking to their friends. And so this engagement is such an issue for us.

16:20 What do we do about that? Yeah, this is and this is this is. The extension of the school system is often reflective of a community issue. So we know as a community we're losing our ability to focus. We're more distracted. We like things with bells and whistles. We want things to be short and sharp. We can't bear to wait for an episode for a whole week. We need to binge the whole season. And so can you imagine what it's like for our young people who've never had a time where they've had to wait and now to be back into classrooms. And also some students coming back to school has been really tough because they loved being away from all the social dynamics.

17:00 They loved being withdrawn from it, and so to step back into it feels uncomfortable because they've had a big gap in their social development. It's a challenge make I was actually you've preempted me because I was going to ask you, like, what unique challenges are being faced right now, particularly on the back of the pandemic, and so that's obviously a huge one. So if we come back to teacher well being and what they're grappling with, then obviously, as you're saying, just getting students engaged, what am I getting teachers engaged? Again? Is that an issue? It's a big issue because we've gone from a model where teachers were at school every day, they had their timetable, they did what they were told. Because teachers like to do what they're told and we'll get to that a little bit later. They like to do the right things.

17:50 And then we had this remote learning period where they realized, oh I could put the washing on, I could go for a walk, I could chat to my friend at lunch time. I had all this autonomy. And so to go back into school feels really challenging because all of a sudden, they're thinking, I don't know if I want to be so constrained by this timetable and constrained by how this school functions. I really liked having a little bit of autonomy. And so it's interesting to notecast that the schools that have allowed much more flexibility now they're the ones that their staff are much more likely to stay because they're starting to feel that experience, But there are schools that have gone back to that you have to be on site from this time to this time, and it's just not sustainable in this future. Teachers aren't going to hang around in schools where there's no flexibility.

18:37 They want flexibility, just like every other workplace. And it's exactly what you just said, mag like that is reflective of the broader community, like so many organizations now have gone to a hybrid model because people have had a taste of that autonomy and organizations have realized you don't actually have to be there, and you don't have to be commuting, and you don't have to be physically in a particular building in a particular space to do your job effectively. So that's really interesting that that is relevant for teachers as well, because I guess intuitively you would think, oh, well, that's a. Job that you've got to You've got to be there like you've got it. How does that work that hybrid model for somebody who is a teacher in a school. So as a teacher, you have a timetable and it's face to face teaching, but there are times when you're not face to face teaching so it could be reasonable to expect if you had the lesson five off on a Friday, or you had a late start on a Wednesday, that you can do that.

19:29 Okay, well that makes perfect sense. I think one of the things with about the perception of teaching generally. You know, you talked about you always wanted to be a teacher. I mean, I know lots of people who grow up saying I. Want to be a teacher, and then number one reason for wanting to be a teacher is they think that this is an you know, eight thirty to three o'clock. And loads of holidays that you get paid for. Like, there's always been this public perception that teaching is really cushy, you get all this time off. That's clearly not the reality. So how does this. Impact the way teachers are being supported? I guess I get the sense that people are not that sympathetic to the stress that teachers are undernecessarily because there is this public perception.

20:17 Would you agree? Yeah? I do agree, And I think we're in a tricky situation because everybody has been to school, so everybody feels like, because I've been to school, I know what schools are like. But schools have changed so much since when we were at school, and so it's a different world. And so that's why I think it's so important that more teachers share what their day to day experience is, because when you share your day to day experience with someone who doesn't work in education, their eyes just light up and think, I can't believe it. Is that what you have to deal with. So let's think about the parental side of education. Let's think about parents. So years ago, you didn't see parents. Parents didn't come to scho school.

21:00 They weren't a part They may have come to the sports day. They may have come along to the assembly at the end of the year, but they weren't a part of everyday life. Now you have parents that feel that they can email every little detail to their teachers all the time. I worked in a school. Cast This is not a lie. This is one hundred percent true. I worked in a school that a student was given a certificate, and so the parents decided that a certificate wasn't good enough. They went and got their own trophy made with the school emblems on it, and we had to explain that that is not okay, okay. So we've got like this extremes of parents who are hyper involved.

21:43 They don't want their children to experience discomfort. They'll go into bat for them straight away. They're in there. They're firing off emails at all times of at night, all different things. If they just slept on it and may have had a different outcome. But then also we have parents that we can't engage that we just wish they would come for something like please come and see your children learning, growing, be involved, be you're part of it. So the parental piece is really interesting, and every school context has different challenges and also different strengths when it comes to parents. And I believe that the schools that do really well are the schools that the teachers and the parents are really working together as a team to support the young person.

