If you have taken any of our work together to heart, then our hope is that some of the most important learnings for you already have assumed a prominent place in your consciousness, if not in your daily behaviors.

We hope that you will consider this final section one large, extended Reflection / Discussion opportunity for you and your mentor, as well as for the others in your life to whom you entrust your thoughts and feelings about the important issues.
  1. Your Big Picture Issues - Have they remained in exactly the same configuration as when you went through the list as we began our work together? Why or why not? If there have been any variations, including the identification of other core value-laden issues for yourself, in the list, what do you make of that?

  2. Why do you want to be a teacher? What motivates you to show up for work every day?

  3. What are the notable stressors for you at school? What issues? What situations? What persons? Are there any patterns to the stressors in your week? In your academic year? Likewise, what are the notable stressors for you away from school?

  4. How do you experience stress in your body? What have you noticed about any patterns? Where do you "wear" your stress? And in what ways can you begin to use this more heightened awareness as a warning signal to take preventive action before stress has a chance to build up in your life, potentially becoming a more serious issue?

  5. What are your key sustainers? As you first considered the choices in Section 3, if you were forced to choose only one preferred general mode of addressing your stress, would it be?

  6. What specifically about that category of stress skills best fits for you? Of the remaining three categories, which ones can serve you the best? Are there particular situations at school or elsewhere where particular types of skills will be of more usefulness for you? What specific skills from any of the four categories have you added since you began this work with us, or which seem like they may hold some promise for you, and why? And which skills does it seem you need most to add to your repertoire, and why? What do you need to do to make that happen, and what will most get in your way?

  7. If you were to identify the three to five most important sustainers/stress skills for yourself at this point in time, regardless of the category in which they fall , what would they be? Why are they most important to you? How regularly do you utilize them? And what, if anything, do you need to do to more readily have them available to you?

  8. Where do you fall on the Type A/Type B continuum, and what if anything do you need to attend to regarding that?

  9. How stress-resistant are you? How capable are you of clearly articulating your commitment to teaching, to your particular school, to your students? Do you exercise appropriate control over what you legitimately can control, and let go of the rest? Can you label events or changes as challenges to be creatively faced?

  10. How clear are you about the nature of the specific workplace stressors which exist for you at school? Are they typically events, or are they ongoing conditions? How best can you cope with them, and from whom can you receive help and support to do so?

  11. How much of a burnout risk are you? How is your energy level? How emotionally exhausted are you after a day's work? How susceptible to illness are you? How much do you find yourself lumping your students and colleagues into categories rather than easily being able to deal with them as individuals? How much dissatisfaction and pessimism do you feel about your work? How efficient have you been at getting things done? Are you missing days of work?

  12. How well , in general, are you? How do you feel about your intellectual self? Your physical self? Your interpersonal/social relationships? Your emotional life? Yourself as a teacher? Your spiritual self? Can you articulate a purpose in life for yourself? Can you identify for yourself what brings true joy and pleasure to your life? How capable are you of accepting personal responsibility for your actions?

  13. And finally, over the next few months, what do you know you most need to be working on to do a better job of facing and effectively dealing with the inevitable stresses which you face as a teacher and as a person? Be specific.