“Teachers influence their students not only by how and what they teach but also by how they relate, teach and model social and emotional constructs, and manage the classroom” (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009, p. 499). Intuitively, administrators and educators know that self-care is good for teachers’ efficacy and for their personal quality of life. Unfortunately, for some, this may not be motivation enough to take steps towards self-care. We also know that self-care strengthens personal and family relationships. The benefits of self-care for teachers in their professional lives, however, may still go unnoticed or be underappreciated. We might find the motivation to take care of ourselves and declare it as a top priority if we see all of the other added advantages, namely the improvement in student learning and school climates.

Many teachers can relate to the days when we start the day or week already rundown, and things seem to spiral downwards in the classroom as well. Your lousy night’s sleep, the traffic accident on the way to school, or a sick family member can mean our students will feel your stress, too. Hattie and Yates’ (2014) Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn supports this notion:

So by a teacher’s daily presence alone, even before introducing direct instruction in wellness strategies, students are absorbing and mimicking the habits of coping or reacting to everyday stresses. Whether a teacher makes a conscious effort or not to put their well-being as a priority, the teacher’s default emotional and mental state will affect the students and the climate they are inhabiting and creating together.

A teacher’s chronic state of stress might seem like an issue a teacher can compartmentalize for outside the classroom or shield in some way from their students and colleagues. This might even be applauded as a spectacular feat of strength and courage to muscle through our days serving our students first even if we are feeling burnout. You might have a visual of popular teacher memes that circulate of a split photo of a fresh, well-groomed teacher in August on one side and a haggardly disheveled teacher by May on the other side. What’s harder to see in a meme is that day-to-day effect of teacher’s interactions and rapport with students. Hattie and Yates (2014) warn that,

This makes the well-being of teachers and its outward signs (body language, gestures, tone, expression) of the utmost importance in the lives of our students.

Sometimes it is hard to track or see these effects because there are several stages between a teacher’s intentional care for themselves and a student’s success or progress. A teacher’s self-care practice, for example, might set them up to have the patience and the capacity to connect with students more frequently. As Jennings and Greenberg (2009) emphasize: “Supportive relationships with teachers can promote feelings of safety and connectedness among students, providing the social support necessary to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically” (p. 501). Often, we know a teacher will not see the effects of their teaching on their students themselves and hope and wonder what became of so many students. Hattie and Yates point out that “a recent American study found that marked improvements in student achievement occurred not in the year the program was carried out, but in the year following the intervention, with student grades improving nine percentile points in the targeted students” (p. 17). The delayed benefits make teacher self-care and, consequently, teacher–student relationships challenging to recognize at that moment without extensive and long-term tracking of students. It is no wonder that self-care is not sticking as a priority (for teachers, but for school culture as well) as its benefits on students and schools often remain invisible to us.

Despite this difficulty in making the teacher–student wellness connection visible, we are increasingly seeing that teacher self-care does, indeed, lead to changes in their students, classrooms, and school. Seeing real cases of how the well-being of teachers has improved students’ lives and school communities may finally be the catalyst for teachers (and our educational systems) to begin taking care of teachers more seriously. Here are inspiring instances where teachers who took care of themselves saw their schools and students benefit as well.

A second-grade teacher practices closing her eyes and breathing deeply when she is feeling stressed in her classroom. She has shared that she tells the students she is taking a moment for herself. It helps her to stay calm so that she is present for her students. At that moment, she is not worrying if her students are also practicing. She is taking a moment for herself.

A middle-school teacher has students write in their journals about how they’re feeling after recess. She spends the time writing in her journal, noticing where she’s at emotionally at this point in the day. The energy in the classroom has shifted dramatically since she began implementing the journal and she has found that she has more energy and positive interactions for the remainder of the day.

A high-school teacher often takes deep breaths when she encounters stressful situations in the classroom. Practicing deep breaths doesn’t necessarily make her feel less frustrated, but doing so allows her to stay calm and in control.

Teachers report that they have heard students tell them that they see their teacher “taking a break” with a quick head massage or a deep breath. They’ve shared that sometimes teachers need a break, too and have become more sensitive to their teachers’ feelings.

In a middle-school classroom, some students were exhibiting less than desirable behavior choices. Before approaching the students, the teacher practiced a few deep breaths to make sure she stayed regulated. While she was doing this, she overheard a female student say to another “Why isn’t she yelling at them to stop?” The other student replied, “This is the teacher who doesn’t yell. She does that breathing thing instead.” Hearing the side conversations of the two young ladies hit home that students are observing how we as teachers are handling ourselves in stressful situations.

Many teachers conflate behavior management, social-emotional learning, mindfulness, and self-care practices. Thinking that if they “lose their cool” in front of students or “own” their stress and anxiety that they have failed. On the contrary, it is those educators who can articulte their emotions and model appropriate self-care and coping strategies who are not only creating safe, constructive classrooms for learning, but are also effectivley managing these classrooms by modeling positive ways to handle negative emotions giving their students the life skills they need to succeed in both the home and school environments.

Modeling self-care and building relaxation into the school day can be simple and easy. There is no need to rearrange desks or burn through instructional minutes with lengthy transitions. Included below are two simple relaxation activities, by Elias Patras, that can help dysregulated students, adults, and stakeholders who need a moment to pause and get centered.