By Michelle Schroeder-Lowrey
A few weeks ago, we celebrated Halloween at our school. Halloween is a big holiday at our school - costume parade for our littles in front of myriad parents, middle and upper schoolers and faculty followed by laughter filled parties, treats and games organized by the parent community in each classroom. That is what we would do in a normal year. Of course, 2020 is anything but a normal year.
I am a teacher of music, movement and drama. I love my job. In a normal year, I would be preparing my students for a rollicking, rambunctious rally for our winter program in December. Normally. Again, this year is anything but normal. This year I am teaching in a beekeeper style helmet with a portable amplifier/headset underneath it. It protects the kids from me and me from them. Not normal. And this year instead of singing uproariously with abandon, my students hum or sing softly (mezzo-piano) because it is not safe to sing loudly inside together - even in masks.
This year? I am not loving my job - as much. I am grieving. I am grieving the traditional programs that won’t happen, teaching music without singing (imagine teaching math without the numbers) and the loss of my classroom to covid standards that say my space is too small to hold so many students throughout the day. Grief, stress and the looming possibility of another possible shutdown.
What’s a music teacher to do? How do I not “burnout”?
In her recent podcast, Unlocking Us, Brene Brown interviewed Emily and Amelia Nagoski, authors of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. The stress cycle is what our bodies experience when our brain detects a threat and floods our body with chemicals designed to send us into what is commonly known as fight, flight or freeze. However, what we don’t always know is that fight/flight or freeze are just the beginning of the cycle. Without completing the cycle - giving our bodies the signal that we are safe and danger has passed - those chemicals stay in our bodies, degrading slowly over time, but not flushing out completely. When the next stress cycle happens, the neurochemicals pile on top of the slowly degrading ones we’ve held onto and over time that collection of stress chemicals becomes gastrointestinal issues like IBS, auto immune issues, headaches - you name it. How do we complete the cycle? How do we let our bodies and minds know that even in this time of continuous piling on of stressors we are “safe?”
The Nagoskis list 7 ways to complete the cycle. Some easier than others and a few that surprised me at first:
Physical activity - ultimately 30 minutes/6 days a week (we’ve all heard this one)
Breathing - box breathing or 4-7-8 breathing
Social Connection - so, so difficult when you are social distancing, but not impossible
Laughter - real, deep laughter - even remembering a time when you laughed yourself to exhaustion
Affection - a 20 second hug, a 6 second kiss
A “big ol’ cry” - we all know what this means and how good it can feel
Creative Expression - creating/doing something through dance, song, art, acting
It’s a good list. It’s a short list. However - It’s a list that at first glance I thought - when will I have time to do any of these things in between pandemic lesson planning (which feels like reinventing the wheel on some days), teaching, sanitizing, and continuing to do all the mom and wife and daughter and friend duties? During the initial Spring shutdown I got into a good routine of exercise at home, walking my dogs in between recording asynchronous lessons and keeping up with our online grocery, Target and amazon orders. (The online groceries definitely became my source of feeling “in control”). But in the Fall, when we went back to teaching in person - that routine was quickly disrupted. I had no idea how emotionally uncomfortable it would be to return to teaching. The constant reminders of the virus are everywhere - hand sanitizer stations everywhere, everyone in a mask with no way to read facial social cues, signs reminding us of social distancing and faculty meetings attended on campus from your office on zoom. We are in our normal environment in an abnormal year. And what I didn’t know then and am aware of now - my stress cycles were piling up more quickly than ever before. And if they are building this rapidly for me, how are my students and colleagues feeling?
And then it dawned on me: I can use my job to incorporate the Nagoski list into my daily routine by making it my lesson plan - to help us all feel safe, gear down from our stress cycles and show each other some compassion and empathy.
First - I created solid routines that include a physical warm up of 2-5 minutes before we take attendance, longer “movement lessons” - explorations of beat and rhythm that feel like elongated dance parties, more playing time with classroom instruments, and more drama games offering time for creative expression. I am less focused on all the things I “need to teach” and more focused on what the students need from me in the moment to feel psychologically safe. If we need to breathe, we breathe. If we need to cry, we cry - I’ve even spent time talking about empathy as a superpower to connect to our friends. And as for laughter? Silly songs and videos I wouldn’t have considered for curriculum in the past are now at the top of my playlists. Every class ends with the same chant: We are kind, we are brave, we are incredibly curious.
This closing chant is more than just a sentence for me, it’s a mantra. And it’s getting me through. Kindness to myself and others because we all share this common humanity of fears and worries and they are on high alert right now. Bravery looks different every day, but sometimes the seemingly simple acts require the most courage and commitment day after day. And curiosity? Curiosity is an anchor for me now. How can I use what I know and what I do in this wilderness of the “new normal” to create more peace and calm in myself and my students? And in this altered environment, expectations sometimes need to shift. With different expectations, judgement can take a backseat, in fact, it doesn’t even need to ride in the car at all.
In my borrowed office I’ve written this quote on a whiteboard: Since the house is on fire, we may as well warm ourselves. So it is that finding ways to infuse my day with opportunities to stop the cycle of stress - and providing opportunities for my students to feel psychologically safe is just one way to keep burnout at bay - and maybe by the end of the school year I’ll have learned some new jokes and be ready for dance solo or maybe make some s’mores.