National Network for Equitable Library Service

A teacher's self-care guide for building resilience, boosting emotional strength, and finding hope in the face of daily stress and overwhelming challenges. If you're an educator who works with children, you often face intense pressure in the classroom. This was true before the pandemic, but now you may be feeling it even more. You aren't alone. From having to adapt to remote learning on the spot to balancing the impacts of the pandemic on your personal life, many teachers are experiencing record levels of stress, trauma, and burnout. In addition, as an entire generation of students struggle to meet the academic and social emotional learning (SEL) challenges caused by extended remote learning, you may be dealing with kids who are anxious, traumatized, and likely a year or two behind developmentally as they return to the classroom. It's a lot to manage, and you may feel like you are at your breaking point. Written by an educational director at the Greater Good Science Center, Surviving Teacher Burnout is a 52-week self-care guide for teachers that features simple, low-lift strategies for increasing resilience and fostering greater well-being, confidence, and hope. Grounded in research-based positive psychology, the book offers practical activities and journal-style prompts to help you cultivate feelings of gratitude, optimism, mindfulness, forgiveness, empathic joy, self-compassion, purpose, and curiosity—so you can return to your classroom each day with renewed energy and inspiration. You'll also find strategies to share with other educators to help infuse more positive energy into classrooms and schools, and create more supportive systems that promote a sense of meaning, belonging, and connectedness among teachers and students. If you're like many educators, you may feel you lack the time and energy to engage in self-care practices. This guide offers bite-sized insights and activities that are simple, approachable, and usable, so you can thrive in the classroom, in your community, and in life!