.jpg)
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Episode 39: Crafting a Healthier Path for Educators
Have you ever considered the true backbone of our future lies not in technology or innovation but in the hands of those who stand at the front of the classroom? Join me, Dr. Carrie Hepburn, as I sit down with Dr. Jessica Arico of Initiative Co., exploring the critical intersection of health and wellness for educators—a group of unsung heroes whose well-being is pivotal to our society. As we share memories of our journey in the educational field—from teaching Jessica's daughter, Monica, to evolving as curriculum leaders—we reveal why self-care is not a luxury for educators but a necessity.
Dr. Arico brings to light how her health-conscious upbringing shaped and clashed with the reality within the demanding education landscape. The discussion doesn't shy away from the heavy shadow cast by COVID-19 on the mental health of educators. We delve into the findings from Dr. Arico's research with Missouri secondary educators, uncovering the subtle links between nutrition and job satisfaction. This episode is an urgent call to action, spotlighting the need for holistic health initiatives that support our educators and, by extension, nurture our future generations.
The episode doesn't just stop at identifying challenges; it offers a beacon of hope through actionable self-care strategies. We stress the monumental impact small changes in nutrition and movement can have on educators and the bright young minds they guide. The conversation rounds off with the importance of mindfulness and a holistic approach to well-being in education. For every educator out there, for anyone invested in the well-being of those shaping minds, this heartfelt discussion promises to inspire, motivate, and perhaps even transform the way we support our educators' health and happiness.
To connect with Dr. Jessica Arico, check out the The Initiative Co.
Hello, hello, hello. Dr Carrie Hepburn here from Compass PD, today is a very special day for me. I am joined by my really good friend, dr Jessica Arrico. She's here and she's with the Initiative Co. Dr Arrico and I have known each other oh my gosh. I was thinking about this the other day before we started talking about doing this like for years, do you think? Yeah, how old is Monica now? How old is she now? She's 27. She's 27 years old.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, it's been like two decades. No, she was about seven and she was in my class. Oh my gosh. Yeah, oh, you're welcome. Well, I think suddenly it hit me Holy shit, I'm getting old. Okay, for those of you that might be offended, I apologize, but occasionally it happens so. Well, that's what I was going to say is, I was Monica's teacher. That's how we first met, and then both of us became curriculum leaders and met at our well. We didn't meet, but connected again at the professional learning network, and we've been spending time together ever since. It's truly been a joy.
Speaker 2:Yes, it has, and I'm so excited, Jessica.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm just so excited to have you today. Welcome, Jessica, to our podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Yes, it has been awesome. Thank you, Carrie.
Speaker 1:If you've been listening to our podcast lately, you're going to notice that we've been really working hard to create opportunities to support education as a system.
Speaker 1:So some of that looks like us providing podcasts for different stakeholders within that system, and another way that we do that is that we think of predictable problems or trends that we're noticing across education as a system, and so in that, some of the members of our team will be talking about that and then, like today, we bring in members that are outside of our organization, that are experts in just particular areas that we feel are beneficial to the education system.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited today because I'm really passionate about this topic myself and my personal life and in my career it's always been really important to me. But Dr Araco is going to be sharing her story about the research that she's done over the last several years surrounding health and wellness and the impact on educators. My hope is that when we finish this up and you're listening to this, that it increases your knowledge and it gets you curious about something you might try in your organization. So, jessica, I thought it would be nice if you could tell us about your fascination about this topic, just kind of like giving us the backstory and why all of this is important to you about health and wellness.
Speaker 2:Thank, you, carrie. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. What a wonderful introduction. I will give you the shooting star version because it's a long one.
Speaker 2:But I grew up in Southern California in an environment where it was. I woke up we had wheatgrass shops and aloe vera juice in the morning and I thought every child grew up like that and it was just normal. Movement was very normal. It wasn't something that you thought of as extra. And when we moved here to Missouri when I was in my teens which was fun that changed completely. So it changed from that every day to a very different diet, a very different movement pattern. And you have the four seasons here, which also tended to limit people's movement 24, 7, 365 days a year where it wasn't. That was not a factor where I grew up. So my upbringing was very much around that Fast forward a little bit.
