“It’s official, my name is now ‘Summer.'”

That’s what one teacher-friend says as soon as classroom instruction ends each year.  She still has some outings and in-service trainings but by and large her year is winding down.  It’s great to celebrate early and often!

We who work year-round sometimes get that knee-jerk twinge of jealousy when teachers begin to count down the days.

If ever I begin to feel as such I am reminded of the incredible work schools accomplish each year, and the off-season polishing that rarely gets acknowledged by the occasional green-eyed tax payer.  Every so often I run into someone who finds out we work with schools and is thus immediately compelled to spout off frustrations about every teacher’s seemingly cushy ride.

“Their days are short and they have summers off.”  Indeed, that seems nice.  But it’s not reality and those who really care about children know the difference.

Let’s take a closer look at cushy…

My friend who changes her name to Summer (and others I am close to who teach), has been called a [blankety-blank] skank, a whore, and several other epithets by her students, has been physically threatened and shoved by parents, has literally been shot at by the jealous boyfriend of a co-worker, has been thrown up on, has been given whooping cough, hepatitis and other lovely communicable joys, has held students who sob for the suicidal loss of a best friend, and has been harangued by state officials for lack of certain meaningless trainings.  And the list goes on.  But this is what they willfully signed up for and don’t blink an eye toward.  The only time any of it gets to them is when the word cushy surfaces or summer resentment flies.

For 17 years I’ve worked with Vermont school employees.  As with any profession or group of people certainly there are a few thorns out there.  The bulk of the lot, however, is doing powerful good: shaping our future, nurturing our most prized possession.  Not only do they hold the lives of our children and families in their hearts and souls for several hours a day over two thirds of the year, they are community members, tax payers, customers, parents and friends.

Meetings, paperwork, follow-up phones calls, and re-licensure work bring them in before and keep them after school.  Grading, lesson plans, and parent conversations happen well into their home evening time.

And it’s not just the teachers.  There are the food service people who feed our children so they are primed to learn.  There is the maintenance crew who keep our buildings safe and functional (and do work year-round).  Remember your school’s custodian?  Himme Goffee was ours.  He always had a smile.  Turns out he was a tortured Vietnam Vet.  He loved us and quietly healed in his time with us.  We never knew until long after he was gone.  And what about the front office team, or the nurses?  Every day we meet these extraordinary people who literally cradle our children, and each other, so all can learn and grow at their best.

They do it all under the roof of shrinking budgets, dwindling resources, straining facilities, and the critical watch-dog attitude of the public.

Let’s face it.  Kids are hard.  Honestly.  They are a gift, they are amazing, they are precious.  And they are hard.  Parents of kids are hard.  Bureaucrats, red tape and paperwork are hard.  Being an expert in all that makes a child blossom into happy adulthood today is a 24/7, 365 endeavor.

We simply cannot pay them enough.  In fact, those who get a child to graduate with skills and self-esteem save our communities $250,000 in services down the road. 

News flash: they don’t do it for the riches anyway.  Show me a teacher with a BMW and I’ll show you his or her trust fund or cash-cow spouse.  By most accounts, on average, half of all school employees have a second job.  Summer is not all play and games for them either.  Getting caught up on professional development, required certifications, and other trainings take up weeks on end.  And then there is that curriculum they must plan because there won’t be time in a regular school week to do so.  Not to mention the summer job many must take on.  They are the multi-tasking gladiators of our time along with mental health and human service providers; each sloughing off direct or vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout like a snake sloughs skin.

As you can see, I have an opinion about this.  I don’t apologize for being in love with this small army of talented foot soldiers in the battle to build a better world.

So this week, we thank you, VEHI members, for your dedication to Vermont families and communities.  We salute the hard work you do for all of us and send blessings for a safe, productive and healthy summer.

Summer it is and summer it should be!

OH!  By the way…  Don’t miss the VEHI PATH Sizzlin’ Summer Challenge which starts July 1.  Look in the mail and on your dashboard for more info.

Take care and we’ll see you on the PATH Ahead.

Gillian and the VEHI PATH Team.

from Shevonne’s desk,

Determined to make Milton a healthier place to live and work, a group ofresidents, town officials, school personnel and employers who call themselves the Healthy Community Design Task Force , is gathering information about the challenges residents face and providing healthier options in a variety of venues, one of which is the community dinner series. And by all indications, they are experiencing a roaring success. I recently had an opportunity to attend the last event in this year’s series at the Milton Elementary School. These dinners, free of charge, not only provide residents a hot healthy meal but serve as a means to showcase and share information about wellness-related activities and to build community camaraderie.

