Читать книгу Riding the Wave - Jeremy S. Adams - Страница 20

Teachers face a daunting list of stressors. As professor Einar M. Skaalvik and scholar Sidsel Skaalvik (2007) note, “Stressors may include students with behavioral problems, problems in the parent–teacher relationship, conflict with colleagues, or having to organize teaching in new ways as a consequence of working in teams or because of school reforms” (p. 613). But this is just part of the picture. For many teachers, the weight and worry of the unknown is also a great source of stress. They ask themselves, “What will problematic students do tomorrow?” and “What new reform will I need to adjust to next year?”

This stress and uncertainty may disturb teachers’ sense of their own capabilities. In their classic study on dimensions of teacher self-efficacy, Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2007) explain, “Self-efficacy beliefs are constructed largely on the basis of one’s prior mastery experiences” (p. 621). In terms of a healthy perception of one’s classroom efforts, self-efficacy occurs when teachers feel they are effective instructors and successful managers of desirable classroom outcomes. However, when stress and frequent changes enter the picture, teachers’ levels of self-efficacy may decrease. Professors Robert Klassen and Ming Chiu (2010) find that high stress and low self-efficacy are strongly correlated, so teachers with great levels of stress tend to experience low levels of self-efficacy. Even the very best teachers can experience feelings of low self-efficacy if they are hit with enough stressors. Indeed, low self-efficacy is more a consequence of being overwhelmed in the classroom than it is a lack of pedagogic or subject-matter competence.

High levels of stress and low self-efficacy make for a dispirited corps of teachers. MetLife’s (2012) study reveals that teachers experienced a 15 percent drop in job satisfaction in two years and the percentage of teachers who voiced the possibility of their leaving the profession increased by 12 percent in three years. American University’s School of Education (2019) reports that many of the negative feelings associated with modern teaching—a lack of resources, low pay, negative political environments, too much emphasis on testing, and too much teaching to the test—are driving teachers from the classroom. On top of that are teachers’ clear feelings of hopelessness, or futility, when it comes to the metrics by which many in and outside the profession define educational success, as only 43 percent of surveyed teachers believed student achievement would improve between 2011 and 2016 (MetLife, 2012). In the 21st century, capable teachers who may have entered their careers with confidence and positivity may end up feeling, frankly, burned out.

According to professor Ralf Schwarzer and scholar Suhair Hallum (2008), burnout is “a chronic state of exhaustion due to long-term interpersonal stress within human service professions. It pertains to feelings experienced by people whose jobs require repeated exposure to emotionally charged social situations” (p. 155). Indeed, most difficulties that teachers encounter in the profession are emotionally charged.

Schwarzer and Hallum (2008) quote the foundational work of Michael P. Leiter and Christina Maslach (1998) and argue that there are three symptoms of burnout: (1) emotional exhaustion, (2) depersonalization, and (3) reduced personal accomplishment.

1. Emotional exhaustion: When teachers say, “I am at the end of my rope,” they mean they have emotional exhaustion. It is a juncture of one’s career characterized by the sapping of one’s emotional energy. Frequent symptoms of emotional exhaustion can include lethargy, fatigue, and even debilitation (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008). This stress component is more than the physical exhaustion that results from being on one’s feet for seven hours, engaging large numbers of students for whom the teacher has full responsibility. Instead, this manifestation of teacher burnout usually emerges after long exposure to stressful situations—situations that are often beyond the classroom teacher’s control.

2. Depersonalization: When teachers pivot from a positive and enthusiastic professional disposition to a decidedly more cynical and negative one, they generally do so because the job itself has become depersonalized. Depersonalization occurs when a teacher, for whatever reason, no longer feels personally connected to the outcomes of the classroom in which he or she teaches. Teachers who speak of being “over it” or who claim to no longer feel invested in their teaching environment embody this component of burnout, which is more than a simple loss of idealism. Once a teacher depersonalizes his or her job, he or she will have difficulty reclaiming feelings of self-efficacy and success without undergoing intense reflection and professional assessment. This is why so many teachers either stop being personally invested in class outcomes or leave the profession altogether.

3. Reduced personal accomplishment: Schwarzer and Hallum (2008) equate reduced personal accomplishment with “reduced professional efficacy, productivity or capability, low morale, and an inability to cope with job demands” (p. 155). They also define it as feelings of intense inadequacy that often result in a teacher’s lower assessment of his or her professional achievement (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008). When a teacher dissociates classroom efforts with any expectation of achievement, then burnout has severely hampered any hopes of finding genuine joy and meaning in his or her educational endeavors. Teachers who claim to find no payoff for hard work, personal sacrifice, and intensive time commitments to their profession often withdraw from making any further commitments.

If teachers’ stress levels are so high as to render them incapable of coping with job demands or recognizing the purpose of their role and commitment to education, their very well-being is compromised, thus making classroom instruction a painful slog from which they disengage (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008). Journalist Kassondra Granata (2014) suggests this day-to-day learning environment is unsustainable for not only teachers but their students.

NOTICE the WAVE

Have you ever experienced any of the symptoms of teacher burnout—emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, or reduced personal accomplishment? What were the signs for you?