Black Teacher Project Virtual Meetup: Mental Health is Wealth

Offering Description

As Black educators working to provide quality educational experiences to our young people, it’s important to remember to tend to our own wellness in the midst of the fast-paced nature of our work. Mental health is wealth, especially in our profession in these turbulent times. This free workshop is an opportunity for Black teachers and educators to tap into some simple strategies to support getting grounded and centered when stress is high and on the rise.

We will engage in mindful breathing and chair yoga together while sharing strategies that have helped us find balance and creating a container of accountability to prioritize our mental health. Participants can expect to release tension in a safe Black racial affinity space and practice letting go of that which hinders our mental well being.

The first 20 people to sign up and attend the event will receive a gift of the The Nap Ministry's Rest Deck: 50 Practices to Resist Grind Culture!

What You Can Expect:

• Participants will learn and practice different strategies that support mental health and wellbeing.
• Participants will reflect on ways to prioritize self care in their contexts as Black educators.
• Participants will have an opportunity to connect with other Black educators to learn with and from this affinity community.

Meet Your Host:

Dr. LaTesa Brown is a Black Teacher Project Advisory Board Member and participated in Cohort 3 of the BTP Fellowship program. In her current role as an 8th grade science teacher, she serves a special population on an all boys team in Durham, North Carolina. Though Dr. Brown’s current core subject content is science, she also teaches her students writing skills, critical thinking, and citing scientific evidence. LaTesa is currently a National Board Candidate, as well as a graduate student at Duke University aiming to receive a degree/certification in Academically and Intellectually Gifted Studies. Dr. Brown is an active part of the community at large and has licenses and certifications in Ministry, Education, and YOGA. She is led to cultivate positivity in her school’s environment for children, teachers, and staff alike. LaTesa has been set apart to be a catalyst for change in her school building and does not take the charge lightly.

Dr. Brown has over 20 years of experience as a teacher of children in general educational settings, alternative educational settings and as a teacher of children with exceptionalities. Over her years within this teacher calling/activism, she has been blessed to grow many “first loves of learning” by building trusting relationships with marginalized students that were flowers in concrete cracks.

LaTesa lives for empowerment and advocacy in her community and nation. She believes in raising the bar of her students; ancestral greatness already lives within them! Dr. Brown is proud to be a positive disruptor. She cares about the future generations that have been unseen for far too long. As an educational conference speaker/presenter, LaTesa works on the front lines to create and share ways to affect change against the adverse societal conditions caused by cultural-biased practices. She is compassionate about the power of learning, and does not believe in square pegs being thrown to the side because they do not fit into the round holes of society. Dr. Brown is a strong beliver that demographics and environmental complexities that are beyond childhood controls should not drive trajectories, nor produce life-time labels.

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Who should attend?

All Black educators who are looking for a space to recalibrate and center care in their practice and personal lives.

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Registration Information

This event is a Black racial affinity space, if you do not identify as Black, please refrain from registering to honor the safe and sacred experience we are trying to create.

Please register through this Eventbrite page. You will be emailed the Zoom login information the day before the event takes place.

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The Black Teacher Project (BTP), is a program that sustains and develops Black teachers to lead and reimagine schools as communities of liberated learning. Engagement in racial affinity healing spaces are a key piece of our work as we know that self care and self love are essential in the movement towards liberation.