How to Manage Stress for Teachers and School Staff (Now)

There is a dark reality that teachers and school staff face that is coming to light and cannot be ignored.

The stress levels teachers and school staff experience on a daily basis have never been higher. A recent poll shows that 46 percent of teachers report high stress every day, tying teaching with nursing as the most stressful occupation in the United States. 

Education Support’s chief executive, Sinéad McBrearty stated: 

“We are beyond ‘crisis’. We are in a state of distress.” If the situation continued, she warned, it would result in “burnt-out leaders on an industrial scale” and schools would face huge problems recruiting and retaining staff.

COVID-19 Has Spiked Stress, But It Was Always There

While COVID-19 has amplified and exacerbated stress and overwhelm, mental health issues have been on the rise for teachers for quite some time. 

COVID-19 has brought a new awareness to these issues and it is clear that changes need to be made in schools in order to prevent detrimental damage to the wellness of teachers and their students.

A survey conducted in March 2020 by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence with their colleagues at the Collaborative for Social Emotional and Academic Learning (CASEL), asked more than 5,000 teachers in the US about their emotional responses regarding COVID-19.

The survey found that the five most frequent emotions teachers were feeling every day since the eruption of COVID-19 were anxious, fearful, worried, overwhelmed, and sad. Anxiety, by far, was the most common emotional response for teachers. 

A rise in anxiety since COVID-19 is understandable considering teachers are now learning how to balance managing their own families and their needs while also working full-time and learning how to use new technology from home. 

“My vision of finally having someone else take care of my own kids’ education, even virtually, was smashed to smithereens. This requires 100% parent involvement, actually 200% because my kids are in two different grades!” a teacher commented.

The Mental Health Issue Prior to COVID-19

Despite the rise in stress and anxiety due to the global pandemic, these have been challenges for those in education for far too long.

In 2017, a similar survey was conducted in order to get a feel for teacher’s emotions regarding their work environment. More than 5,000 teachers responded and the top five emotions were frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed, tired, and happy. 

The teachers who were surveyed also reported that they felt the frustration and stress were mainly due to feeling unsupported by their administration when it came to having the resources they needed to meet the learning needs of their students, high stakes testing, a turbulent curriculum, and lack of work/life balance. 

It has also been found that 30 percent of teachers end up abandoning their teaching professions altogether within their first five years.

If that isn’t enough evidence, almost 75 percent of teachers and 84 percent of school leaders consider themselves to be “stressed”. 49 percent of professionals in education report that their workplace has a negative influence on their mental health. 

“Overwork has become normalized. Education professionals don’t feel trusted,” said Sinead McBrearty, the chief executive of Education Support, a charity that provides mental health support to education professionals. “They are almost twice as anxious as the general population. That’s a measure of how harsh our accountability systems are and the way in which accountability in education is so reductive. This report has to be a very loud wake-up call for all concerned.”

Stress Impacts Teachers & Students

With the high levels of stress and anxiety that teachers are feeling, it is inevitable that this will end up impacting students poorly. This creates a vicious cycle of stressed-out teachers, which can negatively influence the students in classrooms, causing the students to act out and suffer from poor mental health, resulting in even more stress for the teachers. 

“We know that [the] performance of anyone in any job is compromised by stress and poor wellbeing.” Said McBrearty. “We are going to see that in our classrooms. As it is, 10 million children are spending a significant amount of time every year in high-stress environments – and that is going to affect them.”

Factors Leading to Stress

Important factors that cause stress in teachers, from most stressful to least stressful, when considering student behavior include: 

While these behaviors can be very anxiety-inducing for teachers, it is common for students suffering with mental health issues to act out or find themselves disengaged in the classroom.

One in five children have, or will have, a serious mental health illness during their lifetime. When teachers don’t have the knowledge or resources they need to work with these students, it not only increases teacher’s stress levels, but hurts student performance and allows their condition to go ignored. 

Why Emotion Management Matters

When emotions run high in the classroom, the impact can be destructive. If the teacher is not equipped with the knowledge and resources to manage their emotions properly, this could hurt their own well-being, along with that of their students. The better teachers are in control of their own emotions, the more it allows them to be mindful of the students and to manage their classrooms effectively. 

Emotions, essentially, impact all aspects of learning, including attention and memory, which can influence the rate of learning. Emotions such as joy and curiosity encourage engagement and catch the student’s attention, while emotions like anxiety and fear disrupt concentration and problem-solving. 

Teachers who are not aware of how to effectively manage stress decrease their ability to educate their students properly. 

Emotions also play an important role in decision-making. Overwhelm, anxiety, and frustration can block our ability to make wise, rational decisions. As teachers, this can hurt the learning progress of students and even create an unsafe classroom environment. 

It is vital that teachers know how to manage their emotions in the classroom because they can also impact relationships, health and well-being, and performance. 

With the right tools, teachers could be prepared and understand how to address their emotions and manage them safely while maintaining a healthy relationship with their students. 

Administrators Need to Take Responsibility for Teachers and Students

To create real change within the school system and address the mental health issues that teachers and students are facing, school administrators must step up. 

Keith Herman, a professor in the MU College of Education, said, “Administrators set the tone in their building for how teachers are perceived and supported. Prioritizing teacher well-being and giving higher rates of recognition and positive feedback to teachers versus criticism and judgment helps set a positive tone.” 

Making the well-being of teachers a priority and providing them with the proper programs and resources they need to be successful is a start to creating healthier classroom environments for both the teachers and students. 

Solutions to Reduce Stress & Anxiety

Research has shown that there are effective ways to combat stress and anxiety for teachers. In order to tackle this issue, it is important to understand how to identify what stress looks like so that it can be caught early on and managed.

Symptoms of Stress

According to Teri Wood and Chris McCarthy, both researchers, symptoms of stress include the following:

• Feelings of irritation and inadequacy when thinking about school
• Physical symptoms such as headaches and insomnia
• Withdrawal from colleagues or conflicts with colleagues
• Difficulty concentrating at work
• Absences or the desire to miss school