This document discusses the importance of self-care for educators and advocates working in social justice movements. It frames self-care as a critical part of leading change and analyzes how popular culture, race, gender, class, and privilege shape ideas about personal sustainability. The document explores burnout among teachers and activists and defines self-care, noting why people don't practice it despite its importance. It examines how awareness of socialization and positionality can help individuals implement self-care in a meaningful way.

1. Self-Care for Selfless Educators
& Advocates in the Movement
EduCon 2.5
January 23, 2013 coalition for racial justice

2. OBJECTIVES
Frame self-care as a critical component of leading
change
Analyze how pop culture, race and gender shape our
ideas about personal sustainability
Explore ways to sustain ourselves while supporting
each other in allyship

4. Ms. Bliss

5. Mr. Feeny

6. Mr. Clarke

7. Mr. Tolson

8. Mr.
Schuster
Ms.
Pillsbury

9. The Message behind the Media
Representations of teachers and educators in popular culture
are supposed to be a form of entertainment; however, all of
these images and story lines have real life implications.
The consistent use of the “savior-educator-who-saves-
students-one-classroom-at-a-time” distorts, and therefore
deflects, the real challenges teachers and advocates face.

10. Burnout: Ed Reform Edition.
Teacher burnout is almost epidemic in this country and is one of
the causes of the 17 % annual attrition rate amongst educators.
Scientists have found that teachers can burnout from the
negative emotions and inefficacy they feel around the challenges
of managing their students.
“With the burnout issues teachers face, taking care of
themselves through work/life balance is important, but it isn’t
enough. Teachers need to give themselves permission to be self-
compassionate for the stress they’re under.” (Neff)
For activists, burnout is the “act of involuntarily leaving
activism or reducing one’s activism.” When activists burn out,
they can derail their career and damage their self-esteem.

11. Burnout: Ed Reform Edition.
No one knows exactly how many activists burnout each year
but many believe the number must be high. One indicator is
the high employee and volunteer turnover rates in most
activist organizations. (Hillary Rettig, The Lifelong Activist:
How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way)
To a great extent burnout is simply accepted as a by-product
of being involved in activism. However as we work in groups,
if a person is suffering from burnout, it will tend to have a
negative affect on the group as a whole.
The way we behave to both ourselves and the people around
us has profound impacts. An enjoyable and effective action or
process can easily be turned into a negative one.

13. Burnout: Ed Reform Edition.
We all make sacrifices. Right? We give of ourselves, of our time,
and of our resources. It seems to be a job requirement that we
teachers/activists commit every part of our being to our jobs.
Teaching can be a lonely profession. Lack of opportunity to
engage in meaningful exchanges of ideas with other
teachers/activists contributes to burnout, as does conflict with
parents, administrators, and students.

14. Defining Self-Care
what it is: what it is not:
choosing behaviors that Self-pampering. There is
balance the effects of nothing wrong pampering
emotional and physical yourself--as long as you can
stressors afford the luxuries.
Self-indulgence: avoiding
effortful solutions by
substituting quick and easy
antidotes. We should not
settle for temporarily
symbolic fixes.

15. the case for self care.
What’s necessary for us to give our best efforts to ed
reform?
Deep, deliberate self-care naturally leads to healthier,
more effective care for others.
Self-care causes us to be more conscious and
conscientious because we are honest, making decisions
and choices from a place of love and compassion instead
of guilt and obligation.

16. why don’t we do it?
we don’t talk about it
we think we’re the only who
face it
we feel guilty for complaining
we question our depth of
commitment
evading self-care and it’s
effect becomes a measure of a
good activist

17. the role self-awareness plays
Understand your capacity to be involved and invested.
Continuously confront how your identity and related
experiences affect your approach to self-care.

18. CYCLE OF
SOCIALIZATION

19. SOCIALIZATION
Born free of bias, blame, consciousness, and choice
Personal socialization
Institutional and cultural socialization
Messages reinforced
Messages internalized
CHOICE: Do something different or Do nothing

21. POP determines the
perspective
with which you serve and the
perspective
with which you & your colleagues
seek support.

