Click the image to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
My review of this for Teach Secondary magazine has just come out. Here is the published version, followed by the copy I submitted, which is slightly longer because it has a little more detail. I wrote the review wearing my school teacher hat. However, it struck me that the “small habits” approach to writing is something useful to consider.
The published version
Very much a curate’s egg, Branstetter puts forward numerous suggestions for small changes educators can make in order to improve their wellbeing, arguing that while we don’t all have the power to change our lot, we can at least make small, even micro changes to improve matters (or at least how we deal with them).
The problem for me, however, is the vagaries of the English school system. One section, for example, focuses on ways of protecting your ‘downtime’ while at work. Well, if your sole free period of the day is unceremoniously taken from you, there’s not much you can do about that.
That said, the book’s advice is more practicable than the nebulous wellbeing advice you’ll find in other titles (though the preponderance of overexcited exclamation marks paradoxically dampens the spirits at times).
My original version
This book is the epitome of the curate’s egg. Taking its implicit starting point as the idea that you don’t have to be buffeted by the winds of external circumstances, it suggests many small changes that educators can make in order to improve their well-being.
Given that we don’t all have the power to change our lot, we can at least make small, even micro, changes that will improve matters. Or how we deal with them.
My doubts about the book stem from the vagaries of the English school system. For example, one of the sections is about how to protect your downtime. Well, if your one free period of the day is unceremoniously taken from you, there’s not much you can do about it.
Although the advice is more practicable than simply adopting a positive thinking attitude, the excited preponderance of exclamation marks does, paradoxically, rather dampen the spirits.