Every once in a while, something jolts us out of autopilot. For me, that "something" was a recent email from one of our authors. As the editor of her piece, I sent her queries with a hard return deadline—standard protocol in our field.
She replied that she would meet the deadline, but that meant she'd need to stay up late at night hammering out revisions long after her kids fell asleep. That lost sleep would add to her exhaustion: She was struggling to meet the demands of a full-time job while caring for two children in the throes of remote learning and a terminally ill partner.
She replied that she would meet the deadline, but that meant she'd need to stay up late at night hammering out revisions long after her kids fell asleep. That lost sleep would add to her exhaustion: She was struggling to meet the demands of a full-time job while caring for two children in the throes of remote learning and a terminally ill partner.
In these extraordinarily challenging times, she went on, we must extend each other grace. No educator—or really anyone for that matter—can perform at 100 percent capacity while juggling so many stressors at work and at home mid-pandemic. Production timelines can change—but taking care of people cannot.
To be honest, this author was initially uncomfortable with me sharing her story. The whole point, she explained, is that we need to assume people are struggling; no one should have to reveal their trauma to strangers to be accommodated. And she is absolutely right.
At a time of overlapping crises, we need to assume that our neighbors, our colleagues, and our students are struggling—and go from there. As so many authors in this issue on mental health explain, people are hurting. Educators are hurting. Black educators are especially hurting.
Jill Harrison Berg and Henry Oppong write that "we're not OK, and that's OK." Understandably, educators are hesitant to talk about their emotional struggles. "They may fear no one will care or that they will be perceived as unprofessional. They may fear their feelings are less urgent to attend to than those of their students." It rests on the shoulders of school leaders to ensure these fears are unfounded, Berg and Oppong say. They implore educators to break their silence—and leaders to respond with empathy.
In the pages that follow, educators do break their silence—in fact, some lay their souls bare. Sydney Chaffee, 2017 National Teacher of the Year, discloses her longtime battle with anxiety, bringing to light the stigma that so many educators with mental illness face. Peter DeWitt shares his coming out journey as a school principal and the toll that being LGBTQ has taken on his—and other educators'—mental well-being (and job security). Teacher Henry Seton details how the dreaded "doom loop" almost sent him fleeing the profession mid-year.
Overcoming setbacks like burnout will require more than "mindfulness apps, running laps, and taking naps," Chase Mielke notes. In his lead article, Mielke describes how we can reframe unhealthy thinking—identifying and fixing cognitive distortions like "mind reading" that lead us to assume the worst. School counselor Phyllis Fagell shares six ways "educators can cope and be a reassuring source of strength for students at a time when the only constant is change."
The bottom line is that we can no longer go about business as usual. We're in a pandemic. We're feeling the isolation of social distancing. Our nation is more divided than ever. Our kids are scared, and our colleagues are burning out. Deadlines no longer take precedence—people do.
Mielke echoes this sentiment in the closing of his article: "If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that we have to take care of each other." I would encourage you to reach out to one person today—a family member, a colleague, a student, your child. Ask how they are doing—no, how they are really doing—and listen with compassion to their response. There's always more to the story.
