Teacher Communities: A Wellness Guide for New Educators

Here’s a wellness thought?

What if you could get better at tapping into the skills of your wider teaching community?

This week we are going to be talking about the role community plays in overall teacher wellness. Or, perhaps better put, how you can get in the habit of setting up, or becoming a part of, a community of teachers. 

Teaching can be a lonely profession…

Like many professions, some of the ‘best’ things about teaching can also be some of the most problematic. 

What’s nice about being a teacher, particularly if you are a teacher with your own classroom, is having a large amount of control over how you run your classes, what goes up on the walls, and how your workspace gets laid out. 

Yet being the sole authority figure for four to five sixty to eighty minute blocks a day and having to deal with the marking and preparation can also be isolating. 

For new teachers, or teachers who are new to a school, becoming a part of the wider school community can feel like a disjointed process. 

Connecting with other teachers through a mentor teacher can help.

But if raising a child takes a village– then helping new teachers takes a community!

A Major Hurdle To Consider

Let’s take a moment to delve into some of the complexities at play.

One of the large factors working against creating communities within a school, across a school district, or between those in the teaching profession is that teachers are only infrequently given time to work with one another. 

Now there are caveats aplenty to this sentiment. Most of which start with the phrase, “but there was this one time where I…” or “once another teacher and I…” The repetition of the word ‘I’ is important here. As although there is no ‘I’ in team, the actions of individual teachers are the single greatest contributor to the formation of teacher communities. 

Common Teacher Community Types

As a new teacher you are likely familiar with Communities Of Practice (often called Specialist Associations) and Communities Of Learning (often synonymous with Teacher Work Groups). 

Communities Of Practice 

Communities Of Practice or Specialist Associations (sometimes called Specialist Councils) tend to exist at the provincial or state level. They tend to be organized around connecting and resourcing teachers who teach a specific group of courses or want to learn more about a particular topic. 

For example, the BC Business Education Association is a specialist association that runs workshops, professional development days, and provides resources to teachers who teach courses which fall under the business umbrella (i.e.- Business, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, etc). 

Joining a Specialist Association can be a great way to connect with other teachers teaching in the same subject area. An added benefit to joining a Specialist Association is that they often have access to helpful resources for teachers to use. 

Communities Of Learning

Communities Of Learning (Teacher Work Groups)

These tend to be made up  of groups of teachers working together to create resources or to come up with advice on best practice for other teachers to use. 

Oftentimes schools will create Communities Of Learning to help facilitate curriculum transitions, or to help implement new educational guidelines from the ministry of education. 

Communities Of Learning can also be formed by teachers looking to learn more about a particular topic, or as a breakout group tasked with looking into bringing new programs or activities online. 

These are both great things to become a part of. Though, they also exist a level or two above the more mundane and practical type of community that many new teachers may need.

So let’s get pedantic!

Two Ideas For Communities To Create At Your School

As a new teacher, or as a teacher who is looking to build community within your own school there are two types of community which you might want to try.

Communities Of Connection 

Communities Of Connection are built around connecting with other teachers usually centered around a particular activity. Examples of these communities which may already exist at your school would be the social committee or mental health initiatives. Oftentimes these committees are facilitated by your local teaching union. But sometimes, it can be hard to figure out how to connect with them.

Communities as a whole are best formed around a shared experience or a common need. This is where new teachers can make a point of reaching out to other new teachers, as well as other interested staff members, to address common needs. 

The tricky bit is that your subject area may not be the best touchstone to build a community around. And it might actually be a better, and more useful, idea to avoid becoming too focused on your work when trying to build Communities Of Connection at your school.

Instead, see if you can come up with activities that appeal to the common needs of the teachers in the school. Saving money by meal prepping would be a great example of an activity to build a community around. Consider reaching out to your foods or home economics teacher and see if they would be willing to hold a monthly shared meal prep experience.

If that seems too hands-on. 

Or if local food regulations prevent it…

Think about other needs which you could create a community around. Whether that be a dedicated walking or jogging group. A teacher savings WhatsApp group. Or a meetup or online posting board dedicated to helping teachers in a particular way. 

Communities Of Collaboration 

Collaboration is a powerful tool to build communities around. Especially, when each of the individual collaborators both see and experience the tangible benefits of working with the larger group. 

The trick, when it comes to collaborating with other teachers, is that oftentimes the end goal can be too large, too nebulous, or too far removed from what goes on in each of the individual teachers’s classrooms. 

However, this need not be the case. 

Co-Work Your Way To Community

Here’s something to try– coworking sessions. 

This idea comes from the YouTuber Ali Abdaal’s book Feel Good Productivity: How To Do More Of What Matters To You. A coworking session is built around the idea that people can get more done by silently working together. The trick is that you need to have a shared goal, an agreement to work in total silence, and a time limit. 

What’s cool about this activity is that you don’t need to be working on the same thing as the other people in the room. And honestly, you don’t all need to be in the same room together. But it doesn’t hurt to have a shared intention about the tasks you need to get done.

Struggling to do your marking? 

Setup a coworking session.

Need to work on your report card comments? 

Setup a coworking session.

Gone too long without interacting with people outside of school? Invite your fellow coworking coworkers to a board game cafe after your coworking session. 

What makes coworking sessions so effective is that it activates areas in the brain associated with working in conjunction with others. In addition to leveraging a somewhat positive form of social pressure which can help to keep more on task and productive than you might otherwise be on your own.

Is coworking for everyone?

No.

But from the perspective of a new teacher, or new teachers who are looking to make connections and create communities that will help them deal with those pedantic everyday tasks of teaching that can sometimes feel overwhelming –they can serve as communal sanity savers.

So pick a day to get collaborative then set a time, create some rules, and reach out to other teachers at your school and give coworking a go!

Find Wellness In Your Community

Teaching doesn’t have to be a lonely journey. By investing time and effort into creating or joining communities—whether focused on connection or collaboration—you can find the support, inspiration, and camaraderie that are essential for your wellness.

Start small. Whether it’s organizing a shared meal prep session, joining a walking group, or trying coworking sessions, these initiatives can foster meaningful connections with your colleagues. They help you share the load, enhance productivity, and most importantly, remind you that you’re not alone in navigating the challenges of teaching.

Wellness isn’t just about taking care of yourself—it’s also about creating spaces where others can thrive alongside you. So, take the first step. Build or join a community, and watch how it transforms your teaching experience and personal well-being.