Teachers’ Mental Health and Wellbeing, and How that Impacts Students’ Mental Health and Wellbeing
Over the last few years, we have taken notice that the mental health of children and young people appears to be suffering more than it ever has before. With the continually added stress and pressures that come with being a kid today, there becomes a growing need to identify risk factors for poor mental health with young people.
But have we forgotten about the teachers and their mental health? Being a teacher can be a stressful career even when they are not having to navigate through teaching through a pandemic. So these past few years, as one can imagine, have also taken a toll on the mental health and wellbeing of our teachers as well.
“Factors within the school environment have been found to have an impact on young people’s mental health” (Kidger et al., 2012). Therefore, we can assume that the way that our teachers feel can also have a great impact on how our students feel. It is extremely important that students and teachers are able to foster supportive relationships as this creates a positive school climate where teachers are able to do their best and creating an environment that is best suited for learning.
Teachers are an important part of our society as they help children and young people to learn and grow. At Rock Digi (rockdigi.org), we do everything that we can to help make teachers lives easier by creating online lessons that include objectives, standards, auto-check activities, and more.
All of the lessons focus on social emotional learning and create great opportunities for students and teachers to discuss their mental health, how they are feeling, and things they can do to improve school climate.
In our “SEL and Life Skills for Success” curricula for grades 2-4 and 5-6, the lessons give students and teachers a whiteboard animation and lyric music video about topics like empathy, pursuing what you love, accepting others, and positive self-talk; and then follow it up with discussion and activities that allow for sharing between students and their teachers.
In our “Mental Health, SEL, and Substance Abuse Prevention” curriculum for grades 7-12, students and teachers watch whiteboard animations and lyric music videos that introduce the topics of the lesson and then create an emotional connection to the topics through the vibe or aesthetic that the song created. Some of the topics covered in this curriculum are coping with grief and loss, anxiety, depression, mental health – self-care, and finding your spark. Students and teachers are then given the opportunity to further discuss their thoughts and feeling through the discussion questions and drill down activities. Creating an open discussion about mental health, SEL, and substance abuse helps to break the stigma around talking about how we are feeling and what we are struggling with – for students and teachers.
It is our goal to help foster positive and healthy relationships between students by sparking important conversations between students and their teachers about things that contribute to their mental wellbeing and how they can create a positive learning environment.
Visit rockdigi.org for more information and free trial lessons.
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