Speaker 2:I continued to be involved in anything to do with not necessarily team sports, but it was cheerleading or it was aerobics or other types of activities where I was constantly moving and my family, my mom and dad and I were constantly still eating the way that we ate in California. So when friends would come over, it was a different experience for them. Even bringing my lunches to school was a different experience. People would look at my lunches because they were completely different than other people's. Even in college, I proceeded to continue. I did fitness there and I did not get a degree in nutrition, started with a degree in nutrition and physical fitness but ended with something else, but continued along that vein and then, unfortunately, in my early 20s, my mother was diagnosed with unchecked hypertension and we didn't realize that she was not taking care of herself all of those years the way that she was taking care of my father and I, and so she was not doing. We didn't pay attention, we didn't notice that she wasn't moving the way we were moving and feeding herself the way that she was feeding us. So she unfortunately passed from the effects of that and ultimately and so this was a, this was something for me I noticed. I said you know what, this was completely Preventable through nutrition and movement.
Speaker 2:So I, in education, I made sure that myself, that with my two children I did not want to put them through that. I did not want them to see, you know, mom not taking care of herself, because I wanted them to take care of themselves as well. And as an educator, I was noticing that my peers were constantly either exhausted by the end of the day, completely burnt out, and their, their diet, or lack of their, of what they were eating on a regular basis, was just very limited. I mean, coming into to work with a, you know, super size Mountain Dew and sour patch kids was. It was a kind of a joke, but it was the norm for many of my peers and their movement patterns were just. It was random and sporadic and you know, if they did something consistently for a while, they would fall off, because they always put their students, their families, their friends before them and that's something that was very natural for them.
Speaker 2:So I said I doubled down and everything that I'd ever done the fitness and nutrition my whole entire life and I said I'm going to go back again and get yet another degree and in what I know best, which is nutrition and movement and how it impacts educators, job performance and their overall job satisfaction. That's exactly what I did and I continue with that and I myself, I, I, I don't follow my protocols all the time. I mean, it's just, it's part of life, it's not something that I believe we can separate from our regular life. It's just like getting up and taking a shower, brushing your teeth. It's something very, very important. So that's how this came to be.
Speaker 1:I hear so many similarities in your story and mine. I did not grow up in an area that we had. I grew up in the Midwest so I didn't have the opportunities like you did regarding the food and the movement. But I think watching my mother pass way too early because of her health and wellness choices and how much of the life that I know she wanted to live and see with her children and her grandchildren, that was missed out. Like that was the catalyst for me. That was like okay, taking care of your body is important. Thinking taking care of ourselves is critical if we want to be able to do the big, important work of being parents, of living life and in education. So every time I hear your story and hear people who are really passionate about what they do, there's always something there that like helped propel them through. This is their passion. So, knowing that you started this research process, can you tell us what that was like?
Speaker 2:Sure, so mine took a bit longer for a couple of reasons. When I initially started this when I'm digging through and I'm talking with my chair, it was I was frustrated because I could not find any akin research to what I was looking at. There was no research out there for educators and there was stuff on like mindfulness and breath work, but nothing on the physiological aspects of educator wellbeing and how that could propel them forward. But there was an overwhelming amount of research for other public service, like police officers, firefighters and even clergy, on the physiological positive impacts of, you know, nutrition sound to nutrition, sound fitness. So that was, in and of itself, just a you know kind of a mind blowing event. Is finding nothing, which was twofold really great because that means that there's so much work to do, but also not really great because it to me is like my gosh, we are missing this huge aspect to help educators. Then COVID hit. So that put a whole new wrench in everything, right when I was going to start with all of the work and but actually it COVID was horrible and I would for everybody out there who you know was a frontline worker, and for all of the families and all of the teachers that struggled through that and continue to struggle. My heart is there with them and what that did show, excuse me.
