A shocking statistic in education reveals that 70% of K-12 teachers work under chronic stress. This revolutionary new book explains how removing stress from the classroom holds the key to improving education. The book also explains what administrators, teachers, parents, and communities can do to help accomplish a stress-free classroom.
For years, the expert voices said “disengagement” was the crucial issue behind poor educational environments and results. Naturally, only massive reform could fix it. But what if the enormous restructuring and expenditures attacked the wrong problem?
MindShift, an organization that reframes tired and clogged conversations, pushed the old conclusions off the table and started fresh. They gathered diverse leaders in education, leadership, neuroscience, architecture, and wellness in working forums around the nation. These pivotal meetings produced WHOLE, a game-changing approach to education. This book captures the story and details of how the system can be remade for real and lasting benefits to everyone.
With the authors’ expertise, the book exposes the exhausted and antiquated thinking that led to the present crisis. But, WHOLE also proposes a new era of disruptive change that can produce happier, healthier, and more successful education for the 21st century. The book introduces the outliers, tells the stories, and presents the roadmaps to:
- Why teachers should be seen as high-performance athletes, requiring time for recovery and preparation
- How schools can become “field hospitals,” combining learning with healing
- Why space matters, how redesigning and refurnishing schools can eliminate stress and produce learning environments that are more open and inviting
- Ways to properly integrate schools within communities, building honest relationships, increasing social capital, and achieving transparency that increases success
Packed with real-life examples, new research, and solutions that you can introduce to your own schools, students, and communities, WHOLE shows us how to move schools from the age of stress and insecurity to an age of true educational flourishing.
Table of Contents
Foreword xiii
Foreword xv
Acknowledgments xvii
About the Authors xxiii
Part 1 Dying to Teach 1
Chapter 1 Dying to Teach 3
Chapter 2 Schools Are Killing More than Creativity 11
Chapter 3 Fear is the Off Switch 24
Chapter 4 The Body Remembers 34
Chapter 5 Having the Stress Conversation in Your School 50
Part 2 Changing the Story of Education 65
Chapter 6 To Change the Story 67
Chapter 7 The Early Childhood Challenge: Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later 80
Chapter 8 The Teacher Athlete 93
Chapter 9 Are Schools the New Field Hospitals? 103
Chapter 10 “Shots Fired” 116
Chapter 11 Do Healthy Buildings Improve Learning? 131
Chapter 12 The Heart-to-Head Connection: Managing Emotions to Support the Brain 142
Chapter 13 Community Before Curriculum 153
Part 3 Putting Into Practice 167
Chapter 14 Waking the Dead: The Sleep Solution 169
Chapter 15 The Magic of Movement and Mini-Breaks 182
Chapter 16 Physical Education: The Gathering Storm 194
Chapter 17 How Small Changes Make Big Impacts 209
Chapter 18 Leading Change: From Compliance to Ownership 225
Chapter 19 What Teachers Really Need to Help Students Thrive 238
Appendix A: Contributors 252
Appendix B: Sleep Hygiene Tips 263
Works Cited and Further Reading 265
Index 283