22. where self-care meets POP
inherently rejects
collective
responsibility for each
others’ well-being
misses the power
dynamics in our lives

23. where self-care meets class POP
As long as self-care is discussed as an individual
responsibility and additional task, it will
be something to which middle-class people with leisure
time will most easily relate
blind to the dynamics of working class or family life
because it will include barriers to the lives of people
without time to spare
become one more unchecked box on a to-do list to feel
bad about, an unreal expectation or a far-off dream

24. where self-care meets gender POP
caring is a quality socially acknowledged as feminine, BUT
this only applies when the caring is directed towards others
living for others is so deeply ingrained in us that it often
translates into the complete abandonment of our own
needs, which rank lower than those of our children,
partner, relatives, etc.

25. where self-care meets race POP
attempts to replace the politics and practice of our
motivation to lead change
the reality for the majority of people engaged in social
justice movements is that participation is necessary
a collective effort in the form of social movement is the
highest articulation of caring for one’s own self in a world
designed to deny your worthiness of care
the structural barriers that make access to self-care
impossible are challenged by the very struggle that cause
the need for self-care

26. privilege
in action
the power to make and enforce decisions
access to resources, broadly defined
the ability to set and determine standards for what is
considered appropriate behavior
the ability to define reality

27. “The difference between
the strength of a rope
and the weakness of a string
is that a rope is a hundred strings
that have bound together.”
-B. Lowe, Communications Director
National Day Laborer Organizing Network

28. “Even for someone like myself who has the
majority of my needs met, I feel most alive,
most on fire, most able to go around the
clock, when I’m doing political work that
feels authentic, feels like it pushes the bounds
of authority, and feels like it is directly
connected to advancing my individual and
our collective liberation.”
-B. Lowe, Communications Director
National Day Laborer Organizing Network

30. allyship
when a member of the
dominant group works to end
oppression in their personal
and professional life through
support of and advocacy with
the oppressed

31. becoming an ally
Adversary Ally
Active Passive Active
1 2 3 4 5 6
Actively Interrupt Interrupt Initiate an
No Educate
joins in the the and organized
response oneself
negative behavior educate response
Lee, Rosetta Eun Ryong. “Privilege and Allyship: Owning Our Stuff and Taking Action.” WPC Symposium
(2011).

33. REFERENCES
CREA. “Self-Care and Self-Defense Manual for Feminist Activsits.” 2006. http://files.creaworld.org/files/self-care-brochure.pdf.
Croydon Greens. “Activist Burnout. What is it and what to do?” You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxWTOEOvoAk.
Harro, Bobbie. “Cycle of Socialization.” Referenced in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 2nd ed. by Adams, et al. (2010).
“Katherine Switzer, 1967 Boston Marathon.” AP Images/Worldwide Photo. www.marathonwoman.com.
Kirman, Paula E. “Activist Self-Care and Community.” Sacred Social Justice. Posted 1012/12.
http://sacredsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2012/10/activist-self-care-and-community.html
Lee, Rosetta Eun Ryong. “Privilege and Allyship: Owning Our Stuff and Taking Action.” WPC Symposium (2011).
Lowe, B. “An End to Self Care.” Organizing Upgrade. Posted 10/15/12. http://www.organizingupgrade.com/index.php/blogs/b-
loewe/item/729-end-to-self-care
Meinecke, PhD, Christine. “Self-Care in a Toxic World.” Psychology Today. Posted 6/4/10.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/everybody-marries-the-wrong-person/201006/self-care-in-toxic-world.
National Commission on Teaching America’s Future (2010). “Who Will Teach? Experience Matters.” http://nctaf.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/NCTAF-Who-Will-Teach-Experience-Matters-2010-Report.pdf
Padamsee, Yashna. “Yashna: Communities of Care.” Organizing Upgrade. Posted 7/1/11.
http://www.organizingupgrade.com/index.php/component/k2/item/88-yashna-communities-of-care
Rettig, Hillary. The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way. New York: Lantern Books, 2006.
Tartakovsky, Margarita. “3 Self-Care Strategies to Transform Your Life.” World of Psychology. Posted 8/20/12.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/08/20/3-self-care-strategies-to-transform-your-life/

34. corajus.com
@becorajus