The first dinner/event focused on food insecurities in Vermont, the second was dedicated to walking and cycling in Milton, the third’s theme was about gardening and growing one’s own food and the last highlighted a smattering of activities related to physical activity.

When I strolled into the school cafeteria, I discovered several tables decked out with red and blue balloons and place mats with health messages, a roller derby team wearing helmets and skates busing tables and a life-size cut-out of First Lady Michelle Obama next to a picture book detailing Milton students’ recent travails to the White House to help plant the annual garden.

I had a choice of either pulled pork or hamburgers, a mix of roasted veggies, watermelon and potato salad., all prepared by Milton’s Food Service Director, Steve Marinelli and his crew. As I looked around the room, I saw families, couples and retirees everywhere engaged in conversation.I sat down next to Alice, one of the Milton’s school nurses and was introduced to Milton’s dean of students and a retired couple from the community, one of whom has been nicknamed the mayor because of all of the volunteer time he provides in the community. Boy Scouts cruised by each table offering small dishes of Island ice cream, with a flavor created especially for Milton’s bicentennial.

Down the corridor, I found a gang of parents and grandparents cheering on their children as they pedaled Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont’s smoothie bicycle equipped with a blender on the fender, and a variety of representatives from the Arrowhead Golf Course, Milton 250’s celebration,therecreation department, VT state parks and the Milton Conservation Commission.Parents could order bicycle helmets for their children for a nominal fee, practice a little Zumba, converse with Fleet Feet about running shoes, jump into the hot air balloon basket stationed right outside the front door or shake hands with Champ, the Lake Monster’s mascot.

I was thrilled to see community members of all ages and occupations breaking bread together and discovering ways they could have fun while being physical.Can a few events like this truly move a community to a healthier place?Absolutely!Towns across the US who have found the momentum to do so such as Albert Lea, Minnesota have discovered significant positive results.Though it won’t happen overnight, Milton has caught the “let’s make this a healthier place to live” bug. If this bug proves to be contagious, new norms will be created among community members and they will be well on their way.

“The average person is ill equipped to be idle.”  (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  Finding Flow.  Basic Books, 1997)

When great people talk about the beauty of joy and happiness, and when they pontificate about what motivates us toward the good life, the word “Flow” inevitably crops up in the conversation.

Author, philosopher and researcher Csikszentmihalyi (cheek-sent-me-hi-elle) stakes his career on the idea that you are at your best when in flow: when you are “fully involved in meeting a challenge, solving a problem, discovering something new.”

Last week thousands of Vermonters took part in the Corporate Cup, a worksite oriented 5K walk/run.  Workplace teams gather together to walk or run the course with gusto, raising money for physical activity awareness.  Our team started off as nine weeks ahead of time and dwindled to five by the time we reach the starting block.  Nevertheless, five unlikely worksite friends squeamishly stuck to the plan.  From the onset we were right to do so…  We ran into countless others who were equally anxious and reluctant but there and wonderfully excited.  We ran into old friends.  We awed at new friends walking for Leukemia (one woman on her 7-year anniversary of a successful stem cell transplant).  We ran into 20 different four-legged walkers who brightened out step.  And we laughed at every costume, every cool shirt, every set of knee socks, goofy head bands, and silly slogans.

Every step, though hard on the feet and taxing to the mental toughness coffers, put us one closer to victory and took us one farther from the idleness of the heartache rendering couch.  I didn’t want to be anywhere else except walking with my buddies, feeling proud of our progress and our commitment to each other.  The more experienced helped the less and the more chipper cheered the gloomy.  There’s just something special about conquering a goal, however hard, with someone else who shares your immediate strife.  We look at each other and say, “this hill is not my friend” and then we hi five and laugh.  What obstacle?  And have you seen these thighs?  They crush this hill.  We crush this hill. 

We.

How you spend your time is a measure of who you are.  How do you want to see yourself at your best?

Csikszentmihalyi writes, “Having leisure at one’s disposal does not improve the quality of life unless one knows how to use it effectively….  Without goals and without others to interact with, most people lose motivation and concentration.  The mind begins to wander and more often than not it will focus on unresolvable problems that cause anxiety.”  Do you become a ball of anxiety or do you get up and go?  Go is the answer and a community 5K is a great outlet.

