|
|
|
The views expressed on this page are
solely
those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the views of County
News Online
|
|
DepositPhotos
EdSurge
Teachers Are Living in a Tinderbox of Stressful Conditions. These Scientific Approaches Can Help.
By Sheila Ohlsson Walker
Jul 1, 2020
America is suffering through two insidious and deadly pandemics, one
brought forth by a novel virus and the other by a long-overdue
reckoning of the intransigent racial and ethnic disparity at every
level within all of our systems.
Nowhere is this more evident than in our public schools, where nearly
50 percent of children come from communities of color, and with nearly
one-third of Black children and one-quarter of Hispanic children living
at or below the poverty level. It is precisely these students who are
trapped in the crosshairs of both pandemics: the coronavirus having
laid bare inequities in health risk, access to virtual education
platforms and basic safety both in and outside of their homes—all
factors compounded by the profoundly damaging effects of poverty and
racism.
Educators, scientists, public health experts and policymakers have
spent decades—rightly, though with varying degrees of success—on
optimizing the educational environment for children, by focusing on
safe, culturally responsive and engaging classroom environments that
meet the needs of diverse learners and develop the whole child. As a
behavioral geneticist focused on the mind-body effects of stress and
the development of resilience, I believe it is clear that in order to
do this well, we must also focus on optimizing the school environment
for teachers.
To do this, we look to science, which tells an optimistic story about
the powerful levers at our disposal to optimize brain health, physical
health and well-being at any point in the life span.
The Science of Human Malleability and Stress
Context matters for all of us, as nature operates via nurture: our
genes are merely chemical followers. It is epigenetic processes—the way
in which experiences and lifestyle habits change how our DNA is read
and expressed—that shape how we look and how we feel, 24 hours a day,
365 days a year. This means that human beings, at any age or stage, are
malleable and designed to learn, grow and adapt in order to thrive in
changing circumstances.
Over time, consistent repetition—whether it be a child learning to read
or an adult starting a new exercise routine—rewires our brains. In
other words, skills that once required intentional thinking eventually
become second nature and automatic. Development and reinforcement of
wellness-related skills, habits and mindsets for teachers—the leaders
in establishing classroom conditions—have been overlooked in creating
contexts to help our children thrive. This includes programs and
resources that help our educators manage stress and promote emotional,
mental and physical health, as the first necessary step toward that
larger goal.
Reported stress in the lives of our educators was high before the
pandemic and before the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud
Arbery and others led to weeks of protests and a national reckoning.
In 2017, the American Federation of Teachers’ Quality of Work Life
survey revealed that 61 percent of educators feel stressed “often” or
“always” at work, on par with that of physicians and nurses, according
to a separate Gallup poll.
Now, in 2020, teachers are living in a veritable tinderbox of stressful
conditions. Starting overnight in mid-March, the world was transformed,
and reported morale has plummeted ever since. The global pandemic
forced widespread school closures, requiring immediate mastery of new
technology—described to me by one middle school educator as “four times
the work for a hundred times less joy”—and, for many, requiring
simultaneous instruction of students while managing toddlers and
school-aged children at home. These issues layer atop pernicious fears
surrounding the health of self (nearly one-third of all teachers are
age 50 and older and at higher risk for COVID-19), family and
friends—and economic survival.
Moreover, and of greatest consequence, teachers—and all human
beings—are faced with the moral imperative of our age: how to begin to
right the persistent wrongs of racial injustice and structural
inequality around the globe and in our own country, neighborhoods,
classrooms and homes.
These dynamics are all playing out under a looming shadow of
uncertainty about practically every aspect of education as we know it
today, creating a profound sense of anxiety and fear about the future,
and what returning to school in person will mean. The American Academy
of Pediatrics’ “strong recommendation” that students be “physically
present in school” where possible, emphasizing the magnified health,
social and educational risks of keeping children at home, underscores
the dilemma teachers are caught in the middle of—how to support their
students amid this crisis and also stay healthy themselves.)
Indeed, for most of our 3.2 million full-time educators in the United States, personal stress is at epidemic levels.
To buffer stress, and both create and sustain the necessary conditions
for emotional and physical healing, education systems and individual
schools must prioritize teacher wellness as the first step in student
recovery. Why? The answer lies in our biology.
While stress is a necessary and important factor in human development,
and positive stress (“eustress”) helps us rise to the top of our game,
unbuffered chronic stress releases neurobiologically toxic levels of
chemicals into our physiological systems that can alter brain structure
and function, and impair immunity.
In the context of widespread violence and protests surrounding racial
injustice, economic uncertainty, the new complexities of school life
and home life, compounded by the invisible, unpredictable, unrelenting
and life-threatening realities of the coronavirus—the latter terms
ironically ones that accurately describe the effects of racism—it is
obvious that educators, particularly our teachers of color, are
weathering the “perfect storm” of conditions for stress-driven mental
and physical illness.