22:27 Yeah, so Meg, back to you were teaching. Keep coming back to you and your story. Because you were teaching students well being. Then you became really passionate about educating teachers so that teachers could then share this information with student I mean that makes sense, doesn't it, Like have it come from the top and have it filter through the student body. So what then happened for you? How did that come about? So part of My story, which is a whole other episode, is I fell in love with a farmer. So that's another story. Ah, I fell in love with and that mean that I moved very far away from lots of schools, and so that's where I was lucky to write the well being program and start doing the teaching. And from writing the program and doing the training of the teachers, that's where I noticed that I got the most energy when you're in a room with teachers that want to learn, that are excited to learn, and they want to share this information. They want to do a really good job.

23:22 Teachers want to do a good job. So when they're provided with the space, the time, and the resources, magic can happen. And that's where I got so interested in this staff piece. And then I became a parent, and then I got curious about the parent piece. And that's where I've got to this place where if we really want our young people to be well, we need to surround them with well adults that know how to look after themselves and navigate the ups and downs. We can't just look at our young people and think what's wrong with them? We really need to think about the whole environment, think about that ecosystem. On the farm, when the crop didn't do well, they didn't blame the crop. They looked at the soil, they looked at the weather. And that's what we really need to think about when it comes to school systems. Let's look at the whole ecosystem. How are things going? What's the culture? Does it feel like we're in a hot pot? Does it feel like we're marinating in stress, pressure, an urgency? Or is there some space?

24:23 Is there some laughter? Is there connection? Meg? Giving teaches those skills is so important, But like you say, like those they have to have the space, like the environment has to support them. Doesn't it like a teacher can't individually create that space and time for themselves in a high pressure week with as you say, parent expectations, overloaded curriculum, lack of engagement. So how does this is really a whole school approach, isn't it? It has to be a whole school approach, And we really need to invest resources into this space. It's like any other area in the school. If we want it to be done well, we need to invest in it.

25:08 I often look at how much effort and energy goes into maintaining the grounds at a lot of schools, and I think, imagine if you put that effort and energy into maintaining your staff. And how receptive are schools to this. I feel like we've come a long way in this space, Like I feel like well being, positive, psychology, all of that stuff is really kind of know now, and I think schools get it now more so than they ever did. Are you finding that they're very receptive to having somebody like you or you know, somebody else in that same space like come in and help them to put these structures in place. Yeah, what you're saying is so spot on, Cass. I think in the last ten years I've seen more growth in the last eighteen months than my whole career. People are open and it's also not just schools. Other organizations are really open to information that I don't think they would have been open to two years ago, pre pandemic.

26:04 And so it's interesting what desperation makes people do all of a sudden. If your staff aren't tuning up, you're going to get a little bit curious and think about how can we do things differently. I hope that you're enjoying this conversation and realizing the benefits of positivity in your own life. If you are enjoying the show, please be sure to like and subscribe so that you get notified when you apps drop and head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review. Meggie, you mentioned before teachers really want to do a good job, and I think, you know, even in thinking about having this conversation with you, I was thinking, you know, people come to the profession of teaching, it's like any sort of helping or caring profession. They're so giving and so nurturing, and they do understand the responsibility I guess of their job.

27:00 So how does. That personality trade or you know, that sort of helping attitude and self sacrificing almost attitude of teachers. How does that get in the way of their own wellbeing? Or does it it gets in the way every day casts Because the people that come to education and the people that come to caring professions deeply care about the people that they work with. They bend over backwards to do what they need to do for their students, and so this can be the biggest tension when it comes to staff well being. Is giving staff the space to say you are human permission to be human with human needs, because a teacher can walk into a classroom and they know the needs of every student in that classroom, and when I ask them what do you need, they look at me with a blank face. I don't haven't thought about it. I don't think about it because I'm so busy doing things for other people. And this is where I talk about the internal pressures that teachers put on themselves.

28:11 I like to call them the big hearted humans. So the big hearted humans put this internal pressure on themselves. I call them the five p's. The first one is to be perfect. They really feel like they need to be perfect. Teachers love a tick sheet, they love a PDF, they love formatting documents. You know, honestly, once teachers get going color coding, that oh color coding. Come come on, you're talking about language highlight. My happy place office works. I walk into office and I feel like the heaven's open and the angels are singing, and it's color and it's organized. It's just the best for a teacher that new school year, Like it's fresh, there's no students there to mack it up, yet, like it's beautiful, like you know, this perfecting piece that we have, and so often the students don't care. Other people don't care, but we get stuck just doing one more thing. One more thing will take two seconds, it takes two hours, you know. So this is perfecting. That's the first one of the peas.

