🛠 Activities for Application

 

🔹 Activity 1.1: Scenario Practice (Role-Play for Staff Meetings)

• Divide into pairs.

 

• One person plays a teacher expressing stress, and the other plays a school leader or colleague responding.

 

• The leader/colleague must practice responding with validation and practical support, not toxic positivity.
• Which responses felt supportive?
• Which responses shut down the conversation?
• How can school leaders foster a culture where teachers feel heard and valued?

 

Follow-up Discussion:

• How does the discussion between colleagues differ from the discussion between individuals with more overt power differentials such as those between junior and senior staff, staff in different roles, or staff and administration?
• How, if at all, would the situation change if the concern was disclosed in private as opposed to being shared at a staff meeting? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each situation?

 

🔹 Activity 1.2a: The “Positivity vs. Support” Challenge

 

• Present staff with different statements related to teacher stress (e.g., “I feel completely overwhelmed by my workload”).

 

• Ask staff to write two responses:
• A toxic positivity response (e.g., “Just stay positive!”)
• A balanced and supportive response (e.g., “That sounds really challenging—let’s figure out a way to help.”)

 

🔹 Activity 1.2b: The “Positivity vs. Support” Challenge (Supported Version)

(use this activity with staff who may need more support to generate examples for the discussion scenarios).

 

• Place participants into pairs. Have them each choose a role to play (e.g. experienced teacher, new teacher, educational assistant, principal, office staff, etc.).

 

• Present staff with three types of dialogue statements related to teacher stress:

 

Situation Prompts

“I feel completely overwhelmed by my workload.”

“The kids in my class have no respect for anyone—not even themselves.”

“I can hardly wait to get out of this place at the end of the day.”

“I just can’t find the joy in this anymore.”

“Why is this so much harder than it used to be?”

“Why do I feel so alone and embarrassed? I feel like this job is impossible. Am I the only one brave enough to speak up?”

 

Responses

“Just stay positive!”

“That’s the way it is now. You need to figure this out.”

“What has changed?”

“Well, I know that my students look to me for encouragement, and I can’t do that if I’m a Negative Nelly.”

“That happened to my friend too.”

“Can we meet to talk about this later? I want to give this concern the time it needs.”

“I have felt that way too.”

“What is working in your job? Is there a way to maximize that part?”

“I have never felt that way. I love this job, and I think things are fine. You just need to focus on the good things.

 

Emotions

Choose from the following list or from the emotion pinwheel for many more options.

• Heard
• Supported
• Shamed
• Neutral
• Hopeful
• Valued
• Dismissed
• Validated
• Curious

 

• Ask staff within their chosen roles to
• Choose a situation prompt together
• Have one person choose a response to the prompt from the list and deliver it.
• Have the other person choose the emotion provoked by the response and explain why they felt that way.
• Choose or generate a response that would provoke a more positive feeling and more likely lead to a discussion of solutions.
• Switch the order of participation and repeat.

 

• Discuss how responses shape staff morale and engagement.

 

🔹 Activity 1.3: School Well-Being Audit and Dotmocracy

 

• Generate a list of current workplace stressors.

 

• Dotmocracy: Write each main issue on a separate page and post these around the room. Provide each participant with 3 sticky dots and ask them to place the dots on the issue(s) they would most like to have addressed. They may place all their dots on one issue page or may spread them between issues.

 

• Review and discuss the results of the Dotmocracy exercise together. Commit to one small change per term or semester to improve overall staff well-being.

 

• Create a Well-Being Action Plan with practical, school-wide solutions to support staff resilience without relying on forced positivity. Be sure to revisit the plan and check your progress.