I wish you…

As many teachers get ready to start a new professional year, I believe we tend to let anxiety take the best of us. According to the site “How Stuff Works”, teaching is the fourth most stressful job, since we “have to be well-prepared every day”, we take a lot of work home, and have to deal with both students and sometimes parents. It is a lot of work indeed, which may leave us questioning our career choice, or our hopes and dreams for the future.

Since I truly believe in the power of empathy, and I would like to think that you out there might find solace in the fact that you are not alone in this daily struggle, I bring you here 6 things I wish for your term, and also for your whole year. As always, we have to reconnect to our past self and remember the reasons why you wanted to become a teacher in the first place and, with a peaceful mind and a loving heart, move towards the goals you established for yourself. So, for the list lovers, here it goes…

• I wish you a clear path ahead. You can only envision what is coming for you if you have established goals for yourself, and they don’t necessarily have to be about your professional life. You can (and should) establish the goal of spending more time with your loved ones, but don’t blame yourself if you can’t at that moment. Sometimes, you do have to nosedive into courses and your own job, but try your best not to disconnect from your roots.

• I wish you the best team to work with. Teaching can be quite lonely, but even if you are a private teacher there is a number of constant services you need to rely on, and I truly wish they are the best they can be. Once, I have heard that you are an average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with, so choose it wisely and don’t let anyone drag you down or out of the path you have chosen for yourself.

• I wish you peace of mind when you are at your most stressful moment, which can vary from school to school or even from student to student. A word of advice: when you find yourself in that very moment when you find it hard to breathe, and you feel like running away from everything, try to find a peaceful spot (if possible, close to a well-ventilated area) and breathe! Sometimes, we forget to do it and it only brings negative consequences to ourselves. I know, you may find twice as much work when you come back from those 5 minutes, but with a clear and focused mind you will find solutions to your problem even faster, trust me.

• I wish you a school or students which pay you on time and value the amazing professional you are. Nobody deserves having your job questioned and undermined both financially and cognitively. You may need the money, but nothing replaces a good night sleep without having to worry if you will have ways to pay your bills.

• I wish you a well-organized agenda in order to fit at least one professional development initiative. It could be a course, reading that book you had no time to read previously or even following a blog like this one. There are many initiatives available, and some of them are free.

• I wish you presence of heart in everything you do. It is harder than it looks, but whenever doing a job, be 100% present there. You will find out it is less energy consuming for your mind and body, and it might help you find the stamina to accomplish all the missions you establish for yourself.

So that’s it! I wish you all a very happy new year! May 2019 be the best year in your life so far, and you can count on your peers and friends to make it happen!

Fabiana Muliterno

Fabi is a teacher and a teacher trainer. She has been working also as a course designer for the past 2 years. She holds a CELTA, an ICELT, and the Delta Module 2. She also holds a Train the Trainer certificate. Fabi has been studying Visible Learning, Positive Discipline and Nonviolent Communication, and she believes those are key to a better, warmer and safer environment in class. She is the owner of the @lighthouse_elt, where she tries to bring content on these areas. She is also responsible for the social media at the @yltsigbr for the BRAZ-TESOL institution. She loves reading, writing, and watching films and series in her free time. She is a proud nerd and geek.