Teachers engage in emotional labor every single day, all day.<\/p>\n
They are constantly managing the feelings of their students, and then managing their own feelings in response. It’s how we react, what we do, what we say, and how we feel, that is a constant changing landscape for teachers. And, according to this Edutopia article by Emily Kaplan<\/a>, “It\u2019s work that is often invisible and under-compensated \u2014 and it\u2019s also really, really hard.”<\/p>\n Hochschild continues, calling teachers the \u201cshock absorbers of an overwhelmed system.\u201d When systems fail — family, school, or society — students feel it. And teachers absorb the shock.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople can blame the teacher because too much expectation has been placed on the school system,\u201d she said. In other words, when students fail to get what they need\u2014from their families, from schools, from society as a whole\u2014teachers are expected, unfairly, to pick up the slack. And when they inevitably fail to do so, they feel personal and professional guilt, which they must suppress for the broader good: Emotional labor begets more emotional labor.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, what to do. The system places too much on educators. And so much of teaching is relational. Relationships with students, colleagues, families. It is emotional, relational, in a system that is often overwhelmed.<\/p>\n It is time to recognize the emotional labor of teaching, as, well, labor.<\/p>\n Have you ever stared at all of the choices of shampoo, completely at a loss for which one to pick? Did this happen at the end of a teaching day? That is no surprise, according to new research that points to the dangers of overwhelm that is\u00a0decision fatigue.<\/a> A situation in which the brain simply gets too overwhelmed from having to make all the choices.<\/p>\n Teachers make 1,500 decisions a day.<\/a> That is a lot of decision-making. And, according to the New York Times:<\/p>\n “No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can\u2019t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It\u2019s different from ordinary physical fatigue \u2014 you\u2019re not consciously aware of being tired \u2014 but you\u2019re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is probably why, “What do I make for dinner?” Seems like an insurmountable decision at the end of a teaching day. It’s not just the fatigue of being on your feet, being on and being available. It’s decision overwhelm.<\/p>\n In addition to decision fatigue, teachers often face something researchers are calling compassion fatigue. This is often related to secondary, or vicarious trauma, that teachers experience from working with students who are facing trauma in their own lives. Educators live alongside with students, hearing them, finding ways to help them, interpreting their behavior, and being a first responder and mandated reporter. Their stories, their feelings and life experiences stay with educators long after the school day is over. This is very real and impactful.<\/p>\n Educator and writer Alex Shevrin Venet has written a great deal about trauma informed education practices<\/a> and compassion fatigue. In this piece, Shevrin Venet reminds us<\/a>:<\/p>\n “Social and emotional support for teachers also helps buffer the effects of secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma\u2014when teachers experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder because of the stress of bearing witness to others\u2019 trauma<\/a>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We see this often invisible and undervalued work regularly when in schools. While we have lots of societal work to do to reduce the pressure on the educational system, as Hoschild notes, we have to work in our spheres of control to make this job of teaching more sustainable.<\/p>\n We see you doing this work.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n And we want you to feel your best when you return to the classroom. How? Well:<\/p>\n For this I turn to the work of Elena Aguilar, author of the book Onward, a month-by-month guide for building resilience for teachers<\/a><\/em>. This book would be an incredible focus for staff meetings for the whole school year. Her thesis though, moves beyond individual resilience, toward having the strength and resources to improve education systemically as a result of personal work.<\/p>\n “If we boost our individual resilience, <\/span>then we will have more energy to address organizational and systemic conditions <\/span>— to elect officials who will fund public education, organize against policies that dehumanize educators, and push back on punitive assessment policies and scripted curriculum that turn teachers into robots and students into depositories to be filled.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Building resilience often involves helping educators establish routines of self care<\/a> and boundary setting. These can help teachers recover, rebound, and reset after days of emotional labor, decision making, and responding with compassion to their students in ever evolving situations.<\/p>\n Teachers care. Often they care so much that they might not set boundaries. They might respond to emails when they should be sleeping. Or they might carry the emotional labor of their jobs well into the night. You can help.<\/p>\nToo many choices<\/h4>\n
Compassion fatigue<\/h4>\n
By building resilience<\/h4>\n
By setting boundaries<\/h4>\n
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