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We’re back with another roundup of The Multipurpose Room with hosts Debora and Wesley, who are joined by Rebecca Arnold of Root Coaching and Consulting. Undoubtedly, the educational system has undergone a complete 180-turn over the last year, and while plenty of discussions have impacted students and parents, teachers are often left out of the picture. However, it’s vital to keep educators at the forefront as their experience of the system directly impacts a child’s educational journey.
Exploring the Need to Support Teacher Wellbeing
Teachers everywhere are experiencing the epidemic of stress, a situation brought about by consistently increasing workloads and the need for teachers to manage conflict for students and support trauma-based instructions, and COVID-19 has only exacerbated this situation.
Not only do teachers have to work under new circumstances, but they also have to work two jobs at once: in-person teaching for students in the classroom and virtual teaching for those opting for distance learning. Teachers have also had to adopt new roles, with many acting as grief counselors and sources of advice for students suffering from the effects of the pandemic. All of this has understandably caused a massive surge in teacher stress levels.
As a result of that, there’s a downturn in feelings of self-efficacy among teachers where. They start feeling inadequate at their jobs. What follows are feelings of anxiety, fearfulness, worry, and sadness, among others.
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Creating a Supportive Environment for Teachers During this Trying Time
The system must protect teachers' well-being, ensuring they are facilitated in these unprecedented times.
Here’s how to make sure this happens:
1. Get the Teachers Involved
Teachers themselves can actively engage in creating a system that supports them. One important step down this road is to practice honesty, including telling your supervisors the true extent of what’s happening. It’s necessary to break out of the suffering-in-silence dynamic that is operational in some institutions and learn to voice concerns and ask for the support you need.
Another thing that teachers can do is to ask for programming that is solely focused on their own well-being instead of techniques aimed at improving the classroom or the curriculum – in essence, treating teacher wellbeing as a separate and vital area of need.
Creating and facilitating teacher support networks is also a great step, as it allows them to interact with people undergoing a similar situation.
2. Create Opportunities to Connect
Virtual teaching has meant that staff working together for years on end are no longer seeing each other daily. This makes it essential to create opportunities for people to connect in meaningful ways. This can be as simple as taking some time at the start or end of meetings where staff can catch up on what's happening in their lives and have a little reconnection.
If you’re all out of ideas, nothing beats a good icebreaker session at the start of meetings to get the ball rolling.
3. Provide Virtual Training
Virtual training provides an opportunity for professional development. It also allows teachers to exchange virtual teaching techniques and talk about the strengths they’ve developed over this course.
4. Add Support Systems for Teachers and Staff
Sometimes, seeking external help becomes necessary, and getting some supportive skills and education is a great idea. These sessions focus on different areas, including identifying needs, drafting self-care plans, maintaining and believing in one’s self-efficacy, and generally just powering through the reality of online teaching.
These sessions usually follow one of two routes: an entire staff presentation focusing on self-care where individuals are paired up to build a deeper connection and help one another practice their self-care goals, and a session on managing in-the-moment stress. The best thing that comes out of these sessions is the very human feeling of connectedness and belonging.
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PTAs and PTOs Can Help as Well
PTAs and PTOs are vital aspects of the educational system and can support teachers. As a PTA or PTO, your first course of action should be communicating with teachers and determining their current needs, as this will give you a sense of direction. Then, based on the responses you’ve garnered, your organization should offer well-being offerings such as yoga, meditation, coaching, or self-care applications.
It’s also of the essence that the PTA or PTO sets the boundaries and tone for parent-teacher communication to ensure that parents are not overstepping and adding to this already stressful time.
So, there you have it, a quick guide on supporting your teachers during this pandemic. And it’s important to remember that these needs are not limited to corona times, as educators are one of the most stressed professionals. So, these support systems and methods must be a permanent fixture in education.