Don't Just Survive, Thrive

Stay inspired and motivated with this ultimate teacher self-care action plan designed to help educators avoid workplace stress and burnout.

Any educator will tell you it's no surprise that 50% of teachers leave education within their first five years. Being a teacher is deeply rewarding and inspiring, but keeping that big picture in mind is hard after long days, difficult students, and limited resources. On top of it all, teachers have the added burden of managing an entirely new digital learning environment. But burning out doesn't have to be your only option. Don't Just Survive, Thrive offers hardworking teachers a sustainable blueprint for becoming unshakeable at school with the power of self-care.

Through mindfulness, connection, and creative art, you can work toward building a trauma-informed, self-aware strategy that fosters resilience and results in more engaged and effective teaching. Just five minutes a day or more of implementing the practical ideas in this book can result in powerful change. These strategies include:

- Ten ways to practice mindfulness during recess duty
- Guided journaling to celebrate what’s working in your classroom
- Daily routines to keep you in the present moment
- Quick practices for self-regulation during a conflict situation
- Sentence stems to encourage internal dialogue and positive self-talk

Whether you're a special education teacher, paraprofessional, speech pathologist, counselor, or any type of educator, this book offers a guide to becoming not only a social-emotional role model for students but a better, healthier teacher. 

SaraJane Herrboldt is a former public school teacher and district coordinator for ELD programming, K–12. With over a decade of work in the school systems, she frequently saw the impact of trauma, which drives her passion for creating opportunities to practice resilience. She now provides coaching in support of teachers' health and wellness on topics related to their social-emotional learning, such as secondary/vicarious trauma and caregiver burnout. In addition, she has completed training in therapeutic and trauma-informed yoga, as well as mindfulness. She is an advocate for equity, trauma-informed practices, social-emotional learning, and the well-being of all individuals. When not advocating and educating, she is sharing life with her husband, who is also an educator, and three incredible children.

Kay Waterson is an elementary school art educator and illustrator. She received her bachelor's degree in fine art along with her K–12 teaching certification from Kendall College of Art and Design. Kay has been teaching full time for almost a decade in an urban K–5 school setting. She completed a master's degree in art education. Her thesis work, "Creativity in a Post-Traumatic Mind," explores the cognitive and emotional benefits of creative art within the process of healing from trauma. She puts the research and strategies from this body of work, which embodies her passion for art education and wellness, into practice. Additionally, Kay works part time as a freelance illustrator and painter.