The Burned-In Teacher Podcast Episode 38

Jul 03, 2019

In this third episode of The Summer Self-Care Series, Danna Thomas, creator of Happy Teacher Revolution talks all things self-care, setting boundaries, and her own struggle with creating both in her own teaching life. She also shares with us her mission to create a true revolution of happy teachers who can lead happy classrooms and happy lives. She does this to support teachers to get out of burnout.

Danna Thomas is a former Baltimore City Public School teacher and the founder of Happy Teacher Revolution: a Baltimore-born, international movement with the mission to organize and conduct support groups for teachers in the field of mental health and wellness to increase teacher happiness, retention, and professional sustainability. Danna served as the national spokeswoman for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Music for Mental Health Campaign. After teaching for seven years, she left the classroom to join the Johns Hopkins Social Innovation Lab, which led to Happy Teacher Revolution winning first place in the Johns Hopkins Social Impact Forum. She currently trains “Revolutionaries” from around the world to initiate Happy Teacher Revolution meetings in their own communities.

How Danna supports teachers and schools:

Two ways that HTR certifies educators and leaders in communities to become Happy Teacher Revolutionaries- people who initiate and lead Happy Teacher Revolution Support Group Meetings:

Phase 1:
- Online Certification Model
  - Meet once a month, over the course of six months (six modules)
- In-Person Professional Development Model
  - Six modules are condensed into two days
Phase 2:
- Train the Trainer - Train Revolutionaries
- Bottom-Up - Reaching individual teachers, social workers, school psychologists who are leading the initiative in their community
- Top-Down - Working with school districts, charter school networks larger groups of individuals getting trained to lead HTR meetings to:
  - Revolutionize Self Care
  - Revolutionize Relationships
  - Revolutionize Community
  - Revolutionize Support
  - Revolutionize Wellness
  - Revolutionize Capacity for Change

What Danna wants you to remember:

Self-care isn’t selfish, self-care is professional development. We have to care about ourselves in order to care about others. Teachers are not renewable resources.
You can’t pour from an empty bowl, and you can teach from an empty soul.