Tag: writing

by Matt Melnick

We talk a lot in education about taking care of ourselves. We encourage teachers to find balance, practice mindfulness, lean on colleagues, and make time for reflection. All of those things matter. But they can also begin to feel like one more responsibility placed on teachers, especially when the structures of the school day make them difficult to practice. Teacher wellbeing becomes meaningful when it changes what happens during the school day.

Our work with the Four Pillars of Wellbeing at The Country School (TCS) has pushed me to think differently about this. The Four Pillars are Mindfulness, Community, Self-Curiosity, and Contentment & Balance. Together, they offer teachers practical ways to create space before reacting, seek and offer support, understand their own patterns, and make room for the full emotional experience of teaching. Rather than asking teachers to add more wellness activities to an already full day, I have become increasingly interested in how these practices can become part of the way the school day actually operates.

What does mindfulness look like at 8:15 on a Monday morning? What does community look like when a teacher is struggling with a student? How can self-curiosity help us understand why certain parts of our work are draining us? And how can contentment and balance help us find gratitude for the full range of emotions that come with teaching?

Most importantly, what can teachers actually do, and what can school leaders do to make those practices more possible?

Here are some places to begin.

Mindfulness: Creating Space to Respond and Reset

A school day rarely gives teachers a clean beginning and ending. We move from greeting students to teaching, from teaching to a difficult conversation, from that conversation to a meeting, and then back to students again. Often, the next thing begins before we have had a chance to process what just happened.

That is where mindfulness can become useful, not as another wellness activity teachers are expected to fit into an already crowded day, but as a way of noticing what is happening while the day is actually unfolding.

Thirty seconds before opening the classroom door can be enough to ask, How do I want students to experience me today? Three breaths after a challenging interaction can create just enough space to respond rather than react. Writing tomorrow’s first task down before leaving school can help signal that today’s work is finished.

These practices need to be small. If our approach to teacher wellbeing requires teachers to find large amounts of additional time, we may inadvertently be adding another responsibility to the very workload we are trying to address.

A few additional practices teachers can try:

Before opening email at the start of a planning period, decide what you most need that time for.

When you notice your body tightening during a hard moment, name what is happening before deciding what to do next.

Build one intentional transition cue into the day, a doorway, a bell, closing a laptop, that reminds you to reset.

At dismissal, identify one thing that can remain unfinished without consequence until tomorrow.

For school leaders, supporting mindfulness also means examining whether the school itself provides teachers with opportunities to pause. If planning periods regularly become coverage periods, lunch includes supervision, and meetings consume every available opening, asking teachers to be more mindful misses part of the problem.

At TCS, we are trying to connect mindfulness to structures that already exist rather than creating another wellbeing block. The same transitions and routines that help students regulate can remind adults to do the same.

Community: Making It Easier to Ask for Help

Schools talk frequently about community, but community becomes most meaningful when someone is having a difficult time.

“Ask for help” sounds simple. In practice, teachers need to know who to ask, whether asking is genuinely welcomed, and what will happen after they do.

One of the lessons we have learned through student support at TCS is that challenges become more manageable when we bring people into the conversation early. We don’t expect one teacher to privately solve every challenge a student encounters. We gather information, share observations, ask questions, and figure out what the student needs together.

Why shouldn’t we approach faculty support in much the same way?

• At the beginning of the year, a teacher might identify three people. If those roles are not obvious, school leaders can help teachers identify who to go to for each kind of support:
• Instructional: Who can help me think through teaching and learning?
• Student Support: Who can help when I’m concerned about a student?
• Personal: Who can I tell when I’m simply having a hard week?

From there, I like the idea of a simple cultural expectation: Don’t struggle alone for two weeks.

If a lesson, student behavior, family relationship, workload issue, or classroom dynamic has been consistently difficult, bring someone else into the conversation. The request doesn’t have to be complicated: “Can I borrow ten minutes? Here’s what I’m seeing, here’s what I’ve tried, and here’s where I’m stuck.”

For school leaders, one way to support this is by changing the questions used during check-ins. Instead of always beginning with “How’s everything going?” try:

• What’s going well?
• What’s taking the most energy?
• Is there anything you’re carrying that we could help with?

