Bryan Harris - 17 Things Resilient Teachers Do: And 4 Things They Hardly Ever Do

This book will help you learn practical ways to manage the stress of teaching and avoid burnout. Bestselling author and educational consultant Bryan Harris presents strategies for building resilience, including reframing, understanding the power of no, focusing on what you can control, building positive relationships, advocating for yourself, and more. Each chapter clearly presents concise and practical applications that you can implement right away. With this guidebook, youll feel ready to bounce back from challenges and stay focused on the joys of the profession.

Bryan Harris is an education consultant, author, and former Director of Professional Development and Public Relations for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Arizona. He previously held positions as a teacher, district-level specialist, and principal.

(www.routledge.com/k-12)

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First published 2021

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Bryan Harris

The right of Bryan Harris to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this title has been requested

ISBN: 978-0-367-52844-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-52036-6 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-05864-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Palatino

by codeMantra

To educators everywhere. Thanks for what you do.

No book is complete without recognizing the efforts of those individuals who provided support, guidance, and friendship.

• To my wife Becky and my sons Andrew and Jeremy, youve allowed me to be myself (dad jokes and all), which has helped me discover more about what it means to be resilient. To my mom and my sister, as a child, I began learning what it meant to be resilient because of your examples. Im blessed to have a family that loves me and accepts for me who I am.

• To my professional support network of Shauna King and LeAnn Nickelsen, youve been a constant source of encouragement and support. You two are more than professional colleagues who steal good ideas from me; you are also friends.

• To my friends Scott Taylor and Kurt Morris, you do more than tolerate my bad jokes; you encourage and you care. Scott is a constant example of a person who chooses to see the good in life, and Kurt is a living example of what it means to practice resilience in the midst of lifes challenges.

• To my church family, as imperfect as we are, you are a constant source of encouragement and light.

• To the giants in the field of stress and resiliency research, this book stands on your shoulders.

• To the wonderfully supportive team at Routledge, led by my long-time editor Lauren Davis, thanks for believing in yet another project.

I always hate writing bios. Its hard not to sound like Im bragging, and I often wonder if people even read them.

If youre interested, heres what you might want to know.

Im a life-long educator who loves his family, loves God, and is doing his best to better the lives of educators and students.

Along the way, Ive served in a variety of roles, including classroom teacher, school principal, district-level director, and adjunct professor. In the process, I accumulated a few college degrees.

I now work as a full-time educational consultant, focusing on teacher effectiveness and student engagement. I first got interested in the topic of stress and resiliency when I was conducting doctoral research focused on new-teacher retention. For that, and personal reasons, I wanted to learn how to become more resilient myself.

This isnt my first book and hopefully wont be my last.

On a personal note, Im just a normal, super-nice guy who has been tremendously blessed as a result of hard work, the grace and patience of other people, a deep desire to learn and improve, and a bit of serendipity.

One more note Im not sure if this is your thing or not, but if you like the ideas presented in this book, a positive online review would be appreciated. You likely already know this, but success in the book business is largely measured by Amazon reviews and sales rankings. My goal is to share these ideas with as many people as possible. Positive reviews help to achieve that goal.

You can find out more by visiting my website .

Heres the big idea If you are to become the superstar teacher you were meant to be, you have to take care of yourself. You have to develop, refine, and practice resilience. This book will show you how.

Teaching is hard. Its awesome, but hard. As educators, our days are filled with highs and lows, triumphs and challenges, joys and sorrows. Quite simply, teaching is an emotionally taxing, tremendously rewarding roller coaster of a job.

For those of us who have dedicated our lives to the education of young people, we know this essential truth while teaching is the most rewarding job on the planet, its also one of the most exhausting. Its not like other jobs. Make no mistake, there are lots of other professions that are both rewarding and challenging, but teaching is unique. Shaping the lives of children is unlike any other job in existence.

Because of the uniquely demanding and emotionally taxing nature of the profession, we need to develop, refine, and practice the art of resiliency. In order to be the very best teachers we can be, we must be resilient. Heres the main message: taking care of yourself is not selfish. In fact, its essential. Whether you refer to it as self-care, emotional resourcefulness, equanimity, fortitude, or grit, the idea is the same. In order to take care of others in order to be that world-class educator you aspire to be you must take care of yourself by building your own capacity to handle stress. We deal with stress by practicing resiliency.

So, what is resilience? Words and concepts commonly associated with resilience include: persistence, the ability to bounce back after a setback, the ability to cope during times of adversity, and the capacity to navigate difficult waters. At its most basic, resilience is made up of those mindsets/beliefs/internal values we possess along with a set of specific strategies we employ during the tough times. Resiliency is two things: how we think and what we do. For those of us who work in schools, resiliency can be viewed as using our skills, energy, and abilities to do the best for ourselves and our students in the face of (