- I have been in a situation where my perception has been affected by possible low brain function caused by stress. When I was early in my teaching career (I was 19 years old)I had a class of 23 (just turned) 4 year olds. It was one of my first teaching experiences and it was only me and one other teacher. On this particular day everything was going wrong. Kids started yelling, some started crying and a lot were having accidents. This also occurred during lunch where the kids ask you for a lot of different favors and if you don't get them their food on time they become agitated. I felt like I was losing it and there wasn't much support around during this time since there was only one other teacher. My friend who I worked with took me aside and explained that I needed to talk about how I felt. We talked about how we could respond to the children and how we could come up with a plan for us to calm down and then tackle the situation. It was really nice to have someone catch me in the moment and call me out but also see that I needed support. I ended up talking to the children and we got them to calm down. My perception of the problem and what was happening was only seen as negative because I felt stressed. I learned a lot about ways to reduce my stress while I was in that class as there were a lot of stressful moments that I had to talk myself through and take a deep breathe.
- I think I have overcome negative thoughts and pessimism by thinking about the positives that come from the situation. I think that every bad situation has to have at least one positive aspect to it. I think sometimes that positive outcome could be the lesson that was taken away form the situation.
- Being more present and intention in everyday decisions making and activities is something I have thought a lot about lately. I think meditation has been a really popular strategy for most but I didn't know if it was a choice that would be helpful for me. Last week I had a new teacher I was working with and he did meditation with the 5th graders every day after lunch. This was such an amazing reset opportunity to have in the middle of the day. It felt like my brain could take a break for a minute or two in the middle of the day. After the meditation it felt like I could think more clearly about different tasks and why they were important. It also helped me be more intentional with my decisions.
