An early career teacher's story of health challenges and workplace bullying + my ongoing commitment to anti-racism

Teacher Wellbeing

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This is a longer episode, and it’s a really really fantastic teacher story. I also share my ongoing commitment to anti-racism work and unpacking my privilege as a teacher and a coach.

There are just SO many learnings and I’m so grateful that Tina shared her story with us. Now, like many of my episodes this season, it was recorded before COVID so there’s no mention of that at all, but we do talk about people pleasing, boundaries, the challenges of moving away from your support networks for a job, and the challenges and opportunities of living and working in a small town. The two big themes from this episode are around having a safe workplace, and taking care of physiological needs, that bottom level of Maslow’s Hierarchy. So Tina shares her experience of being bullied at work, and how as an early career teacher she didn’t necessarily know that that wasn’t normal, and it was thanks to an older, wiser, more experienced colleague pointing out to her that that was what was happening that she was able to make some decisions about what was right for her. And running alongside that like I said was a whole lot of body messages that were really telling Tina to pay more attention to her basic physiological needs, but like so many of us, it took a diagnosis of a health condition for her to actually pay attention to those messages. We do focus on early career teachers in this episode because Tina is an early career teacher, but I know many aspects of the story will be familiar to people at all stages of life and career.

As always, remember you’re a person first and a teacher second and you are WORTHY of your own care.

May you continue to look after yourself wholeheartedly this year, be a beacon of inspiration for others and an example to encourage your colleagues to do the same.