Speaker 2:In the research, however, after COVID was an even more exponential reason for this to be a primary component in educators' lives. The research that I found after COVID was 70% of educators are now reporting that they have constant depression, they are facing some sort of mental illness issue, and the amount of overwhelm, the amount of just dealing with life in general, if for, obviously, for other people besides educators but since the focus is here with educators, this is exactly where the issue lies, and the turnover is, as you know, overwhelming as well. When we've got 30% of our incoming staff wanting to leave the profession after three years, that's really sad. It's not just sad for those students, it's not just sad for the educators, it's sad for our societies a whole, because this is our future. And not only that, but these educators eventually will retire from the system, those who hopefully choose to stay. And what were their life looked like when they retire? Have they given everything? Have they exhausted their entire bodies in that number of years they spent with education? So much so that they can't even enjoy the retirement after?
Speaker 2:So, in the research process when I was able to get the traction going and I put all of that literature review together, which was probably my favorite part of all of this is looking at what is available out there. I then set out to do a survey for all secondary educators in the state of Missouri, so administrators, educators, secondary level. I wanted to focus specifically on that, so I want to make sure it was narrow enough, yes. And then the survey. I took two different surveys. I compiled them. I took a study that was done through the Department of Defense, actually for a job satisfaction survey, and then I also developed didn't develop.
Speaker 2:I took some questions from what they called the perceived wellness survey, and my perceived wellness survey was I just took the questions that were specifically involved the nutrition and movement. So the questions between the job satisfaction, they were questions like how much autonomy do you believe you have in the day? Do you feel as though your peers support you? The fitness and nutrition were like how do you perceive that your movement patterns are greater than your peers? Do you perceive that your health is better than your peers? How much do you perceive that you eat a low amount of processed food or ultra processed food? Do you perceive that your nutrition program is good? So, if you notice the questions I'm asking, it's all about perception. It's not about Perception, right, exactly? So this was a quantitative study, it was not qualitative, and so I have some good baseline data on that.
Speaker 2:But the interesting piece of all of this was that people's perceptions of where they are don't necessarily always match a reality.
Speaker 2:And it will be interesting, and what I documented in my dissertation is the further study that is available in this field is so rich and we now want to take it so that we're doing more qualitative questions, but then also along the lines of doing more biometric data. So, working with Linda Wood University and their health sciences department, along with the education department, you know, because that was also part of the precipice for this looking at what can we do, can we further research with biometrics. So if we're going to look at, you know, waste Reconference, if we're going to look at BMI, if we're going to look at biomarkers, so, for instance, like we're going to look at blood work, urine, sweat analysis, because there's so much you can get from all of this Again, I'm simply speaking randomly, but there's so much potential for this area and it's necessary because if we want our students and our faculty to thrive in the future, this is an aspect that has to be focused on at some point.
Speaker 1:It does, and I'm just like sitting here and I'm thinking because we were able to chat just a little bit before. Well, that's what happens when we get together we just nerd out talking about education and about health and wellness. Yes, we do. This is what we have fun. This is what me and my friends do. We talk about research, right? Yay, I know, sometimes I don't know what your husband says, but my husband's, like you're kind of boring.
Speaker 2:I'm like it doesn't feel boring to me, I think this is amazing, I know. The words like I had a peer. They looked at me the other day. They're like you're just weird. I was like, thank you. I said I'll take that as a compliment. I appreciate it. I know Because, again, we talk about these things all the time.
Speaker 1:Well, and believe in it and are curious by it, like we're so curious by it. I guess. I think what I want to think about is transitioning more into now. I want to bring up some things that we talked about earlier, but I think I'm going to hold it back for a minute and let you tell us so you did this research, what did you find in the end? What did you notice?
