Mentors’ recommendations for work-life balance

Abstract

New teachers benefit from mentoring from more experienced colleagues, and the Wyoming Teacher Mentor Corps (WTMC) provides high-quality training for master teachers to provide this mentoring support. As part of the program, mentors learn about assessment, communication, feedback, and work-life balance. Colby Gull and Leslie Rush describe how, as part of the training, mentors identified and prioritized critical principles for maintaining work-life balance. Strategies include shutting down and disconnecting from work, acknowledging one’s own humanity when making mistakes, and prioritizing and saying no when needed. The authors discuss these and other suggestions and how they might be used in school settings.