The most important part may be remembering the answer and returning to it later. A check-in builds trust when someone realizes that what they shared was actually heard.

Self-Curiosity: Getting More Specific About What We Need

I’m overwhelmed is real, but it can also be difficult to act upon.

Self-curiosity invites us to look underneath that feeling without judging it. What specifically is taking my energy? When does it happen? What am I doing that is helping? What have I tried that isn’t working?

Reflection doesn’t need to become journaling homework for teachers. A two-minute Friday check can begin to reveal patterns:

• KEEP: What gave me energy this week?
• CHANGE: What unnecessarily drained my energy?
• ASK: What do I need help with next week?

Over time, I’m overwhelmed, might become Family communication is taking more time than I realized. Or Wednesday afternoons consistently leave me depleted. Or I’m spending an enormous amount of time making this lesson perfect when it doesn’t need to be.

Specific problems give us something to work with.

At TCS, this mirrors the curiosity we try to bring to student learning. We collect information through observation, assessment, conversations, and student work because we want to understand what a learner needs next. We can bring that same mindset to ourselves:

Notice → Ask → Understand → Adjust.

For school leaders, self-curiosity can be practiced at the organizational level as well. Ask faculty, “What is making your job harder than it needs to be right now?” Then listen before explaining why things are the way they are.

Some things will be necessary. Some necessary things can be improved. And occasionally, we may discover that we are asking people to do something that simply doesn’t need to be done anymore.

Contentment and Balance: Finding Gratitude for the Full Experience

Contentment can easily be misunderstood as trying to feel happy, positive, or satisfied all the time. That isn’t the goal.

Teaching contains joy, frustration, connection, disappointment, pride, exhaustion, laughter, uncertainty, and sometimes several of those emotions before lunch.

Contentment and Balance asks us to develop gratitude for the full range of that experience rather than dividing our emotions into the ones we want and the ones we need to get rid of.

A difficult emotion can carry information. Frustration may tell us that something matters deeply to us. Sadness can reflect connection and care. Anxiety may reveal uncertainty or responsibility. Joy reminds us why we chose the work in the first place.

Gratitude, then, isn’t pretending everything is good. It is recognizing that every emotion has something to teach us and allowing ourselves to experience it without immediately needing to change it.

A simple reflection might be:

• What am I feeling right now?
• What might this emotion be telling me?
• Can I appreciate what it reveals about what matters to me?
• What do I need next?

Balance enters when we recognize that no single emotional state needs to define the whole day. A difficult class does not mean it was a bad day. A challenging parent conversation does not erase a meaningful interaction with a student. And a wonderful moment does not require us to pretend that something else wasn’t hard.

For school leaders, this matters too. Supporting wellbeing does not mean trying to make teachers happy all the time. It means creating a culture in which people can acknowledge the full experience of teaching without feeling that difficult emotions are evidence that something has gone wrong.

Turning the Pillars Into School Practice

Individual practices matter, but teacher wellbeing cannot rest entirely on the individual teacher.

• When you tell a school leader, “I’m overwhelmed,” the response needs to be more useful than “Take care of yourself.” For school leaders, five possible responses are:
  • PRIORITIZE: What actually needs to happen this week?
  • REMOVE: What can we take off the list?
  • SUPPORT: Who could help with this?
  • PROTECT: Is there time we can protect so you can get this done?
  • DELAY: What can reasonably wait?

Sometimes none of those options will solve the larger issue. But they turn empathy into action.

Schools can also anticipate difficult periods rather than waiting until teachers are exhausted. The beginning of school, conferences, report cards, performances, field trips, admissions events, assessment windows, and the weeks before breaks are predictably demanding.

What if we looked at those periods ahead of time and intentionally removed something?

Cancel a nonessential meeting. Shorten an agenda. Extend a deadline. Protect a planning period. Move professional learning to another week.

Each action may seem small. Collectively, they communicate something important: We know what you are carrying, and we are paying attention.

Wellbeing Also Means Examining the Work

There is another part of the wellbeing conversation that belongs especially to school leaders.

Before introducing a new initiative, meeting, form, program, expectation, or responsibility, school leaders can ask:

• What will this require from teachers?
• How much time will it realistically take?
• What existing responsibility could it replace?
• Does the benefit justify the faculty time?