Neutralizing Stress
Now, some good news.
It is possible to neutralize inflammatory stress biochemistry. When
this happens, our sympathetic nervous systems (which direct us to
fight, take flight or freeze) can get settled instead of getting
triggered, allowing us to act, rather than react.
Feeling a sense of control broadens cognitive perspective by allowing
us to key off of moments that fuel our emotions, like joy, contentment
and authentic human connection, in a way that broadens our
thought-action repertoire. In other words, it helps us see the
proverbial forest for the trees and fosters development of adaptive and
flexible strategies that increase the effectiveness of stress
management and decision-making both inside and outside the classroom.
By focusing support on the emotional, mental and physical well-being of
teachers, we amplify their capacity to place their own oxygen masks on
first. They, in turn, will be able to direct their energy toward
developing the kinds of high-quality, safe and trusting relationships
with students that are the vital emotional scaffolding upon which all
else is built.
With relationships as the vehicle, teachers can begin to develop and
instill classroom practices and curricula that address COVID-related
learning loss, foster academic re-engagement and bolster student health
and well-being. Bottom line: Teachers cannot help to stabilize their
students nor their classroom environments unless they are healthy
themselves.
Three scientifically grounded approaches offer solutions and must be institutionalized into the school day.
Positive Lifestyle Practices
First, we must integrate scientifically grounded mental and physical
health supporting lifestyle practices that serve as Mother Nature’s
oxygen mask. These include prioritizing high-quality sleep, engaging in
regular physical activity and making healthy nutritional choices, all
which promote health and build immunity.
Other essential elements include meditation, breathwork, yoga,
cultivating and maintaining high-quality relationships, and intentional
reinforcement of mindsets that promote human connection, such as
gratitude, altruism and collective efficacy. What’s real in the mind is
real is real in the body, and it is our perceptions—not “objective”
reality—that drive our biochemistry. Accordingly, finding a silver
lining—even under the most dire of circumstances—instigates a
biochemical “upward spiral” which fosters constructive thinking in a
demanding moment and, over the long-term, protects health and
psychological well-being.
Professional Learning
Second, teachers need ongoing professional training to develop
social-emotional competencies, strategies for self-regulation, healthy
collaboration and stress management. Emotions are contagious—for better
and for worse—and underlie both learning and retention at all ages and
stages on the developmental spectrum. Hence the critical need to focus
on improving the health of the entire relational dynamic system that
exists within a school. This includes classrooms, teacher break rooms,
hallways, the counselor’s office and playgrounds—all of the places
where learning happens.
Equipping teachers with skills that build emotional intelligence
empowers them to “pause, reflect and label,” fortifying thoughtful,
intentional leadership and interaction with students and colleagues
alike. Investing in the kinds of healthy emotional climates that
enhance all higher-level cognitive processes (e.g. executive function,
attention and self-regulation) is a non-negotiable requirement for the
flourishing of relationships and outcomes—academic and otherwise—within
a school.
Mental Health Support
Third, teachers must have access to mental health resources during and
after the school day. These include regular organized support groups,
opportunities to connect with tele-mental health providers, no-stigma
mental wellness days and coaching to set reasonable expectations in
balancing responsibilities both inside and outside of school.
Given the extraordinary convergence of stressors related to home life,
work life, economic stability and public safety, teachers need access
to trained mental health professionals to ground and re-center,
particularly in light of mental health issues presenting as the “second
wave” of COVID.
By creating routines that promote health and reduce stress, and by
prioritizing high-quality supportive relationships, teachers can build
resilience—arguably the most important skill we can both embody and
also model for our children and students during this chapter in time.
The new 3Rs (relationships, routines and resilience) can restore a
sense of control amid uncertainty and equip young people with skills
and mindsets that pay dividends—on myriad developmental levels—for life.
Do the above strategies represent a revolution in schools’ current
practices and policies? In a word, yes. But we are at an inflection
point in our country’s history, during which capitalizing on great
opportunity means leaning into great challenge.
It is time to innovate, have courageous conversations about race,
equity and social justice, and be both strategic and intentional to
catalyze bold ideas into action. In doing so, we can reflect on this
double pandemic as a time when we successfully leveraged two
all-consuming crises to strengthen our educational system by narrowing
the false divide between public education and public health, and
implemented the 21st century science of learning and development to
optimize conditions for both teaching and learning.
We can and must create a healthier, more productive, equitable and
effective educational system—one that protects our teachers, lowers
attrition, motivates new educators to enter the profession and gives
all of our children the mindsets, support, tools and skills they need
to flourish, reach their full human potential, have hope for the future
and live the lives they choose and deserve.
|
|
|
|
