The art of self-compassion
Have you noticed that we tend to be much kinder and more understanding when it comes to our friends’ struggles, but we're often too tough on ourselves? In this workshop, we'll delve into some of the common challenges teachers face and examine how self-compassion can make our lives much better. Let's come together and explore this profound topic, and grow as individuals and professionals.
Teacher resilience
Teacher resilience is a quality that enables teachers to maintain their commitment to teaching and their teaching practices despite challenging conditions, recurring setbacks and unavoidable uncertainties of the VUCA world. Resilient individuals are known to be less susceptible to problems associated with stress, including anxiety and depression due to their mindset and a set of skills that help them adapt and thrive despite experiencing adversity.
There are two types of protective factors that contribute to teacher resilience, i.e. individual and contextual factors. The individual protective factors include altruism, strong intrinsic motivation for teaching, a sense of self-efficacy, coping skills, professional reflection and self-care, whereas the contextual ones include administrative support, mentor and peer support, relationships with family and friends and characteristics of the pre-service programme.
In the workshop, we will discuss and do some exercises from the most researched teacher resilience program - Spark Resilience. Originally developed in 2009, the programme builds on cognitive-behavioural therapy and positive psychology concepts with the explicit goal of fostering emotional resilience and decreasing stress.
The four cornerstones of motivation: existential approach
There’s a lot of information about motivation in modern ELT literature and there’s no need to write how important the topic is. However, not much attention is paid to the existential approach. In my presentation I will mention the weak points of some other theories and give a full picture of human motivation from the existential point of view. I’ve designed a check-list of questions that may help us make sure our students find the lessons meaningful.
Another application of this theory is to support ourselves: we can use similar techniques to reflect on our own job fulfilment and tackle the temporary crises that we sometimes face with.
The Flow Theory in the Classroom
Do you recall moments when you felt immense happiness, completely engrossed in the present moment to the extent that the past and future seemed irrelevant, making the concept of time meaningless?Csikszentmihalyi, a prominent American psychologist, refers to this state as 'flow'.According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is characterized by being fully engaged in an activity to the point where "nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (Flow, 1990)
Is it possible to consciously achieve this optimal experience, or does it occur spontaneously, beyond our control? How can the concept of flow be applied to our teaching experience? What similarities does it share with Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development? It would be great to explore recent research in this area, exchange our own teaching experience, and seek connections between the theories of happiness and learning.