Teachers can create stopping rules for themselves too. Identify the three things that matter most today. Ask whether another twenty minutes spent perfecting something will meaningfully improve the student experience. Decide what “ready” looks like before beginning a task rather than continually revising it.

School leaders have a particular responsibility here because some of the pressures teachers experience are created by school systems and structures.

One of the most practical contributions school leaders can make to faculty wellbeing may simply be removing unnecessary work.

A Simple Four-Pillar Rhythm

None of this requires a complicated faculty wellness program. In fact, I think the simpler we can make it, the more likely it is to become part of the culture.

A school could begin with:

• Daily – Mindfulness: Choose one transition and use it as a reset.
• Weekly – Self-Curiosity: Take two minutes for Keep, Change, Ask.
• Biweekly – Community: Check in with a colleague about something beyond logistics.
• Monthly – Contentment & Balance: Reflect on the full emotional experience of the work and what it may be teaching us.
• Quarterly – Leadership Review: Examine workload, meetings, deadlines, and initiatives and ask what can be simplified, combined, postponed, or stopped.

Once or twice a month, teachers could also privately consider four questions: Do I have enough space to respond intentionally? Do I know where to go when I need help? Do I understand what is giving me energy and what is draining it? Am I able to make room for the full range of emotions I am experiencing?

When an answer raises concern, the goal isn’t immediately getting from a 2 to a 5. The better question may be: What would move this up by one point?

Often, the answer is surprisingly concrete.

I need someone to help me think through this student.

I need clarity about which project is actually the priority.

I need one planning period that doesn’t get interrupted.

I need help responding to this family.

I need permission to let something go.

Those are things schools can often do something about.

What We Are Learning at TCS

At The Country School, our work with the Four Pillars has increasingly pushed us toward a simple idea: wellbeing works best when it becomes part of how a school operates rather than something a school periodically talks about.

Mindfulness can live in the transitions and rhythms of the school day.

Community can live in the way teachers collaborate and bring challenges to one another rather than carrying them alone.

Self-curiosity can mirror the same inquiry we ask teachers to bring to student learning: notice what is happening, look for patterns, try something, and adjust.

Contentment and Balance can help us develop gratitude for the full emotional experience of this work—not because every part of it feels good, but because every part of it can tell us something about ourselves, our relationships, and what matters to us.

And school leaders can create the conditions that make all four possible.

We will not always get that balance right. Schools are busy places, and there will always be demanding periods. Perhaps that is exactly why the Four Pillars matter.

They give us a way to continually ask:

What do teachers need in order to do this work well and sustain it?

And then, importantly:

What are schools willing to do about it?

Start Tomorrow

If a teacher or school wanted to begin tomorrow, I would suggest starting small.

Pause once. Choose one transition during the day and use it to reset.

Ask once. Bring one challenge you have been carrying alone to another person.

Get curious once. Notice one emotion or source of energy without immediately judging or trying to change it.

Find gratitude once. Recognize what one of today’s emotions, comfortable or uncomfortable, reveals about what matters to you.

For school leaders, I would add one more:

Remove something.

Find one unnecessary demand on teachers’ time and eliminate it.

Because ultimately, teacher wellbeing should not be measured by how successfully teachers learn to withstand the demands of their jobs.

Schools should also be willing to examine the demands themselves.

Edcouragementor guest blogger Matt Melnick is the Assistant Head of Academics and Wellness at The Country School in Los Angeles, bringing more than 25 years of experience in education and school leadership. His work focuses on creating school cultures where academic growth, student and teacher wellbeing, and meaningful community connections are central to the educational experience.

Curiosity, Dignity, and Mattering in Unsteady Times

By Rob Evans, Ed.S.

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A few weeks ago, I listened to a conversation between Debra Wilson, President of NAIS, and Jennifer Breheny Wallace about her work on mattering. Later that evening, I began reading Donna Hicks’ Leading with Dignity. Different voices and different frameworks, but both circled the same essential concern: the conditions that allow people to feel seen, valued, and fully human in the spaces we teach, lead, and inhabit.

This concern feels especially urgent right now, particularly for newer teachers. Many are navigating parent anxiety, polarized school communities, social media scrutiny, AI disruption, and the quiet pressure to “get everything right” while still figuring out who they are in the classroom. Under that kind of strain, teaching can subtly shift from a human practice to a survival exercise.