29:13 The second one is this pleasing. Teachers are in the habit of pleasing everybody else but themselves. They will avoid difficult conversations, They will run a mile before having some challenging conversations because they want to be pleasing. They don't want to be difficult. They don't want to rock the boat, the walk on eggs shells. They do all the things they do the dance to try and make sure that everybody's pleased. And we know, we know, gas that you cannot please everyone. No, it's not possible. And the more we try to please everyone, the more exhausted we become because we say yes to things that we don't want to do, or we don't quite say yes, but then we don't say no. So then we just keep doing more, more and more, and the busy teachers at school just get more like, oh, you did so well with the musical, why don't you run the athletics carnival, and why don't you do the parents and Friends' night? And why don't you do this? And why don't you do that? Because you're good at it. You don't want to say no, and it's that pleasing. And the third p, which is really quite sneaky, is a pretending. A lot of teachers pretend.

30:23 We want to pretend like, yes, we are educating in the futureat Yes, I'm on top of it. Yes, I don't want to be difficult. I don't want to say so we pretend that it's all okay. And it's interesting to note that when teachers talk about how difficult it is in the classroom, people are shocked. It's like, no, no, no, this is not a once off. This is not a this school thing. This is a community thing. You go to schools everywhere around the country, and there are issues in every single school. I'm yet to find a school that doesn't have an issue. But we also have a habit of pretending like all's fine here, I'm not sure what's happening down there. And then the fourth one, and I think you may relate to this one, Cass, is this producing we love a to do list? Yes, we love a to do list, and nothing gets us more excited than ticking something off our list. Dopamine boom, boom boom.

31:18 And it's so funny because there's something that producers do that only producers know about. Is they have their list and then they do something that's not on the list, and so they write it on the list. So that they can't take it off. Boom, yeah, boom. I'm producing. I'm nailing it today. I'm doing so so well, and so feeling like you always have to be productive everywhere you go, have to be productive. I can't stop and eat, I've got things to do. I can't go to the toilet, I've got things to do. Feeling like you always have to be productive. And then the fifth one is feeling like we have to perform. We have to perform in the staff room, we have to perform in the class, and we have to perform on yard duty, on crossing duty, saying hello to parents, and so together that these five p's are partly our superpower, but also very disruptive when we overplay it, because we become so disconnected to ourselves and what we need to recharge and really be present with our young people.

32:22 And Meg I guess as you're talking, I was thinking about the exhaustion funnel. I don't know if I've ever talked about that before. It's something we sort of talk about in mindfulness about how over time we become more and more and more depleted and we start letting go of the things that support our well being because our focus and our perception and everything just gets narrower. I was also thinking about Brene Brown saying saying that she has about the most generous thing that you can do is to set a boundary and to say no. And I so personally relate to that, because I know that I am my most generous when I have clear boundaries and I'm not feeling resentful about all of the demands on me and people, you know, take, take, take, which is all. It's not people, take take, take, it's me saying yes, yes, yes, instead of actually saying no. So as you're talking, I'm thinking this, this has to have the effect of causing teachers to be stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out, and ultimately resentful. As much as they're doing all of these things because they want to support teachers and they want to do a great job.

33:26 At the end of the day when there is nothing left to give. This has to have a negative impact, like it has to be having the opposite effect that they are seeking to achieve. It's really fair to say, because we're on a race to nowhere. The demands of the job are too much for one person. So learning how to be with the reality as it is, the system as it is, and then making choices that are within our best interest, because when we're at the bottom of that funnel, when we're exhausted and depleted, we can't be present with students. Students come to us talking about the issues and you're just too exhausted. We have this compassion fatigue, and we just can't be present. And so that's why it's so important that we say to educators and parents and care is anyone who's caring for somebody else, how important it is to charge your battery to take care of you so then you have the energy to make better choices and be present in your relationships. And this is the hardest part of my work cast because people have set up their identity around being productive, performing these pees, feeling like you're always there for other people. It can be such a disruption and so confronting to our sense of self and our identity when we go to take care of our well being, because it's so counter culture to what we're used to doing. We're used to being there for others, not to be there for ourselves. And so one of the most important skills that educators can learn is this self compassion permission to be human. You cannot be everything