Speaker 2:Well, this is very curious because and this is why, in speaking with my committee and other researchers too, we want to continue the research, because we did it simply on perception and simply on a survey we did not find in those questions a correlation necessarily between perception of fitness and perception of job satisfaction. One thing that we did find was an interesting, a slight, slight little note for a connection between nutrition and overall job satisfaction. But again, we need to dig deeper and that, and then we also well, I also looked at a combination of perception of fitness and nutrition, and so that if you think that you are more have a combination of very positive nutrition and very positive fitness, or that you don't have a good combination of positive nutrition and positive fitness, is there a correlation there? Again, it was stagnant, but the one little piece that did show up was in regards to nutrition and overall job satisfaction. So that piece we all honed in. I'm like, okay, something could definitely be there. So that also resonated with the research and the literature review that I did as well with regard to other public service professions. So, and then the other piece that I found very interesting was the fact that it's perception.
Speaker 2:So what are these educators. That's why I want to find out more. What are they?
Speaker 2:If I was going to sit down with you, carrie, if you were one of my respondents and I asked so, tell me about a day in the life of Carrie, when it comes to your nutrition protocol and your movement protocol, what are you doing from the moment you get out to the moment you go to bed, and what is your? What would your food journal look like? Right, or do you not keep a food journal? Are you simply going back on memory? Should we sometimes tend to go back and want to, especially if you know and I can't say this for for fact, because this is not a question I asked but if you're in front of a computer and you're taking a survey based upon your perception of your overall fitness and nutrition, you probably want to answer. Well, right, you want to answer in the positive, you want to give yourself that. You don't want to feel bad about yourself. So it is going to be necessary to dig further. It is, it's, 100% necessary to dig deeper Again. This was, this was baseline.
Speaker 2:This is like the first step in any of this research, because it's just, it's just not out there. Wow, wow.
Speaker 1:Which is good and sad at the same time, what do you think there's? What are some lessons that we in education can learn from all of your research, all of the work that you've been doing? Thank you.
Speaker 2:One of the major observations I have made in things that I hear from other educators is like my gosh, our kids are just not wanting to listen. They don't want to learn. We're giving them everything we possibly can in the classroom and we have all of these resources and our educators are truly frustrated with you know just everything right, just learning things, and they've got all of they know, their skilled educators.
Speaker 2:We've got good people out there, yes, but are they? Are they looking at themselves and saying would I want to learn from me today? Would I want to be inspired from me today?
Speaker 2:Because, our educators are giving so much that they are are probably there are so many of them are so just exhausted and the students are picking up on that. Yeah, and it's just. It's just like a parent with a child when you are as a parent, you know if you are running ragged and your child is screaming, if you have a hard time being there 100% for that child. So, knowing educators and knowing the fact that by nature we want to take care of others first, we sometimes burn ourselves out to the point there's nothing left and we are at the point where are so frazzled and so frustrated that we cannot give one more thing and our students see it or feel it. So it is important, it is critical, it is, it is. It's no longer a luxury, it's a necessity that our educators take a moment and know that they have got to the cliche of saying putting yourself first doesn't work because it's not actionable. They it is, it is required. We are at critical mass right now. Look at a nutritional habit they are doing today. Look at a movement pattern they are doing today. So if, if I am a teacher right now who is so, so overwhelmed, and if I hear one more person tell me I need to do one more thing, or one other Instagram influencer tell me that I'm doing it all wrong in my life. Right A stop. Delete the Instagram influencer off of your page.
Speaker 2:First of all, look at your life, educator. What do you? Where do you want to be physically? What do you want to eat? Do quote, unquote better. Let's look at your habit right now. I want you to choose one habit right now, today, in your movement and nutrition patterns. What do you want to change? So let's say that you are personally. You know what I just want to get up and walk more cool. This is what I want you to do right now. Right now, I want you to go to your closet. I want you to get a pair of shoes. I want you to get a pair of shorts or pants that you're going to walk in tomorrow and a shirt. I want you to set it out and I want you to set your time, your alarm, for a time tomorrow. I don't care what time, I don't care if it's in the afternoon, I don't bring the clothes with you to school. Do this on your plan. Go for a five minute walk. Yes, go for a five minute walk. Put it in your calendar and then, when it hits, you do it. That is one habit. And if that's worked for you that day, I want you to continue habit the next and the next and the next week. I want you to choose one more habit to stack onto that.
