A teacher’s best asset is their mind. Stress, anxiety, negativity and all the other things that inhibit our happiness naturally inhibit the quality of our teaching also. I’ve written before about two ways I deal with stress. I think it’s important to talk about this subject as the statistics are so damning.
To maintain a tidy classroom, we develop daily, weekly and yearly habits. One-off fixes are insufficient. I have found maintaining a stress-free and resilient mind is much the same. I have had to develop daily, weekly and yearly habits that help me maintain equilibrium. This isn’t to say my mind is squeaky clean. Much like the classroom, every so often someone bursts open one of those yoghurt tubes (don’t get me started) and makes a huge mess. Thanks to productive habits, however, the mess doesn’t last forever.
Reading and listening to philosophy has been one of my cornerstones. It keeps the principles and practices I value at the forefront of my mind and consuming them prevents me from slipping into old habits. Reading is great but it is my holy grail. I love a podcast, audiobook and youtube clips too as I can listen as I carry out mundane tasks.
A short book I loved recently and which gave me perspective was Seneca: On the Shortness of Life. It includes three letters: one to Paulinus, one to his mother and one to Serenus. The whole book is 100 short pages and I was the full cliché highlighting quote after quote. I’m going to let the quotes speak for themselves. If you like the book but you’re still not sure, I’m going to include a link to get the first letter for free below.
My 5 Favourite Quotes that Teachers May Find Thought-Provoking
“You will find no one willing to share out his money; but to how many does each of us divide up his life! People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
“It is generally agreed that no activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it. Living is the least desirable activity of the preoccupied man.”
“One person who has achieved the badge of office they coveted longs to lay it aside, and keeps repeating ‘Will this year never end?’
“But nobody works out the value of time: people use it lavishly as if it cost nothing. But if death threatens these same people, you will see them praying to their doctors; if they are in fear of capital punishment, you will see them prepared to spend their all to stay alive. So inconsistent are they in their feelings. But if each of us could have the tally of their future years set before him, as we can of our past years, how alarmed would be those who saw only a few years ahead, and how carefully would they use them.”
“It is no use pouring any amount of liquid into a container without a bottom to catch and hold it, so it does not matter how much time we are given if there is nowhere for it to settle; it escapes through the cracks and holes of the mind.”
Reading books like this one remind me that the day-to-day things that are inclined to stress me are generally meaningless in the wider scheme of things. They help me discard the frivolous thinking and time-wasting I can fall into when I’m not exposing myself to these habitual reminders.
I’d recommend downloading his first letter for free below. You can view this file as a PDF or put it on your kindle to see if it’s for you. You can also take the plunge and buy the full book here. If you want to receive a weekly email from me every Monday that includes a strategy for behaviour and inclusion alongside a thought that links in with topics like stress and mental health, you can subscribe below.
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