Question
What are four main sources of teacher stress?
Answer
According to a recent study, there are four main sources of teacher stress: 1) School leadership, culture, and climate; 2) Autonomy and decision making; 3) Job demands; and 4) Social and emotional competency.
To what extent are leaders effective in supporting teachers, and being present with teachers? To what extent do teachers feel like valued members of a community? I'll never forget one of my first coaching meetings with a teacher. He was in a mobile classroom away from the main school building, and I went out to meet with him and have time together. One of the first things he said to me was, "Nobody's been out here in weeks. Nobody has thought to ask me how I am. It's the leader's responsibility to say how are you, and what do you need? He was really struggling at that point and feeling isolated.
Autonomy and decision-making refers to the freedom that teachers have to be creative and innovative when it comes to making decisions on behalf of themselves and on behalf of their students. This could be anything from curriculum decisions, classroom management, structures, routines, and wanting to be able to do what's best for their kids in that classroom. It could even mean giving feedback on their experience at school. To what extent do teachers have a voice and autonomy in decisions?
Social-emotional competence refers to teachers' own ability to regulate their emotions, to navigate stress, and to model important emotional intelligence skills for their kids. We know that social-emotional learning is extremely important at the student level. We need teachers who can model those things for students. If teachers are not in a place where their social and emotional, needs are being met, they're not going to be able to model that for students.
In terms of job demands, the work is hard. Teachers don't have enough time to get the work done that they need to in a day. They're taking work home. They're not getting paid a livable wage. You can't go to the bathroom when you need to go to the bathroom at times. Routines and structures make it difficult at times to be a human being at school. It's hard to take days off.
I share these four general sources of stress from the research, and there is one more I would like to call out. There is a general tendency towards martyrdom in the field of education. We are expected to work a lot of hours, work with urgency, be responsive at all times of the day, and give everything we have to kids and families. There's a problem with that, because if we're working ourselves into the ground, burnout is right around the corner. Also, this is a deficit-based approach to working. If you feel like you need to be in control, and work really hard, and do everything yourself, that does not give the people around you the opportunity to contribute meaningfully and chime in. It's deficit-based when you think about your colleagues, and kids, and families. It's a savior mentality, and then the tricky part is that it's often deeply rooted in who we are. There are organizations and institutions that glorify suffering. The field of education has a mindset across the board that we have to work really, really, hard because it's for the kids. But we have to also think about our own wellness and sustainability.
In her book Onwards, Elena Aguilar says, "To hell with martyrdom". She says we have to start setting boundaries. We have to start protecting our work-life balance because our students need our very best, and if we're running ourselves into the ground and not taking care of ourselves, then we cannot be our best for our kids.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Thriving Teachers, Thriving Centers: Improving Teacher Satisfaction and Reducing Turnover, in partnership with Region 9 Head Start Association, by Kati Vaughn, MA.
