Holding Onto That Holiday Feeling

Maddie Scott-Jones
Jul 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Teachers work bloody hard. This means that holidays aren’t a ‘nice to have’; they’re a ‘necessary’. We’ve all had the experience of crawling, zombie-style, fingernails dragging half-conscious bodies, to the finish line at the end of a particularly hectic term. If you’re really lucky, you make it to End of Term Drinks, but more often than not a nasty virus attacks as the clock strikes 3pm on Friday of Week 10, making anything other than crawling into a duvet burrito with a lemon and honey drink unfeasible.

After a solid 48 hour sleep, teachers emerge from their duvet cocoon to a world that feels brighter and lighter. Messages flood in from teacher friends who are emerging at the same time to arrange plans for brunch (on a weekday! crazy!), walks along the river, cinema outings and play dates with kids. There is time to exercise in the morning and to make nutritious food. The bathroom finally gets a good clean. You have time to read fiction. These things make holidays feel amazing.

Check out this happy camper’s grin. He’s clearly on holiday.

There are lots of things we do when we’re on holiday that we can’t do on a school day. Taking a midmorning trip down to Westfield when you’re supposed to be teaching Year 4s about equivalent fractions might not fly. But there are a few things we can do to hold onto the holiday feeling once we’re back in the swing of things.

Staying ‘balanced’ can be a real challenge. I wasn’t a particularly balanced individual when I was teaching, and I feel really lucky to be working at Education Changemakers where our co-founders, Dave and Aaron, have created a company culture that prioritises wellbeing. I’ve learnt so much from the team here about hacking health and happiness (and being a better employee as a result) and so we thought we’d share a few of the things the EC team does to stay happy, balanced and healthy with you.

Aaron Tait. Aaron’s our brilliant co-founder and Director of Innovation and in his spare time Aaron writes a blog. You can set them up really easily through Squarespace, or just write with medium.com. Aaron recommends writing a blog as a way of using your brain in a way that isn’t necessarily connected to day to day work.

Dave Faulkner. Our CEO and co-founder spends a heck of a lot of time on planes which means that quality family time when he’s in Melbourne is really important. Dave shares his work calendar with his daughters and lets them lock in a Daddy-Daughter Date once a fortnight, doing whatever they like.

Summer Howarth. Summer’s our Director of Events and Learning Design and to be honest, Educhange is all she’s thinking about at the moment. Summer’s life hack is to book in your (free) tickets to EC17 in the September holidays and ride the excitement of that wave to the end of Term 3.

Mike Prime. Mike’s one of our lead facilitators. He’s based in WA and so in order to make the most of his beautiful state, one of the things Mike does every Monday is to plan an activity or event to look forward to for the upcoming weekend.

Louka Parry. Louka is our Director of Programs at EC. He’s really passionate about positive psychology interventions and so even though I asked him for one life hack and he’s given us three.. (Counting isn’t one of them). Louka loves the TED Radio Hour podcast to hear some interesting and expansive ideas outside of the usual education stuff. A habit he had when he was principal at Mimili Anangu School was to watch a TED Talk every morning as he ate his breakfast. He did this for about 6 months. #nerdalert .. Louka’s final hack is to make yourself a turmeric latte with coconut milk. “Delicious and it warms the soul on these cold nights and mornings.”

Kathryn Faulkner. Kathryn’s our life saver.. and our Director of Operations. In addition to working full time and keeping us all in check, Kathryn looks after two beautiful daughters. She loves cooking and challenges herself to try a new recipe once a week. Thursday nights are ‘kitchen experiment’ nights in the Faulkner household. The family reviews the meal and together they decide if the recipe stays or goes.

Maddie Scott-Jones. I’ve enjoyed jogging for the last 15 years or so but since joining the EC team my morning runs have become much more of a habit through the use of the Nike Run App. I love that it tracks the number of kms I’ve run and my pace. It also facilitated a little challenge I set myself a few months ago of running 300km in 30 days. I enjoy setting myself clear, challenging goals and feel brilliant when I achieve them. It’s good to have a side-mission or two outside of work.

As a team we build in time every quarter for strategy.. and the odd escape room or two. The strategy work is important, but equally important is the time spent in each other’s company (even if it happens whilst trying to working out who killed the eight clown). If “relationships are the currency for change” (classic Dave Faulkner quote right there) we need some good relationship credits up our sleeves for the work we do. And we think you probably do, too. So book in an escape room/wine tasting/family BBQ/weekend hike with your team mid-Term 3.

Mike and Kathryn were still locked in the escape room when we took this photo. They made it home eventually.

We’d love to hear how you hold onto that holiday feeling during hectic weeks back at school. Send your life hacks through to maddie@educationchangemakers.com so that we can curate and share a list with the rest of the EC Community.

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