35:00 to everyone, and what you get done in a day is enough. I feel like there's people listening to this right now who aren't even teachers, who are going relating to every bit of this conversation. So whether a teacher or a parent or just a. People pleasing perfectionist, you're going to relate to this conversation and we are going to get to the strategies for how to turn this around because it is called crappy. They're happy after all. But Meg, what I wanted to say first was just before we. Came on air, Meg, we were talking about how I've obviously moved to the UK and the school year is just starting here. September is the start of their school year, so I'm thinking about all the teachers going back to work here. But in Australia, of course, we're coming to the end of term three. So I was thinking, Wow, we are really hitting that time of year where everybody is teachers particularly are tired. You know, it's like even and our students, our kids are tired. We're coming, you know, three quarters into a big year after the stress that we've all gone through with the pandemic and everything else.

36:06 So we're coming to September holidays. I think at the time that this episode is coming out, so it's a really it's a nice time of year. I think it's a perfect time of year for anybody listening to this who is a teacher or any sort of caring profession probably, but particularly for teachers to really start to think about what can I do to support myself to get through to the end of this year, that last big push, that last big sprint to the end of the year, and how do I get through this with my well being intact or take better care. Of myself if I'm ticking all the boxes. As I listened to this conversation and going, yeah, that's man, I'm completely depleted, burnt out, exhausted, I'm not being my best self for my students. What can I do differently? So what advice have you got for us, Meg, what strategies can you share?

36:51 I know you've got buckets. Yeah, I've got a toolkit. I've got Bunning's worth of strategies. I love it. But my first one and the most important one, and one that I use every day, is to check in with your battery. And so I'm going to ask you five questions and you can check how charged your battery is. Out of five in the last twenty four hours, have you had enough sleep for your body in the last twenty four hours? Have you moved your body in the last twenty four hours? Have you nourished your body and hydrated your body in the last twenty four hours? Have you had some rest or dare I say pleasure or fun? Oh? God? What is that? And in the last twenty four hours have you had some quality connection? So, considering those five pillars of energy, how charged is your battery? So, Cas, I'm going to ask you, what do you think is my average answer to that those five questions?

37:48 Well, even as you are asking it, I was thinking, wow, twenty four hours, that's a short time period. Like if you asked in the last week or the last month, maybe it would be a different answer. But mat I'm thinking for most people, maybe it's a two to three. For most people it's a two. And when I've asked this question, it hasn't changed since the pandemic or not, it has been two across the board. Wow, for students, teachers, and parents. Everywhere I go and ask this question, the average response is too. So if our battery is at a two, that's going to impact the quality of our decisions, that's going to impact our confidence, that's going to impact everything in our life. And so the most important strategy is to get back to basics, to remember that we're human with these human needs and we can't shortcut them.

38:40 We can't talk about high performance if we're not feeling healthy, if we don't have energy. So getting back to sleep, that beautiful sleep and wake cycle, and working really hard to get there, because we all know that young kids, newborns, we work so hard so they can sleep perfectly. We've got the room temperature, we've got the togs, we've got all the things happening for young people. But for us, we're lying in bed, scrolling on our phones and wondering why we can't sleep. So really getting serious about our sleep and just noticing what It's like for you when you haven't had enough sleep, because once you start to notice, oh I'm just sleep deprived, there's actually nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with them. I just need to get to sleep. It can reduce a lot of drama and a lot of tension. And we also know that movement is so powerful and something is better than nothing. So many people that I work with are always saying that, oh, I haven't got time for F forty five or I don't have time for this. So I'm like, you don't need F forty five. You don't need the best workout gear.

39:41 You just need to put your runners on and go for a walk, go for a walk around the block, or do a few stretches. We need to move our bodies. We are designed to move, and we're becoming much more sedatory than ever before. I feel like the other one that is really lacking is that so connection. Yeah, And it's so interesting because this is what teachers tell me all the time, And people are curious, like, why why are teachers missing out of social criptu. They're seeing people all the time, Yes, but a lot of the relationships are very transactional. It's about who's on that yard duty, who's covering that class, who's covering that class, where's that worksheet, where's that and all of this. We're not present in our relationships, having that time to sit and talk to each other, have a laugh, actually find out what's going on in their lives. And it's interesting. Someone once said to me, Meg, you know, as a teacher, you can really know your students, but you fail to notice them.

