{"id":175,"date":"2021-02-01T18:43:23","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T02:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bend.k12.or.us\/dean.richards\/?p=175"},"modified":"2021-02-01T19:07:31","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T03:07:31","slug":"first-things-first-we-need-you-to-take-good-care-of-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bend.k12.or.us\/dean.richards\/2021\/02\/01\/first-things-first-we-need-you-to-take-good-care-of-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"First Thing’s First: We Need you to Take Good Care of Yourself."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In our professional lives, Covid is a difficult and unwieldy gift that won’t stop giving. We’ve lost track of how many problems it has caused, how many challenges we’ve cleared, just to have five more populate our horizons. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s just really, REALLY hard.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we are starting to feel some hope: there is reason to believe we may be approaching one of the final landmark obstacle courses for this school year: the one of successfully welcoming students back into our classrooms. And we all know that, despite the simplicity of the stated task, what we encounter will be anything but simple. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To manage this challenge successfully, it is imperative that we take good care of ourselves by acknowledging our own fears and stressors, and put ourselves in the best place possible to acknowledge and support out students. None of us want to add to the trauma our students have already encountered, but we best avoid that by allowing our own histories to be valid. We MUST recognize and allow our own needs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In different ways, we are all suffering from Covid Fatigue. UC Davis recommends the following four strategies as the ones that can make the biggest difference in our daily work lives:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n