When this happens, something essential begins to erode. Curiosity fades, dignity gets compromised, and mattering disappears. Classrooms start to feel more like performance spaces than learning communities.

I have spent much of my career paying attention to the difference between classrooms that feel alive and those that feel brittle. Often, the difference has little to do with the lesson plan and everything to do with three deeper conditions: curiosity, dignity, and mattering.

Curiosity is not just about whether students are engaged; it shows up in small, everyday moments. It’s in the teacher who pauses mid-lesson to say, “That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer yet; let’s figure it out together.” It’s in the student who feels safe enough to say, “I’m confused,” instead of pretending to understand. It’s in the classroom where discussion drifts slightly off-script because students are genuinely wrestling with ideas, not just chasing the “right answer.”

New teachers often feel pressure to appear fully in control. But students can tell when curiosity is real and when it is performative. When adults model genuine wondering, classrooms become places of exploration instead of compliance.

Dignity operates just beneath the surface of every interaction. It shows up when a teacher corrects a student privately instead of calling them out publicly. It shows up in how sarcasm is used or avoided altogether. It shows up when a teacher says, “You’re not in trouble; you’re in process,” after a mistake. It shows up in whether students’ names are pronounced carefully and consistently.

Students notice these things, and so do colleagues. Dignity is not communicated through posters on the wall; it is conveyed through tone, pacing, attention, and presence.

Mattering is what happens when dignity is consistently honored over time. A student feels they matter when their idea genuinely shapes the direction of a discussion. A quiet student feels they matter when the teacher intentionally creates space for their voice. A struggling student feels they matter when a teacher says, “I’m not giving up on you,” and follows through. A first-year teacher feels they matter when a mentor asks, “What are you noticing about your students?” instead of only offering advice.

Without mattering, even high-performing classrooms can feel hollow. Students comply, teachers function, but no one feels fully alive in the work.

Two Frameworks, One Truth

Engaging with both Hicks’ and Wallace’s work highlighted how naturally their ideas fit together. Donna Hicks names the ethical foundation: every person carries inherent dignity, and leadership fails when that dignity is violated through exclusion, silencing, humiliation, or disregard. Jennifer Breheny Wallace names the lived experience: mattering describes how people come to feel that their worth is recognized in community when they are noticed, valued, and meaningfully needed. Put simply, dignity is what is owed to every person; mattering is how people know they are receiving it. In schools, this distinction matters deeply. We can claim to value dignity in theory, but if students and educators do not experience that they matter in practice, the culture quietly erodes.

You can often see the absence of mattering, too: the student who stops raising their hand because their participation doesn’t seem to change anything, the teacher who stops trying new strategies because no one seems to notice, and the classroom where participation becomes transactional instead of relational.

What Schools Actually Need Right Now

In moments like this, schools often reach for new initiatives, new programs, and new tools. But what’s usually missing isn’t innovation; it’s attention to the human conditions that allow learning to take root.

Curiosity has to be protected, especially when pacing guides and testing pressure make exploration feel risky. Dignity has to be practiced, especially when frustration runs high. Mattering has to be cultivated, especially when teachers are juggling too many students and too many demands.

For Newer Teachers Especially

Staying human in education right now does not mean lowering expectations or avoiding rigor. It means recognizing that rigor without relationship collapses under pressure. It means remembering that every classroom is, at its core, a web of human relationships and that how those relationships feel determines how deeply students learn.

For newer teachers, this can be both grounding and freeing. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have all the answers. But you do have to attend carefully to the humanity of the space you’re building.

Protect curiosity.
Honor dignity.
Cultivate mattering.

When those three elements are present, classrooms don’t just function; they become places where students grow academically and personally and where teachers can sustain themselves in the work over time.

Everything meaningful in education grows from there.

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Rob Evans is an educator and writer with more than two decades of experience in classrooms, school leadership, and nonprofit education spaces. He is currently writing and reflecting on curiosity, dignity, and mattering in education, drawing on his lived experience working with students, teachers, and school communities. Rob lives in Los Angeles with his wife and is the father of four children, two of whom are adults.

He welcomes conversation at rob@evansstrategic. com.