Teacher Inosculation
I came across an article recently entitled “Nature’s Eternal Embrace: The Extraordinary Bond of Inosculation” by Hasan Jasim.
You can read the article here.
I have found myself longing to be outside in the healing context of Mother Nature.
But alas, it has been so hot, buggy and uncomfortable to spend more than five minutes outside. So, I have found myself hibernating and somewhat isolating in reading things and also in my thoughts.
First of all, it reminds me of how we do this as teachers in our classrooms.
For whatever reasons, we isolate in our classrooms with “our kids” and don’t get outside much to interact with our colleagues or teammates.
I witnessed the danger of this firsthand when a first year teacher in my school struggled to adjust to all the demands of teaching, and isolated herself in her classroom. She was afraid to get help because she felt she would be judged as not enough or incompetent.
After three months, she had a nervous breakdown and had to leave the profession.
This had a HUGE IMPACT on me.
I felt I had not done my part as a “seasoned veteran teacher” to help her.
Small things such as…
Stop by her classroom and see how she was doing.
Ask her how I could support her in her new teacher role.
Encourage, inspire and uplift her…just listen and offer hugs and words of affirmation.
Something, somehow to let her know she was not alone and that we had ALL been there (and maybe some of us still were!)
I decided I needed to do something to help connect with these new teachers and build a supportive school community…as much for the newbies as for those of us who were perhaps struggling with burnout and our own form of isolation.
Now, what does all of this backstory mean and how does it connect to Mother Nature, teachers and this new word “inosculation”? (more…)
