{"id":229,"date":"2020-10-08T18:43:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T18:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/?p=229"},"modified":"2020-10-08T18:46:46","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T18:46:46","slug":"being-kind-to-yourself-in-a-time-of-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/being-kind-to-yourself-in-a-time-of-uncertainty\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Kind to Yourself in a Time of Uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pamela Stephens, Professor of Art Education and President\u2019s Distinguished Teaching Fellow<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the global Covid-19 pandemic forced many of us to teach remotely, art educators willingly took action to provide exceptional learning experiences for their K-12 and post-secondary students. In a completely unplanned teaching and learning environment, art teachers quickly switched from traditional face-to-face classroom instruction to unfamiliar remote educational practices; practices that were largely unfamiliar to many. This abrupt pedagogical shift brought with it a variety of struggles.<\/p>\n

Navigating mostly untested waters, art educators around the world nonetheless demonstrated professional attitudes and held to their values and beliefs. Dispositions such as innovation, intentionalism, flexibility, resilience, adaptability, empathy, leadership, and respectfulness readily describe art teacher responses to this unprecedented educational challenge. Yet, one extremely important disposition seems to have been missed by many. That is the disposition of kindness; not kindness to others, but kindness to self.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to be kind to oneself? Being kind to oneself is sometimes referred to as self-compassion; being empathetic to one\u2019s personal circumstances, needs, and abilities. Practicing kindness to oneself is sometimes not as easy as it sounds. For example, during the time of remote instruction did you intentionally (or unintentionally) hold yourself to impossibly high standards? Did you compare yourself to others? Did you have instances of feeling as if your instruction came up short? These sorts of thoughts are opposite of kindness and self-compassion. You certainly wouldn\u2019t tell a student that she doesn\u2019t measure up to crushingly difficult criteria. You wouldn\u2019t compare one student to another nor would you inform a student that his work just isn\u2019t good enough. We know these sorts of comments can be negatively impactful on students. Why then is it okay to impose such negativity on oneself? The answer is simple. It is not<\/strong> okay.<\/p>\n

Honor yourself. Lighten up! Consider how you can flip those negative thoughts into something positive. Be tolerant of your perceived inadequacies. Give yourself time to breathe and reflect. Recognize that we all have shortcomings. Yes, even that teacher to whom you so unjustly compared yourself has deficiencies, limitations, and imperfections.<\/p>\n

Be mindful of what it means to be a teacher. You adapt, you are patient and caring, and most importantly, you help students make sense of the world. Do the same for yourself.<\/p>\n

Come to grips with the fact that we were and are teaching during an unparalleled worldwide crisis. Without benefit of training or preparation, educators around the world (including you) accepted the difficult task of immediately switching from one teaching modality to another. Remind yourself that you did this. You continued to teach. You brought honor to your profession, your students, and your colleagues.<\/p>\n

You were and are enough.<\/p>\n

Be kind to yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n \n \n \"woman\n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n\n

\n
\n It took support of many in the Flagstaff community to instill confidence in my abilities as a teacher.\u00a0<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\nKayley Quick, Flagstaff High School, in front of a recently installed mural on her campus, discussing issues of self-confidence during remote teaching.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photograph Credit: Stephen Toya courtesy of Northern Arizona University<\/p>\n

This article appeared in SchoolArts magazine and is reproduced with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pamela Stephens, Professor of Art Education and President\u2019s Distinguished Teaching Fellow As the global Covid-19 pandemic forced many of us to teach remotely, art educators willingly took action to provide exceptional learning experiences for their K-12 and post-secondary students. In a completely unplanned teaching and learning environment, art teachers quickly switched from traditional face-to-face classroom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-remote-teaching","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}