What do I mean by "healthy"?

I'm going to reserve the first few posts for providing a general sense of where my thinking is about teaching and teachers. My brain is like a caffeinated bee in a jar, so I hope I can get my thoughts out in a "few posts." At the very least, I want to establish a general premise of what leads my thinking and efforts toward improving the lives of educators (and adults in general I might add).

While I certainly do want to encourage all of us to be healthy - I've heard that eating well and exercising are good for you - I also want to cast a wider net over what healthy might look like for people involved with youth and schools.

Ultimately, I think we need to re-think our sense of mission and responsibility. If we're dedicated to successful youth and we let that be the singular controlling factor in all that we do, we leave ourselves highly vulnerable to some serious burnout. Anyone ever stayed at school until 10:30, grabbed a few hours of sleep, got up at 6:00 to grade, and then show up at school exhausted, grumpy, and bitter? And that leads to successful youth how?

So a lot of my work revolves around a fuller sense of the responsibilities that we really have. We are responsible to ourselves, our colleagues, our students, our friends, our family, and our mission. In much more equal measure than we might lend credence.

So that's the "Healthy Teacher" towards which I strive. Chiseled abs would be nice, but it's not exactly what I'm talking about.