40:37 Wow. When we're stress, we fail to notice them like we know them, but we don't notice the little things that have happened in a class, that they're not talking as much, or that they've withdrawn, or there's that little thing happening in the back. Because when we're stressed, when we're under pressure, we're just focused on getting through the content, making this happen. And so when we step back, we can be much more present and we can start to really notice what's going on for our young person and also more importantly, notice what's going on for us. How charged is my battery? Is this decision coming from a place of depletion and exhaustion and avoiding discomfort or is this decision coming from a place of energy where I can move through discomfort and I can get my runners on and do the thing that I know that I don't really want to do, to do it because I know it will make me feel better. Things that are worth the effort, and anything that makes us feel better generally requires a little bit of effort. So when it comes to eating a Timtam, I don't require any effort. I don't need motivational music.

41:39 I don't need to pump up. I don't need to think about my mindset. I just eat it and then you know what, cas, I'll probably go back and eat another one, and then I might eat another one, and then before you know it, I'm like the whole packet is gone. I don't need motivation for that. But we need energy to go for a walk, we need energy to make a healthy meal, we need energy to get ourselves to bed. So it's such a vicious but also upward spiral depending on where we are when we get back to basics. Yeah, I think this is what you're saying. It's one of the things that I obviously I come across all the time with my own community, particularly mums, I guess, and just women juggling. But this idea that you cannot give, you cannot continue to give to others until you stop and give to yourself. And just the need to get over the guilt, this guilt that people parler themselves and this resistance that people have, this feeling of selfishness if they're doing something for themselves, and you have to turn that around and say, you what, doing this for yourself is actually a favor to every other person around you.

42:48 And we have to make that mindset shift that this is self care is not a selfish thing. It is the best thing you can do for everybody else. And we also need to be really clear with people that you are going to experience resistance. If it's something that you haven't done regularly, you're going to experience resistance. So the people that I work with, I say, expect it. Expect the excuses I don't have enough time, I don't have the energy, I don't have the right gear, I need the new gym membership, and then expect guilt. That'll be the next layer. Expect it, Welcome it. Know that when guilt shows up, that just shows that you're doing something differently. It's not a bad thing. We can go for a walk and feel guilty. We can read a book for pleasure and feel guilty and eventually will move through that. But we can't let guilt stop us from doing what we know it's going to have a positive impact in our lives and the lives of our students and our children.

43:39 Yeah, and I think also, I say to people, and then just watch what happens, Like take that curious observer kind of position, and go, oh, if I do take this time to sit down and read a book and I don't attend to that thing right now, or I don't do that thing that I feel like I should, then what happens. And nine times out of ten, you know, the world doesn't stop. Everything's actually okay, and you might even notice that things are better. You know that there's actually a better, different, more positive outcome when you do start doing those things differently. And they don't have to be big things. Someone that I worked with recently, she said, Meg, all I want to do is make sure that each night I just wash up, because I've got into this habit of leaving all the dishes to the morning, and then when I get up, I've got dishes there, I've got to get out the door, I've got to get to work, and I've just noticed that it just makes me feel rubbish.

44:29 It's not the great way to start the day. And so what she started doing was doing the dishes in the evening. She just made a commitment to herself that I'll go to bed once the dishes are done. Very simple, small act. But she could not believe the ripple effect that in the morning because in the morning she had this time now, and so she was getting up and feel like, oh, fresh start, It's a fresh day. And so making these small tweaks have such a positive ripple effect because then maybe with that time she might walk, or she might listen to a podcast or whatever she wants to do, because there's space and time, so small tweaks lead to the next change, to the next change, to the next change. Meg, this has been so enlightening. Is there anything else that you want to add before we go? I will obviously put in the show notes and in the outrow how people can get in touch with you if they want to bring you in to increase the wellbeing of the teacher and student population.

45:23 Is there anything else that you would like to add before we go? Mag What I'd really like is for people who are not educators, who are not working in the classroom, to talk to a teacher, to talk to a school leader and ask them what is it really like, what challenges are you experiencing, what is happening in the classroom, what's happening in the staffroom, and really start to get curious and learn about our education system and what's working and what's not. And for the teachers that are listening, permission to be human. You are doing enough. Let's go from perfect to good enough.

46:04 You can find out more about Meg's work at her website openminded education dot com. She's on Instagram at Meg Durham with two. Underscores at the end. If you love Crapy to Happy, please do make sure that you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. It really does help us to find you listeners. Of course, you can always follow me on Instagram and please do or TikTok. I'm at cast Done underscore XO on both of those platforms and for information about all of my courses, my books, everything else that I'm up to. My website is Castdone dot com. I cannot wait to catch you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy.

46:46 Listener