This fall, our team attended the Montessori Homeschool Summit. We have created a Montessori blog series to highlight our main takeaways from the summit for Adventure Nannies families, nannies, and private educators.
According to Maria Montessori, the preparation of the teacher is one of the most important aspects of Montessori education. Self-care is as essential to preparation as lesson plans for the Montessori educator. In her Montessori homeschool presentation, Beth from @ourmontessorilife offered a helpful guide for Montessori teachers to manage self-care, both in and out of the classroom.
Beth notes that there are three main components to self-care: Sleep, nutrition, and social balance. These are all essential to being a patient and loving observer in the classroom. Recently, Adventure Nannies candidates have shared some of their favorite self-care tips outside of the home environment: Going for a bike ride, reading a book in the sun, or taking an online yoga class.
Beyond basic elements of self-care, Beth offered a personal guide to how she manages self-care while in the classroom environment. There are two types of situations that require intentional self-care in the moment: escalating and de-escalating situations. During escalating situations, the educator is aware that things are about to go wrong. Taking deep breaths and slowing thoughts down can be helpful in these situations. De-escalating situations are when things have already gone wrong. If possible, this is a great time for the educator to step away from the situation. With many educators working alone in a home environment, this isn’t always a possibility. If it is an option, leaving the room for a few deep breaths and a moment alone can be helpful to recharge and resolve the situation peacefully.
Beth follows this self-care checklist to ensure that she is ready to be present with the children she is educating:
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- Am I in the right headspace?
- Is my lesson prepared and is it good quality?
- Am I able to give the child the individual time that they deserve and that they need to successfully and positively advance with whatever I’m showing them?
Both in and out of the classroom, self-care is an integral part of teacher preparation! We’d love to hear your self-care tips. Find us on Instagram @adventurenannies! Thank you to Beth of @ourmontessorilife for providing such thoughtful insights and resources on teacher self-care. You can connect with her on Instagram or online at https://ourmontessorilife.com/.
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