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”?
What I learned from Hasan’s article about inosculation is this:
“Inosculation, a natural wonder, encapsulates the extraordinary process where parts of two distinct trees, often of the same species but not exclusively, grow together, forming an intimate bond through self-grafting and the sharing of life-sustaining nutrients. This botanical phenomenon, with roots in Latin—ōsculārī, meaning “to kiss”—brings to life a narrative of mutual support, resilience, and interconnectedness in the realm of nature.”
This is what I feel teachers need to do to survive and grow in the current school environment.
Heck, as human beings, we all need to do this every day both at work and at home.
We humans are wired for connection, not isolation.
Didn’t we learn that lesson well during the pandemic?
However, as a result of the culture of competition, constant evaluation/scrutiny and messages of “not enoughness” that is so prevalent in schools today, teachers isolate out of fear that someone will judge them.
Some teachers look at their teammates/colleagues as threats.
Some teachers are negative and judgmental perhaps due to the evaluative nature of the job, assessing and finding all the “wrong” answers that need to be learned and mastered or feeling like they are “under a microscope” by everyone around them.
PLC’s are a result of trying to get teachers to collaborate, make connections and grow together.
So, what happened?
It has only created resentment, frustration, competition and some very nasty “Mean Girl” behaviors.
How do we create teacher “inosculation” in schools?
How do we get teachers to “grow together, forming an intimate bond through self-grafting and sharing of those life-sustaining nutrients” such as best practices, effective strategies, materials and resources and shared goals.
How do we get teachers to “bring to life a narrative of mutual support, resilience and interconnectedness”?
The school culture is everything!
Culture is defined as the shared “products, practices and perspectives” of a group of people based on their values, their environment and their shared goals.
One of the greatest lessons I have every learned in life is the value and power of COMMUNITY!
So, why do we let fear take over and isolate us, when we know well that we are wired for connection?
Why do we run away, hide, disengage or even attack in order to keep others at bay and to protect ourselves from vulnerability and from damage to our fragile Egos?
When that new teacher left the profession after only three months, I thought long and hard about what I could have done differently, but more importantly, what WE, as a school community could have done.
And the answer was to create a school culture that centered around building a community of “mutual support, resilience and interconnectedness”.
To find common things that could bring us together = COMMON+UNITY!
So simple, yet…???
First thing I did was I created a new teacher ceremony that welcomed new teachers to the school and helped them feel like a part of their new community.
The students and I collected donations of school supplies for the new teachers and made gift baskets for each one.
I involved every teacher in the school to write a “love note” of advice to the new teacher with words of wisdom, advice, tips and tricks to managing this new school culture they were in.
These “love notes” were then strung together in a paper chain fashion and draped across the blackboard of the new teacher. The instructions were to take one off every day and read it.
We gave the new teachers a list of the current faculty, their room #, phone extension and also a couple of little “getting to know me” insights about each of us.
I sponsored two clubs in high school that did fund raisers to buy gift cards for a “Kindness” incentive program among the teachers. If someone helped us out or went above and beyond in their job, we could fill out a note of gratitude and recognition to share with that teacher (ie. person, because we included staff and volunteers), and then, a part of the note was removed and placed in a box in the office for a chance in a drawing for the gift cards during each faculty meeting.
Teachers did a lot of school wide, cross-curricular projects together.
We reached out to our local community for guest speakers, volunteers, field trips and to send them invitations to attend our school events (concerts, athletics, performances, etc).
Like the trees in the picture, we wrapped our educational arms around each other and extended them out to the community as well in order to create and “eternal embrace” and “extraordinary bond of inosculation”.
We are creatures of nature, and we forget that because we isolate…indoors, inside ourselves and inside our devices.
Get out, embrace the world and create bonds of “inosculation”.
I hope that you all can figure out a way to build your school community.
What small things can you do toward that goal of COMMON + UNITY?
How can you get out of the classroom and connect with others in the school?
How can you support and “lift up” others in your school?
Where do you need support, encouragement, inspiration and lifting up, and do you know how and where to get it?
I am so worried about the profession and the unprofessional nature in which some teachers are behaving toward each other.
I am so worried about the mental health and well-being of teachers and how much they are isolating or worse yet, shutting down and checking out.
I am always here for teachers, especially new ones.
I am always here to reach out my arms and embrace, hold up, nudge along with encouraging words, lift up with words of affirmation or whatever other support I can give.
Photo and quotes acknowledgements:
“Nature’s Eternal Embrace: The Extraordinary Bond of Inosculation” by Hasan Jasim
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