The Teaching Well

Time flies when you're having fun and sometimes an event gives you so much to reflect on, you need a full day to integrate! The We Are For Good ImpactUp connection in #SanFrancisco on Thursday evening was so nourishing. 🙌🏾 Alia Peera and I had the privilege of representing The Teaching Well! You know, social impact professionals with diverse companies, but a wild amount of alignment at the same time. Folks are craving connection- it's time to mobilize and Jon McCoy, CFRE, Becky Endicott, CFRE, Julie Confer, and Abby Fox are working hard to make that possible. 💪🏾 Some common elements wove us together, united in a shared mission: 💡to unapologetically do work differently. 💡to create an impact without sacrificing our wellness. 💡to restore support AND accountability in the field. 💡to get into good trouble. I caught myself day dreaming at one point. Just a meditative moment where I thought, "wow, we could really start to redistribute POWER to the most marginalized with a crew of integrous folks like these..."✊🏾 Sterrin Bird, CFRE and Maureen Sedonaen were dynamic hosts. Dropping truth and holding a beautiful container. I felt an immediate connection to Mallory Erickson, Aila Malik, Valerie Brown, Samar Ibrahim, and Natalie Monroe 🦊 + so many others! We built community so quickly that when the event ended, it was only natural for a group of us to go get dinner and continue to drop in. I got home at 11pm 👀 but somehow was still energized! Then yesterday because obviously I couldn’t get enough goodness, I spent two hours with Brian Ford! 🔥 We sat in a Black-owned cafe in Oakland talking behavior, SEL, fundraising, collaboration, and healing! Now that’s a power-packed 48 hrs! 💥 I'm sitting in so much gratitude and excitement for the next event in October, where we hope to co-host at TTW! #impactup #weareforgood #frompodcasttopower #nonprofitleadership #collectiveliberation #community #educatorwellness #burnoutprevention #adultSEL #networking #doworkdifferent #goodtrouble

This is The Teaching Well, learning and growing while on retreat. As you already know, we believe in "going first," meaning we try on all our offerings before facilitating them with our partners. In this photo, one of our rock star Lead Facilitators, Salina Mae, is walking us through an arts-based therapy practice using watercolors as a vehicle for self-reflection and intention setting. We are looking forward to sharing this beautiful practice at a couple of our upcoming Admin retreats which kick off next week. Want to start the school year off right? Invite us in for a sustainable start to your onboarding process.

Maybe you missed it, but don’t sleep on these Queens that recently joined our squad! 👑 👑👑This is their first week (outside of retreat, of course)! ⬆ I just came here to say we leveled up AGAIN for the 3rd consecutive year of hiring. For real- check out these brilliant humans: 👏🏾 connect on LinkedIn 👏🏾read their bios on our website 👏🏾send up some well wishes as they become wellness warriors working to retain our nation’s educators. And if you’re curious, we are retaining our full team. These hires come from a place of abundance and impact. 📢 The Teaching Well is officially in 50% of the US and we’re just getting started. Please join me in celebrating Lena Anthony, Natalya Wade & Alia Peera! #educatorwellbeing #Queens #nonprofitleadership #teacherretention #nationalexpansion #staffing #hirestrong #growth #teamwork

We're baaaack! After two weeks of reconnecting, resting and resetting for the coming school year, The Teaching Well team is back in effect, feeling more enthusiastic and ready than ever. We are joined by three new dynamic teammates and are committed to not only bringing greater wellness and sustainability to school systems in the coming year, but living and embodying those values internally as well. Here are some of the ways that our team centered wellness on the first day back in the office yesterday. From body movement, to special treats, and simply pausing to breathe, walk, or rest, it was an easeful and joyful return to the office yesterday. Here's to having more of that! #wellness #sustainability #wegofirst #modelingtheway #treatyoself #bewell

