BLOG

Self-awareness is often described as being aware of one's mood and thoughts about that mood. As teachers, you should be able to recognize your thoughts and emotions and understand how they can influence your behavior in the classroom. Educators should not leave any gaps in their management skills and should be able to assess their strengths and limits accurately.

What Is Self-Awareness and Its Benefits?

Self-awareness also includes an understanding of how feelings, thoughts, and behaviors impact your interactions with your students. Increased self-consciousness means you will not only be able to accurately judge your emotions but also realize how it affects your learners. Since being mindful of your actions is the key to emotional intelligence, learning to manage those feelings especially when you are under pressure is crucial.

 

Following are the empowering benefits a self-aware individual can get:

• It allows you to understand your strengths and limitations and enhance learning by tapping on those attributes.
• It shapes your thoughts and feelings and influences your view of looking at a certain problem and solving it.
• It keeps your words and actions aligned with your values and transmits messages that will have a positive effect on your students.
• Being self-aware allows you to amend your mistakes and model open-mindedness and reconciliation.

Why Is Practicing Self-Awareness Critical for Teachers?

As instructors, you deal with a class full of different personalities and there might be days when they just provoke you to being unreasonable and act impulsively. Students who experience stress and display troublesome behaviors often push themselves to behave unprofessionally.

So, what do you do in such cases?

As a natural teacher impulse, you would want to control the situation while your students are also wishing for the same. This results in unnecessary power struggles. Thus, you need to be aware of the emotional struggles and learn to react professionally and calmly to minimize the intensity and frequency of such unproductive struggles.

 

Teachers, who are emotionally unaware, often find themselves in a fix and walk out of the classroom feeling stressed, frustrated, anxious, and fatigued. A burned-out educator can adversely affect the classroom climate and dynamics between the students and teachers. Thus, to thrive and survive in a classroom, you must build strategies to use self-awareness as a tool for coping with stress and burnout.

How Can A Teacher Become Naturally Self-Aware?

 

Here are some measures you can take to become more conscious:

1. Participate Actively in Professional Organizations
   
   Active participation in all the events helped by your institution will not only open opportunities for networking and collaboration but also offer valuable resources that will expand your current perspectives. Take part in journal publications, workshops, seminars, and webinars to learn more about your core and improvement areas.
    
2. Snap Out of Your Bubble
   
   Stepping out of your comfort zone and interacting with colleagues will deepen your understanding of yourself and allow you to cultivate conditions where your current beliefs are challenged. Expanding your inner circle will allow you to connect and network with various people even outside your workplace thus allowing you to experience the diversity of thoughts.
    
3. Engage in Team Learning
   
   Team activities in an educational setting allow instructors to evaluate, add, and alter their current skills and knowledge in areas of their needs and interests. You can participate in book reading, staff meetings, or any professional training held by your organization to develop yourself professionally.
    
4. Reflect Routinely
   
   Self-reflection regularly is one of the most elemental actions you as teachers can practice. Though you might refute the idea due to lack of time, you would be surprised to see the results. Set aside 5-10 minutes of your day and ask yourself meaningful questions related to your day. This will allow you to reflect on your actions and realize what you could have done differently.

Cultivate Self-Awareness to Awaken Yourself

You are constantly evolving as educators and hence it is essential to assimilate new strategies and ideas into work. Not to forget every classroom allows you to evolve personally and hence cultivating self-awareness will allow you to contribute positively to the school culture. If you are someone who is just embarking on a teaching journey, consider pursuing a Diploma in Counselling Course for Teachers to maximize your efforts and avoid stress and burnout.

Looking for earning a Counselling Course Certification to enhance your teaching career? If yes then give us a call at +91-6292150868 or send us an email at teacherstrainingact@gmail.com.

Happy Teaching!