Teacher Wellness: Measures, Metrics, and Accountability (MMA)

The end of the month is here and this marks the end of our first deep dive into developing wellness habits as a teacher. So far, we have looked at the importance of developing teacher communities, and at the problems caused by inertia.

Today, we are going to be looking at a framework for building wellness habits into your regular teaching schedule.

To do so we are going to use the acronym MMA. In this case, we aren’t going to be talking about mixed martial arts, but rather measures, metrics and accountability.

So, as always, it’s time to get pedantic! Because here at EduWise our aim is to provide new teachers with the skills they need in order to thrive!

Create Systems Which You Can Use To Measure Your Wellness Behaviours

A measure is a single, quantitative value or data point that represents something observable or calculable.

In order to determine whether something actually exists it is a good idea to have some way of measuring it. And perhaps the most important thing to consider here, is how to ensure that your measure exists in multiple places. Preferably, outside of your head.

Calendars, when used, and used properly, can serve as a great measure of your wellness habits. The reason why I mention this is that over my teaching career I have consistently fallen into the trap of having a wellness intent. While struggling to put wellness practices into action.

The times when I found the most success at implementing a wellness routine into my workflow were the times when I actually wrote words like ‘exercise’ and ‘coffee’ onto my calendar and set aside a set amount of time.

I would also have to do this twice. First, on my digital calendar, and again on a physical calendar that I disassembled and stuck on my wall.

Did doing this mean I always went to the gym?

No.

But actually seeing what I was supposed to be doing from a wellness perspective meant that I ended up going more than if I had not.

Establish Wellness Metrics You Can Track & Aspire To

A metric is a derived or contextualized value that provides insight into performance or progress by relating one or more measures to each other.

Throughout my teaching career, whether consciously or unconsciously, I tend to equate spending more time at school with getting stuff done.

The problem is that I have no metrics to show a causal or even a contextual relationship between how late I stayed and how much I managed to get done.

And the ‘how much’ bit is important here. As I know I experience a diminishing returns curve for each hour I stay later. Will things get done? Yes! But will they get done to the same quality as when I am fresh and reasonably well rested? No!

On the other hand, when I ticked off that I had indeed gone to the gym, or was consistent in setting up regular social activities, while staying reasonably on top of my marking, I could feel that I was enjoying my life more.

Make sure that you have some metrics to track. Metrics that make you feel good. Or, metrics for things which you know will help you feel better, help you feel energised, or help you get out of your own head. So that you can be in a ‘better than you would otherwise be’ state when measured against everything which has been going on over the course of the semester.

Become Proud Of Building Accountability Into Your Wellness Habits

Accountability is the obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions, decisions, and their outcomes, and to answer to others for them.

Accountability is huge when it comes to achieving pretty much anything in life. The thing which often gets overlooked is that ‘we’ need to be aware of the types of things we need in order to be held accountable. Either by ourselves, or by other people.

I know that, when I am in the midst of the mark and grind mindset I am horrible at keeping myself accountable to my wellness goals. But I also know that I need other people to hold me accountable, and preferably in a manner that actually speaks to me when I am in a particular mindset.

This is where having work out buddies, time management buddies, and being a part of, as well as developing, communities within a school can be helpful. In addition to building your own systems. Whether those be time specific notifications on your phone, time management strategies, rewarding yourself for engaging your desired wellness behaviours. Can help you to establish, keep, and maintain wellness habits in a way that you yourself may not be able to.

Putting The MMA’s Of Wellness Into Practice

So the questions then become:

• What are some of the measures you use to keep yourself on track?

• What are some of the metrics you know you need to track in order to achieve success?

• How are you building positive accountability systems into the process to help you maintain your desired habits?

Wellness isn’t just about knowing what you should do—it’s about taking deliberate steps to make it happen. By building systems to measure your progress, tracking meaningful metrics, and creating accountability, you can transform wellness from a vague aspiration into a tangible part of your teaching week.