Other people matter and getting out and about with them matters even more.  Get addicted to group fitness and you might just find yourself deliriously happy, not to mention a great problem solver who is focused and resilient.

While getting into a state of flow requires some initial investment, like signing up for the race, ordering shirts, committing some training time, showing up, and so on…  it’s clearly worth the effort.

The winning time that Corporate Cup day?  Oh, somewhere around 15 minutes.  Our team time?  Priceless.

From Shevonne’s Desk:

Live your life as a series of sprints, rather than as a marathon.  Seek stress, rather than avoid it.  See down time as productive rather than wasted time. Focus on managing energy rather than managing time.  Wow!  When I stumbled upon these statements in the book The Power of Full Engagement a few days ago, they resonated for me because of one of my recent successful experiences.

For several years, I fantasized about qualifying for the Boston Marathon.  Yet while I consistently prepared for marathon after marathon by increasing my mileage weekly, I could not make the qualifying time.  Then one of my running partners created a training plan for me adding interval workouts on the track and fartlek runs with recovery days.  This plan forced me to get out of my comfort zone and push my muscles past their normal limits.  Two months later I landed my goal with minutes to spare.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, the book’s authors, assert that to become fully engaged and perform well personally and professionally, in all realms of our lives be this emotionally, spiritually, intellectually or physically, we must get out of our comfort zones, challenge our equilibrium, press our limits and then take time for recovery and renewal before repeating the process.  Creating new routines and rituals, like an athlete’s training regime, they maintain, is how we build new emotional, spiritual, physical and intellectual muscles and how true individual growth is sustained.

For example, if we want to become more empathetic to others, we must do more than say we want to be more empathetic and continue to behave in the same way.  We must work on building a new emotional muscle by pushing ourselves to listen to others without interjecting, practicing how to be reflective, concentrate on hearing their story and refrain from offering up suggested solutions.  Then we should take a break; renew ourselves and go back out there. Eventually, we will build new muscles of empathy and these new behavior patterns will become routine.

Sounds simple, right?  Not at all.  Making such a shift in our beliefs takes significant courage and is often fraught with our own resistance.  As I can attest to, allowing myself to experiment with a new way of marathon training was frightening, physically demanding, stress inducing and at first, exhausting.  Nonetheless, when I became fully engaged, the result was terrific.

The principles Loehr and Swartz subscribe to may or may not speak to you.  However, if there are some muscles you want to target strengthening in any aspect of your life, be they patience, passion, self-confidence or flexibility, you may want to explore their ideas in more depth.  Go find in a bookstore or ask your local librarian to order it for you. It is chalk full of principles and examples of new rituals to help guide you on this journey.  Experiment with these new rituals/routines in small doses.  Reflect upon your progress in writing.  Recover for a bit and then get back in there and keep strengthening those new muscles.

Keep in mind that any form of stress prompting discomfort has the potential to expand our capacity and our performance as long as it is followed by adequate recovery.   Let’s see what new muscles you can develop this spring and summer.

See you on the PATH Ahead,

Shevonne Travers and the VEHI PATH Team

Hello VEHI PATH BLOG friends!  We’re excited to announce we’re back to posting.  Starting today we’ll be posting at least once a week on Wednesdays.

Who are we?  What are we?

We’re still PATH, VEHI PATH, serving Vermont school employees for over 22 years.  Our mission is to help you live your best life in a vibrant working community and at home.  Why do we have such a mission?  Together we strive to help Vermont schools stay strong and dynamic. The healthier our school staff, the stronger our schools both in financial stability and in efficacy.

Our posts? 

We’ll keep them energetic and informative.  Our plan is to bring you a little motivation backed by science and some practical application each week.  We also hope to share your stories of how you’ve made changes over the years to stay strong and vibrant.

So let’s get to it…

This month we enjoyed National Walk @ Lunch Day sponsored by our friends at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont.  A small group of us at VSBIT / VEHI journeyed out to Berlin Pond and walked a good clip.  It was interesting to note a few tidbits…

There was a prize involved!  We who walked didn’t know that would be so but were enthused along the route to learn the news.  Why does swag romanticize an event?  Free stuff has power for the same reason souvenirs matter.  A token of reward allows us to savor our accomplishments and prolong the celebration.  It’s about good memories being solidified and made available to be called upon in needier times.