Principals, especially those working in turnaround schools, are heroes. Not the ones in capes though. 🛑 We’ve romanticized the notion of educators as superheroes. While well intended, it communicates that they are invincible. They are whole humans. Let’s not forget that. 🤝 Humans in need of rest, championing, joy, coaching, and wellness support. As the school year comes to an end, I’m deeply grateful for one of my absolute favorite partnerships. Working alongside Leroy Roches Gaines and his district team, The Teaching Well has had the privilege of supporting his Network 4 Principals. These leaders, representing 16 Oakland Unified School District elementary schools, are fiercely committed. Through our innovative partnership, I support with: ✍🏾 human-centered design of the sessions 👭🏾 embedding in their professional learning days (twice monthly for 3 hours) to co-regulate real time 💞 providing coaching or crisis consulting, as needed, at and in between the gatherings. 🎉 Our collaboration is working! Over 80% of these leaders are being retained. 🎉 💡 The only way we’ll achieve stable schools, make the profession sustainable for teachers, and improve academic outcomes for our youth is keeping great principals. So yes, they are heroic humans. Healing, imperfectly perfect, and returning to lead our children to their full potential. ♻ Tag a Principal you love, write a comment to uplift these incredible leaders, or repost to spread the good news! #schoolprincipal #nonprofitleadership #educatorwellbeing #retention #wellnesssupport #Oakland #healingjourney #humanizing #heroic #professionaldevelopment #coregulation

Just reflecting on yesterday, Juneteenth... ✨💗🎉Our team got to drop into some deep healing, reflecting, and family joy time in celebration of black lives. It looked a little something like this: 🥘🚶🏾♀️"In my family's day, we did whatever and everything we wanted because we are free and because our ancestors didn't get to. That looked like supporting a Black-owned restaurant for a creole breakfast to honor my husbands ancestors. Some work in our yard to tend to our self-sustaining food source. Napping and rest. Time with our best friends and Godparents/family. Time moving our bodies." 🍉🍉"We rested as a family. We enjoyed our first batch of watermelon of the season. I also did some work around my mother’s house. While she watered the plants in the garden. We then ended the day watching Kendrick Lamar's historical Juneteenth event. In which he brought many different sections of LA together on one stage." ✊🏾✊🏾"I wore my “las vidas negras importan” shirt to make sure it’s known in Spanish, and shared some knowledge on social media too!" 💍💍"We kicked it three generations deep at a wedding, where pops, grandma and I got to celebrate life long friends and their commitment to each other and deep love." 🙌🏾This is collective liberation in action! #juneteenth

We are deep in the throws of planning for our own internal Summer Staff Retreat and can't wait to be together under the Northern California sun at the end of the month. Twice a year, the Teaching Well team comes together to be in community, bond, process, freedom dream, and set the stage for a successful 6 months. Our summer retreat is particularly special, because this is when we onboard new team members into the organization. In true TTW fashion, you can imagine the layers of fabulousness our retreats hold: deep rest, good food, laughs and cackles, time in nature, games and fun. In between all of that we still manage to handle the business at hand through these restorative means.

Introducing Lena Anthony as our new Lead Facilitator in the Bay Area! Lena comes to The Teaching Well with 22 years of experience in the field, someone with a true calling and passion for education. She has served as Director of Teacher Residency, Assistant Principal, Interim Principal, and Instructional Coach along with years of direct classroom instruction. This rich experience will deeply inform her partnerships with schools as a Lead Facilitator, who guides ecosystem shifts and transforming work cultures through relationships, coaching, and personalized site-by-site strategy. Lena named “integrity” as a core value that has guided her 22 years in education. Thank you for the way in which your integrity intimately guides the way you are in life and work. We are so thrilled to have you on our team!

We welcome Alia Peera to The Teaching Well as our incoming Director of Development! She comes to our team with strong vision and perspective gained from multiple previous Director roles, a deep connection to the body as an experienced yoga instructor, and her heart rooted in the work as a passionate former classroom educator. “I firmly believe that nurturing our well-being is critical to community transformation and collective liberation,” Alia shared with us during the interview process. The Teaching Well is so lucky to have her guiding our development efforts with this community and collectivist approach.

We are overjoyed to welcome Natalya Wade onto The Teaching Well team! Natalya shares our vision of a well and sustained educator force and holds cultivating a culture of connection as a priority in her work. Spanning the US and international teaching, curriculum design and school leadership, she brings a wealth of experience and a powerful voice and presence to the role of Executive Mindful Support Specialist working directly with educators, support staff, and admin. We look forward to you co-creating collaborative and connected cultures with the schools you will serve! Welcome Natalya.