When I made the jump from teaching to full-time instructional coaching and content creation, I knew that I needed to get crystal clear in regard to the philosophy that would guide my work.
Through that reflection, the idea of a Full-Stack Physical Educator was born.
A Full-Stack Physical Educator is a teacher who feels empowered in their teaching, continuously cultivates their motivation, and has the grit to prioritize their health.
Part of the development of this purpose was based on my own success and shortcomings as a physical educator. Throughout my career, I constantly invested in my pedagogy and teaching practice (Empowered Teaching). Through reflection, curiosity, and commitment to growth, I never lacked for a sense of passion and purpose in my teaching (Cultivated Motivation).
However, I often failed to take care of myself. My inability to prioritize my health is what ultimately led to me having to step away from teaching. This is something that I continue to struggle with at times, despite the progress that I’ve made (and the improvements in health and wellness that I’ve experienced over the past two years).
With the new year right around the corner, I’ve started to reflect on who I want to be, what I want to achieve, and how I want to feel in 2023. My #OneWord for 2022 was “Curious”, and I think that I embraced that in several ways. For 2023, I’m going to focus on “Strong”.
The Personal Wellness Roadmap
With “Strong” set as my North Star for 2023, I decided to get to work on identifying ways that I can bring changes to my lifestyle that will help me confidently feel that I am prioritizing my health.
Earlier this year, I read Steven Kotler’s book “The Art of Impossible” (thanks for the recommendation, Andy!) In the book, Kotler identifies a few “non-negotiables” that are essential for peak performance. These include:
Exercise
Sleep*
Nutrition*
Hydration
Gratitude
Meditation
Social Connectedness*
*I took the time to unpack these a little further to identify some success criteria.
Being the assessment dork that I am (#sorrynotsorry), I decided to use these seven areas as the foundation for what would become a Personal Wellness Roadmap (i.e. a rubric for my own health).
For each area, I wrote a brief and as-objective-as-possible description for each of the Learning Roadmap milestone levels:
Not Yet! (1 Point)
Getting There! (2 Points)
Got It! (3 Points)
Wow! (4 Points)
As you can see, I also assigned a points value to each level. This allowed me to create an overall Health & Well-Being Rating (HWR) system that I could use as a goal-setting mechanism:
Poor (0-16 out of 28 Points)
Moderate (17-21 out of 28 Points)
Good (22-24 out of 28 Points)
Thriving (25+ out of 28 Points)
Self-Assessment
Using the rubric as a self-assessment tool, I went through each focus area and determined which level I was at. Additionally, for each focus area, I wrote out evidence that supported my self-determined milestone level as well as one action I could take to improve my score for that area.
For example, here’s my Nutrition reflection (the NA is for my month-over-month trend):
Goal-Setting
Once I completed my reflection and determined my score/rating, I then set a HWR goal for the next 30 days. Along with that goal, I identified three actions from the list I identified during my self-assessment that would help me reach my goal.
I now have a clear path towards improving my overall wellness without allowing myself to feel overwhelmed by it all. Although my current rating is set at “Poor” (which I assumed it would be) I’m embracing the slow-and-steady (and much more realistic given my history) approach to getting to “Thriving”.
Using This In Your Teaching
As I put this Personal Wellness Roadmap together, I kept thinking about what an awesome summative assessment this exercise could be for health education teachers.
Here’s how I envisioned this going:
- At the end of each unit, invite your students to create a 4-point rubric for the topic they just explored in class. Based on what they have learned, they would identify key behaviours that aligned with healthy decision-making to serve as the “Got It!” level and then work from there to fill in the “Not Yet!”, “Getting There!”, and “Wow!” levels.
- Toward the end of the year, have students reflect on which 6-8 areas they would like to include in their Personal Wellness Roadmap. These choices should be personal to each student and made based on the opportunities for growth that they’ve identified within their own lifestyle.
- Based on that reflection, students would construct their own Personal Wellness Roadmap.
- Using the same point and reflection system I shared above, students could then score themselves based on each area, provide evidence to support their scoring, identify possible actions that could lead to growth, and determine their current overall Personal Health & Well-Being Rating.
- Finally, students could set a 30-day goal for their HWR and identify three key habits they would focus on in order to reach that goal.
I just thought that this activity could serve as a great way to bring students’ learning from Health Education to life and allow them to put their goal-setting skills into practice.
If you’d like to make use of the Personal Learning Roadmap that I created for myself, feel free to download it from here. I’d love to learn more about how you would use this in your own life and/or teaching, so feel free to connect with me on Twitter!
Happy Teaching!
Take Action!
What are some ways that you can prioritize your health in the new year? Download the Personal Wellness Roadmap and use it to reflect on your current overall Health & Well-Being Rating. Where do you see the greatest opportunities for growth? What actions will help you create that growth in your life?
Join a supportive community. In the busy, chaotic world of teaching, leading personal change can be a daunting task. If you’re looking for a supportive group of teachers to grow alongside with, consider joining #PhysEdU! Memberships start as low as $5/month (and that tier packs a punch) and will allow you to connect with like-minded teachers who are committed to developing into Full-Stack Physical Educators!
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