Speaker 2:And if it's nutrition, if you are a person here like you know, I just I just don't have time to eat food. Right, this is what you're going to do today. I want you to, either, if you have to go to the grocery store, if it's today, go and just identify something that you would like to eat tomorrow, what you'd like to eat tomorrow. Do you want to choose just one meal that you want to prepare?
Speaker 2:If you want it to be your breakfast, great, you know I'm a person I do oats and eggs in the morning and some berries. Go get your oats, go get your eggs or your egg whites and get some berries and know that that's what you're going to do tomorrow morning. Or if you're a person you know I don't bring my lunch Cool, then the best thing to do is is prepare, get it. Here's easy. If you don't have time to prepare chicken tonight, go get a can of tuna and get yourself some, some lettuce, and go ahead and get yourself some cherry tomatoes, and then maybe some. I use Ezekiel bread, which is a whole, a very, very whole seed bread, great bread.
Speaker 1:You've got a fantastic lunch right there, find it in the freezer section.
Speaker 2:You do. You find it in the freezer section.
Speaker 1:Just so often, nobody knows. You have to go to the freezer section. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:But it is excellent. Again, this is one little step that right now your listeners are listening. This is what you could do today. I have so many other tips for you that are beyond this, but this is for somebody like today. If you want to do something and you have nothing in your refrigerator, you have nothing that you've got planned for a workout. These are super easy drown and dirty quick fixes. The longer term fixes I've got for you. I've got I've got an entire life's worth of things to to show. So that's what I would do.
Speaker 2:And then, from a systems perspective, from a district perspective, I I know this would take a bit, but it's necessary to evaluate where you are as a district leader and what do you prioritize. Yes, it is important. All of the important things about looking at the standards, looking at the data, looking at, you know, are you, are you giving your teachers all of you know these resources and professional development? Fantastic, where is your physiological state in your building of your, with your staff? How do you support that? How many cookies and cakes do we bring in for teacher appreciation?
Speaker 2:So these are little actionable steps. There's from a from a whole systems perspective. This also takes, you know, taking a look at how do we approach it from a daily basis. Do we prioritize this as a district? In our buildings, do we prioritize, you know, talking about and consulting about nutrition? Do we have advocates within our buildings who are ambassadors for our teachers that are equipped with some of this basic nutrition and fitness knowledge to help our teachers along the way, because this is something that needs to be implanted as well? That is what they have in other public service careers, so it's necessary.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think about and this is taking us a little bit to our previous the conversation prior to us starting, and when we're in districts, sometimes there is that desire to. There is oftentimes I don't want to say sometimes there is a desire to promote health and wellness with employees, with the staff. However, the approaches things like let's buy water bottles or let's buy t-shirts that encourage people to get out there and and take care of themselves, drink water, and the t-shirt, I guess, is to promote exercise and that happens on one hand, yet our time, the daily grind of what's happening in our schools is there's no time for breath or space and then, just like what you mentioned, we're getting cakes and cookies and pasta come broccoli and if you live in St Louis, muster cholli is a really big, important thing and toasted raviolis and gooey butter cakes.
Speaker 1:And there's how Tedgers yeah, gooey butter cakes. So that's how we live in the Midwest, we believe in eating all of the carbohydrates and fits fried and covered in salt. No, no, like we work really hard at that. What advice would you give an organization that's wanting to start this work or maybe make a couple of small shifts that you think would make the biggest impact for their staff?
Speaker 2:in January? Definitely, and I'm so sorry my dog is barking. I apologize greatly for that.
Speaker 1:We love dogs. We love dogs. I'm a cumbus beady.
Speaker 2:I was smiling so big when you said that, because I am going to applaud districts for taking any step in the direction of health and wellness, and these are such well intentioned ideas. Of course we want you to drink more water, and of course I want you to wear a t-shirt that says you know, move more, or whatever you know. Those are very positive things, but to me it's similar to somebody putting a bumper sticker on their car that says spread more joy, and yet they're honking at the person in front of them and saying horrible things to them. Right, we wear the slogan, but we aren't the slogan. So and that's actually one of my biggest pet peeves is don't just wear the slogan, be the slogan. You don't need to wear something if you are that.
