Description: Season three comes to a close. Dr. Boogren encourages the Squad with some gentle reminders for the break.
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Transcription: Hi and welcome to Self Care For Educators. I’m your host Tina Boogren. This is episode 35 of our third season, and it’s actually the last episode of this season. I need to take a break in the summer from the podcast as summer is my busiest time. It’s hard for me to get used to, because as an educator I got quite a bit of breathing room in the summer, which was wonderful but in this role I’m in, summer is actually my busiest time. You know we talk about the start of the school year being The Season of Sacrifice for educators. For me, my summer is my season of sacrifice. I’m on the road pretty much constantly with not hardly any downtime, and that’s wonderful, and that’s hard. And, what I’ve learned—having done this job for twelve years now—is that I need to put some things in place to help me take care of myself. And, one of the things I decided to do last year was to give myself a little bit of a break from the podcast. This does not mean that I’m ending the podcast by any means. It just means that I’m going to take a little bit of a break. And, hopefully you won’t need me as much in the summer, as you are out there truly living your best life. So, know that I will be back Labor Day weekend. I like to take from Memorial Day to Labor Day. And, I will be back, and we will begin season four. Which is pretty exciting to think about. But, as we close out the third season and send you off into summer … And, I know some of you are on summer break. Some of you have a couple of weeks left. Some of you are on different schedules. I know. But, as … In a general kind of sense as you move into summer, I just want to nudge you to take care of yourself. To first of all, allow yourself to really rest. As you come off the end of the school year, depending on how your school year went … And, if you had the best school year you ever had, you are no doubt exhausted. It’s hard to start a school year, and it’s hard to end a school year. And, with all the craziness and excitement of the celebrations and rituals and ceremonies, it’s hard. And, it’s a lot. And so, you deserve to rest. And, I want you to do that without guilt. Now is the time where people start to make the comments, Oh it must be nice to have the summer off. And, I want you to just smile and say, It is nice. It’s wonderful in fact.
And, hopefully you have that summer bucket list that you started a couple of weeks ago, and after you take a really, really, really long nap, and you get a few nights of really restful, incredible sleep, then you start tackling that summer bucket list. And, if that invitation didn’t work for you a few weeks ago, because you didn’t have time, do it now. Open up your notebook or a note on your computer, and just start listing what are some things you want to do this summer. Some things that are just for you that feel really good like play and adventure, and maybe some things that your future self will thank you for that you can spend a little bit of time in the summer getting ready for next year. And maybe you decide that you’re not ready to do that, that you’re going to take the first few weeks to just sink in and enjoy. And, whether it’s a vacation that you go somewhere else or it’s a staycation and you allow yourself all the treats of vacation while you’re at home, do that. Do that thing. And, find the time for all those wishes and hobbies and tv shows and books that you don’t have time for in the school year. Make time for that.
And then, if you’re like me, when I was a teacher, usually around that July 4th holiday where my brain my brain started to shift toward still enjoy my summer but thinking, Hmm, what would future Tina be grateful for if I did right now? So, future Tina was thankful when I got back on kind of a normal sleep schedule. Future Tina was really happy when I had some routines in place. Right? Around my own physical wellness, and in particular, my mental wellness. Just some strategies that I had spent the summer building habits around that I could carry into the school year. And so, as I sent you off into the summer, I just want to say, Thank you for the work you did this year. The incredible work you did this year. If you haven’t made your own Ta-Da list, I want you to sit down and make your own Ta-Da list. And, as you move into the summer, I want you to think about living your very, very best life this summer.
You know we talk about strategies that help us bring our very best selves to our students. That’s really the basis of wellness. Right? We want us to think about how we can take exquisite care of ourselves, so that we can take exquisite care of our students. And, as we move into the summer, I want you to really concentrate on the taking exquisite care of you part. I know many of you, maybe your responsibilities shift in the summer, but you’ve still got a lot of things on your plate. Whether you’re teaching summer school or taking classes or participating in book studies or events, your own children, they’re on the long list of things to do … It’s important to remember to take time for you. And, to remind yourself that self-care is actually not selfish. It’s the kindest thing you can do for those around you. And, maybe this is the time of year where you want to dig back into one of my books that hopefully feels helpful. Maybe you want to spend some time actually creating a plan for your own wellness where maybe you want to dig into the Educator Wellness book in the back and do some of the surveys, and set yourself up for the next summer and the next school year.
And, I’m also just going to remind you of a couple of things. Our plan book comes out this summer. It’s available for preorder right now on Amazon or via Solution Tree or Marzano Resources. It’s the Educator Wellness planner and journal book. So, it’s your actual planner, your school paper. Paper planner … I’ll have you know I geek out over paper planners. And so, we created one. Which is like a dream come true, and it will be coming out this summer. So, maybe that’s going to be how you treat yourself. And, you use that planner for next year. It’s got plenty of room for all the normal things that you want in a planner, but it’s also got some nudges toward educator wellness in there and a whole appendix in the back of super concrete tools that you can utilize. I’m also going to remind you one more time that we would love, love, love to see at our event in July. This is our educator renewal for student achievement institute. It’s two and a half days in Des Moines where this will be me, and Tim Kanold, and Jasmine Kullar, where we take a deep, deep dive into the Educator Wellness book. So, it will be July 26th through the 28th. You can sign up for it now. Registration is open. You can easily find that on the Solution Tree website. And, this is where we’re going to take, like I said, a deep dive into that Educator Wellness book where you will walk away with either a personal plan or a plan that you can take back and use with your staff. We especially love when teams come to this. It’s super, super inspirational. Super concrete strategies. And, we make direct connections between taking care of the adults and student achievement and teacher retention. Things we know are on our minds a lot these days.
And so, as I sign off and wish you a wonderful summer, I hope that my path crosses many of yours this summer. All of these events and places and traveling that I do leads me to you. That would be my biggest hope. So, if that’s the case, please, please, please, please come up and say, Hello. Introduce yourself and get ready for a big hug as one of my favorite things is meeting the Squad in person. Have an amazing summer.
As always, a huge thank you to Brooke. She has been with us from day one. Can you believe it? We got three seasons under our belts. Thank you for making it happen. Thank you also Marzano Resources and Solution Tree for this incredible job I get to do. And, to you, my bad-ass Self-Care Squad. I’m cheering so hard for you. Here’s to summer. Here’s to you. Go live your very best life.
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