In short, it is a whole new world, and one fraught with challenges for educators. The hours, which were already long, have grown longer. Resources, which were already stretched to the limit, have reached the breaking point. Work-life balance has become a rumor, and the behavioral challenges presented by students are considerable, given the fact that they too have often been adjusting to a return to the classroom. Read more on: https://dranthonyhamlet.com/how-can-we-alleviate-teacher-stress/

1. How Can
We Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?
Dr. Anthony Hamlet
01

2. Begin with the health concerns educators have felt,
for themselves, their loved ones and their students.
Then consider the challenges of remote and hybrid
learning. And finally, there has been the charged
atmosphere to which many teachers returned when
schools reopened – one in which there were not
only debates about things like vaccines and masks,
but also about critical race theory (which in actuality
isn’t taught below the collegiate level), LGBTQ issues,
etc.
Teaching has always been stressful...
02
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?

3. 03
It is a whole new world fraught with
challenges for educators...
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?
The hours, which were already long, have grown longer. Resources, which were already
stretched to the limit, have reached the breaking point. Work-life balance has
become a rumor, and the behavioral challenges presented by students are
considerable, given the fact that they too have often been adjusting to a return to the
classroom.
of educators felt encumbered
by job-related stress, frequently
or constantly
of teachers reported signs of
depression, compared to 10
percent for the general population.
60
60%
%
27%
27%

4. 03
Pushed to the limit...
Small wonder that a Northern Indian School counselor named
Tim Francis was quoted by the website Edsurge.com as saying
that each and every teacher “was just pushed to the limit”
during the pandemic.
If not beyond. The site Cambridgeday.com noted the chilling
words of one Baltimore County Public Schools teacher, who
told researchers the following: “I was suicidal. … The pandemic
just broke me.”
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?

5. 04
Somewhere between a
quarter and a half of all
teachers
have thought
about quitting
According to various studies, and
indeed there has been an exodus from
the profession.
Research by the Economic Policy
Institute showed a 4.7 percent
reduction in the workforce between the
fall of 2019 and the fall of 2021, meaning
there were 567,000 fewer teachers on
hand than there had been before the
pandemic. Alaska, Vermont and New
Mexico were particularly hard-hit, as
they saw respective declines of 17.5
percent, 11.6 percent and 10.7 percent.
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?

6. Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education
and sociology at the University of
Pennsylvania and a leading expert on the
U.S. teaching workforce, told ABC News
that he expects there to be “severe
shortages, particularly in the tougher
schools,” and added:
“My guess is this is going to turn into a
crisis. We’re going to have large numbers
of schools which are not adequately
staffing significant numbers of their
classrooms.”
06 They don't change the problem...
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?

7. Ingersoll further pointed out that too often in situations like
this “Band-Aids” are applied to gaping wounds, when major
surgery is required. And indeed there was some evidence of
that, as various schools or districts pointed to increased self-
care (like meditation, yoga, etc.) as the solutions that would
enable teachers to find their way through these difficult
times. But as Chelsea Prax, programs director of children’s
health and well-being at the American Federation of
Teachers, told Education Week:
“You can’t deep-breathe your way out of a pandemic; you
cannot stretch your way out of terrible class sizes; you
cannot ‘individual behavior’ your way out of structural
problems. Those are effective coping measures, but they
don’t change the problem.”
07
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?

8. 08
Significant structural change is in order...
That same Education Weeks piece suggested steps like smaller classes,
fewer meetings and more planning time. Employee assistance programs –
especially those that provide mental health services – would also be a
significant step, particularly if they were on-site and provided during
school hours, as noted in the Cambridgeday piece.
As University of Virginia education professor Patricia Jennings told
Education Week, it would also be significant if teachers were given a
greater say in those initiatives that are enacted at any given school. “If
we’re going to give them more responsibility,” she told that outlet, “give
them a lot more freedom and choice.”
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?

9. 09
Teachers need to
continue to look out
for each other
Happy Teacher Revolution, a support group
that began before the pandemic at a school
in Baltimore and has since expanded to
hundreds of other schools, in the U.S. and
elsewhere. The goal of the group is to provide
coping strategies, methods that will see
educators through.
These are challenging times, without question.
The key to meeting these challenges is for
administrators and educators to be agile and
open-minded – to look at what’s before them
with fresh eyes and understand that tweaks
are in order. That is what will ultimately pull
them through. That is what will allow them to
persist and grow.
How
Can
We
Alleviate
Teacher
Stress?

10. THANK YOU!
Dr. Anthony Hamlet
10