Speaker 2:So, with a district and this is this is where it becomes the hard work, right, carrie? And I know that you know this too what I do, what I would do, is work with the district to take a really hard look at what do we do on a regular basis. What is our protocol Just for everything, like when it comes to professional development, when it comes to student routines, when it comes to teacher routines, what is the daily routine that we have and what time within that day is being used most effectively? Right? And how do we fill that time? And for our teachers, plan periods? Do we give them opportunities to move? Do we give them opportunities to have some type of fitness protocol?
Speaker 2:What options do we provide for our educators when it comes to okay, this is what you know when you can get to two o'clock in the afternoon. Have we taught our educators how to eat prior to two o'clock in the afternoon so that we aren't in that lag time and then our teachers aren't so slumped over they can barely teach the child? Right? That is what I would look at and looking at okay, educating the educators on this is how nutrition and movement can and does work on a cellular level to promote that energy throughout the day. So, looking at their current systems and then looking at ways to provide those physiological interventions tiny ones carry. They don't need to be monumental. I'm not talking about doing a powerlifting session in the middle of the day.
Speaker 2:If they want to do, I'm all for it, but I don't have to do that. This is where we start to become physiological forward, because the physiology piece of all of this and this is something that you and I touched upon before is so connected with the mental piece. Right, and even our poor teachers, who may be taking like 10 minutes of their plan time to have a mindful moment or to do some breath work, if their physiological state is so out of whack and if they've ingested so many foods that are going to take their brains out of that potential for a good mindful moment, that is not going to be the best use of their time. So it's educating the district to educate the educators, to get to the point where our teachers know how to. They've got the guidebook on their own body when it comes to nutrition and movement so that they can do well from beginning bell to well after that ending bell. So that is the first step I would take.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's again. It's fantastic that we're doing the water bottles and the t-shirts, but I firmly believe that those resources are much better spent in providing the expert expertise to come in and educate a core set of educators to help work with the district team to understand their educators' physiology. Then you have an empowered staff, and they're not just empowered in the classroom, they are empowered out of the classroom. And when you think about it, if you think about somebody who has a positive story to tell, a positive wind to tell about their body or a good choice in nutrition, that is a person that gets excited and then that excitement extends into the classroom and that is priceless.
Speaker 1:Yes, this was so powerful. Well, I have a couple of things that I'm just like dying to put on a t-shirt right now. Don't just wear the slogan, be the slogan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's actually one that we got on the initiative code that's coming out.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:So check out the initiative code everyone.
Speaker 1:I love that. Don't just wear this note, logan, be the slogan, something that I think really has just impacted me today. Personally and professionally, I do my best to live the healthiest life I can live, so that does transfer when I can tell when I'm not living my healthiest life. You see the impact of that on the work that I do. So when you are talking about having an empowered staff and helping them understand that their nutrition and movement patterns are going to give them the energy that they need to do their work well and feel good about it, just like feel strong, feel excited and happy, that was really. That was really a moment that I was like, ooh, I hope people heard that. That's why I really wanted to repeat that.
Speaker 1:And then when you said, if our physiological state is out of whack, the mindful moment isn't going to change that, and I think that's a misconception that we have in education, in life all over, yes, and I just want to say thank you for sharing your passion, sharing your research with us, because I think this is such an important topic, and I do want to encourage everyone to check out Jessica's organization, her company, the initiative co, and we'll have make sure that we have links to all of it in our show notes that you can easily access her and her research and the work that she's doing all over. And I just want to let you all know that, if you didn't know, that Compass PD has a big goal of impacting the learning of 1 million students and we need your help with that. We would just ask that you, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure that you share it with others, be sure that you hit like, subscribe, whatever it looks like, on all of our social media channels and on our podcast. And I just want to wish all of you an excellent day and say stay inspired, get creative, get excited about the work you're doing for education, because it means the world. Have a great day.