The Teacher's Journal: A Workbook for Self -Discovery Workbook Edition

Kathleen Adams’ most recent offering, The Teacher’s Journal: A Workbook for Self-Discovery with co-author Marisé Barreriro, guides a critically undervalued and overtaxed population of readers along an artful, oftentimes whimsical, always compassionate, and ultimately profound journey into personal clarity and replenishment. The authors have carefully tailored their approach for teachers and educators seeking reconnection with themselves, with their work, and with their communities. They have created a highly accessible way to speak to the stresses, the burnout, the disconnection, and the sense of isolation that teachers can face in their demanding roles in an increasingly hostile and challenged environment….Ms. Adams has always had a remarkable skill for the clear presentation of how to most effectively employ the immensely powerful yet remarkably accessible tools of pen and page. In this case, the intended audience now has a handy guidebook back to the sources of their passion. Replete with self-care action plans, tools for addressing difficult staff or students, ways to build community with other teachers (through writing groups!), and many other aspects too numerous to list here, this offering should prove a valuable resource to not only to our educators but, subsequently, to our communities generally, as we need our teachers to be awake, aware, refreshed, and alive with their passion to shape our children.

My teaching career was interrupted for 20 years while I became a lawyer. In the ‘law years’ my night dreams found me back in the classroom over and over and over again, working out the issues that consistently came up for me during my stints as a classroom teacher. The Teachers’ Journal has already helped me sort out some of the conflicted feelings I had about being a teacher during all the times I was, and during all the times I wasn’t, in the classroom. This workbook is a gift all teachers deserve to present to themselves and to their colleagues, to help all become truer to and happier in their magnificent profession.

The United States education system is in the process of yet another shift in paradigms, causing more frustration for teachers already burned out or disillusioned with a career entered into with passion, only to discover long days filled with politics, teaching to the tests, and heartbreaking stories that fill the lives of their students….Kathleen Adams LPC, PTR, Director of the Center for Journal Therapy and Marisé Barreiro, Gestalt therapist and former English teacher, recognized the void often felt in the teaching profession and joined forces in an international collaboration to write The Teacher’s Journal, A Workbook for Self-Discovery. The expressive writing series is designed for individuals or for a workshop setting….I highly recommend that school districts adopt The Teacher’s Journal as curriculum for professional development and in-service days for their educators. I sincerely believe that they will see a renewed spirit in their staff. Each year, my school has professional development days on which staff members offer courses in their fields of expertise to their peers. I am excited at the prospect of sharing The Teacher’s Journal with my colleagues next year.

Themes, blessings, praise, ritual, wander, flame, magic. Who wouldn’t love a guide that embraces so many positive ways to rediscovering our authentic teaching selves? The authors, along with the teachers who let us peek into their journals, give us permission to set the papers aside, put down the red pen, and turn off the voices. Then come the moments–the ones that brought us here, and the ones that keep us coming back. Through insightful prompts and snippets from teachers’ journals, we remember why we started this journey, recall where we have been along the way, and rethink the paths we imagine for ourselves and our students. When life becomes so hectic and routine that we forget who we are and how we’ve come to be, The Teacher’s Journal reels us back in, allows us to swim in our pasts, presents, and futures, and emerge anew. It’s an immediate sabbatical, and a gift of profound beauty.

This book is for all of us whose life passion and purpose is teaching. Kathleen Adams and Marisé Barreiro expertly lead us through a series of short writing prompts which range from exploring our earliest learning and teaching experiences, to creating a self-care action plan, to confronting our inner critic and discovering how it impacts us as teachers. The focus throughout the book is on reflection and uncovering our base of strength by following a clearly outlined expressive writing process. This is an essential tool for teachers at all career stages to stay connected to core beliefs and rekindle the energy needed to teach. I only wish this book had been available 35 years ago when I stepped into my first classroom!

This clear and rich workbook might just have made the difference in my leaving my first and only classroom teaching experience filled with pain and loneliness and staying on with the children I loved working with. Although I journaled regularly, at that time I only knew to use ‘free-writing’ so I spewed feelings all over the page without any structure for reflection or analysis of what could change. Kay and Marisé have both enriched my journaling studies over the years since then and I am delighted to see this collaboration in which they have shared their wisdom as teachers with others all over the world. Teaching can be a lonely practice, whether it takes place standing in front of a classroom or one-on-one as I learned in my years of psychotherapy practice with children and adolescents. The last several chapters of The Teacher’s Journal: A Workbook for Self-Discovery, especially, went beyond any other teaching helps that I have read in helping me refocus on my dreams and priorities. I highly recommend this workbook for any teacher before that drowning feeling begins to take over the joy of watching young eyes light up with knowledge.

This workbook is an inspiring tool for helping all educators do what they do best–share the gift of knowledge with energy and enthusiasm. It includes real-life, compelling examples of how educators can create and use their own journals to practice self-care and reignite their passion for teaching and supporting students. This is a resource I wish I’d had while I was leading teacher development activities in our urban technology center. Our students have used learning journals routinely for over a decade. Now we can help our teachers make better use of their own journals. I will use this workbook myself as I prepare to teach my first university course this fall.