Oh and why is it called swag?  The jolly swag man was the fellow who stopped by to pick up your trash in old England.  He’d put it to new uses.  Hence the saying, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”  This also applied to our Walk @ Lunch Day.  Our walk around the pond was a gift and joy to us–gorgeous warm day, glistening water, blue sky, great company.  For others who didn’t make it out, it would have been misery.  We found ourselves wishing with all our might that this will change one day for everyone left behind.  Everyone deserves the healing powers of brisk walk outside!  Maybe one day they’ll walk past jolly swag man’s tinker tent and see a shiny trinket they never thought could exist among cast out rubbish.  You never know.

Walking decreases bad cholesterol, increases good cholesterol, burns calories (in many cases as much if not more than running at the same speed), reduces blood pressure, stabilizes blood sugars, decreases inflammation, increase brain capacity and increases mood.  That’s a pretty powerful package.  Oh, and did we mention it’s free?

So spring has sprung and the rebirth of the VEHI PATH blog is here.  Tell us your tales of wellness and let us share your inspiration.  We’ll be the jolly swag man of today, repurposing your healthy moments into inspiring stories of healthy delight.

See you on the PATH Ahead!

Gillian and the VEHI PATH Team

Chocolate is good in many ways but too much of anything can be a bummer on your system.  We crave cholcate because it works on the pleasure center in our brain.  Who wants to fight that?  Those of us who crave just a little too much!  Curbing the craving can be done, I assure you.

British researchers at the University of Exeter found that when people fit 15 minutes of walking into the middle of their day they ate less chocolate throughout the days as those who didn’t walk.  Why does a walk reduce cravings?

• A new setting and activity takes your mind off the idea of a craved food.
• Exercise regulates blood sugar, making you less oriented toward sweet food.
• Getting your heart rate up reduces the kind of stress that leads to high fat, high sugar craving.
• Chocolate cravings often come from the desire for a spike in serotonin (the neurotransmitter responsible for mood) and dopamine (pleasure chemical).  Exercise also elicits both chemicals.

Prior to the Exeter study we knew that cravings could be curbed by exercise but we didn’t know if curbing actually led to a change in real behavior.  In other words, do we stop eating when we no longer crave chocolate?

Indeed we do.  Well, we didn’t stop eating it altogether but we ate half as much as those who didn’t walk.  All progress is good.  Do the math…  If you walk past the Hershey’s kiss bowl on Sally’s desk, oh say 10 times a day and you bow to your candy ball-and-chain, chances are you might eat five kisses.

That’s 100 calories.

If you’re eating that maybe 4 days a week, that’s 400 calories times the 48 weeks a year you work.  Add it up and you get 19,200 calories or 5.5 pounds (not to mention that it adds up to 10 lbs of kisses over a year and Sally will shell out $60 on you alone – Sally needs to rethink her plan too!).

Cut your kiss intake in half and you’ll not only save 2.25 extra pounds but you’ll also have the added benefit of more oxygen to the brain, plus the calories you might burn in 15 minutes of brisk walking.  That could actually completely counter the kisses in total.  It’s a win-win!

Here’s an Olga exercise you can do inside to get that heart rate up if the whether doesn’t cooperate.  Read below for instructions.

You in Your Workplace:

Dish the dish!  Or at least stash it.  Start a campaign to have people remove their candy dishes from sight or altogether.  Brian Wansink of the Cornel Food and Brand Lab says we eat with our eyes not our stomach.  If you can at least put the dish in drawer, it will be less tempting.

See you on the brisk PATH Ahead!

Olga Crawl Instructions:

Some people call this exercise the gorilla crawl (well, maybe only Olga cllas it that).  Some call simply call it a crawl.  The idea is to race along a hallway or across a gym floor as quickly as you can on your hands and feet.  Go for 30-60 seconds, rest 10-30 seconds and go again.  Repeat 3-5 times. 

If you’re really adventurous, you can flip over so you’re in Table Pose with your hips facing the ceiling, knees bent and hands behiond you.  Crawl in the direction of your head.  We call this the crab walk.  Alternate between crab and gorilla and you’ll feel it the next day for sure!  Pair the crawls with other Olga exercises from our blogs or some jump roping or stair walking to complete 15 minutes of brain-power exercise.