Pandemic Stress Has Pushed Teachers To A Breaking Point : NPR

Pandemic Stress Has Pushed Teachers To A Breaking Point : NPR

'We Need To Be Nurtured, Too': Many Teachers Say They're Reaching A Breaking Point

To say Leah Juelke is an award-winning teacher is a bit of an understatement. She was a top 10 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize in 2020; she was North Dakota's Teacher of the Year in 2018; and she was awarded an NEA Foundation award for teaching excellence in 2019.

But Juelke, who teaches high school English learners in Fargo, N.D., says nothing prepared her for teaching during the pandemic.

"The level of stress is exponentially higher. It's like nothing I've experienced before."

It's a sentiment NPR heard from teachers across the country. After a year of uncertainty, long hours and juggling personal and work responsibilities, many told NPR they had reached a breaking point.

Heidi Crumrine, a high school English teacher in Concord, N.H., says this has been the most challenging year she's ever encountered in her two decades of teaching.

"And I say [that] as someone who started her first day of teaching on 9/11 in the Bronx in New York City."

Teaching is one of the most stressful occupations in the U.S., tied only with nurses, a 2013 Gallup poll found. Jennifer Greif Green, an education professor at Boston University, says the additional stress teachers are reporting during the pandemic is CONTINUE READING: Pandemic Stress Has Pushed Teachers To A Breaking Point : NPR

A Year Ago – remembering | JD2718

A Year Ago – remembering | JD2718

A Year Ago – remembering

By April 6, 2020 my world was on its head. COVID was in NYC. I had decamped to near Lake Champlain. I was teaching, or trying to teach, via a computer. It was hard. And it was exhausting. And the news was relentless. Trump was horrible, but de Blasio and Cuomo were behaving like clowns – but clowns whose decisions affect millions of lives. It was too much. I’d lost a second cousin to the pandemic, but I didn’t know yet. And a colleague had passed in an auto accident a week earlier – maybe the trip was somehow connected. An alumni’s father died on the 4th. A peace officer at my school died on the 4th.

My school was started in 2002. I was there from the first. it is a specialized high school. But in those first years the student body was fairly integrated. A few years later we saw a shift, slow at first, and then not slow. We became one of the whitest NYC public high schools outside of Staten Island. There is a story there, a long one, about getting the faculty then our school community on board to address this, and the progress we have – and importantly – have not made. But that’s for another time.

I mention the segregation issue to mention one initiative in particular: our Local Outreach Tutoring Program (LOT). We started LOT four years ago. Me and some students did outreach to local middle CONTINUE READING: A Year Ago – remembering | JD2718

More teachers plan to quit as Covid stress overwhelms educators - CNBC

More teachers plan to quit as Covid stress overwhelms educators

More teachers plan to quit as Covid stress overwhelms educators

KEY POINTS

• After nearly a year of struggling to meet the demands of teaching during the coronavirus crisis, many educators say they are ready to switch careers or retire.
• But in order for schools to fully reopen, the U.S. needs more teachers, not fewer.

The challenges of teaching in-person or online have stretched educators to their limits.

After nearly a full year of either putting themselves at risk in a classroom or struggling to reach students remotely, many now say they may change careers or simply quit.

“Teachers have been feeling the brunt of how drastically this pandemic has changed our world,” said Colin Sharkey, executive director of the Association of American Educators, a national professional association.

“The demands that are put on them are off the charts.”

At a time when many state and local governments are struggling to recruit and retain educators, a nationwide poll of public education professionals found a growing number are ready to leave their jobs. CONTINUE READING: More teachers plan to quit as Covid stress overwhelms educators

NOONAN | Teachers between rock and a hard place | Opinion | coloradopolitics com

NOONAN | Teachers between rock and a hard place | Opinion | coloradopolitics.com

Teachers between rock and a hard place

K-12 education in Colorado is a big fat mess. No question. Schools are caught in COVID limbo, with some schools returning to full time, others keeping to a hybrid schedule, and many students continuing online. Teachers are trying to get their vaccinations, which puts to rest complaints from some that they’re resisting returning to the classroom.

That claim about teachers is particularly pernicious. Talk about working between a rock and a hard place. Public school teachers catch derision for their caution, with the deriders accusing teacher unions of blocking classroom returns. But very recently, 1,500 Jeffco middle and high school students petitioned the school board to not resume full-time classes because of COVID insecurity.

Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers says that New York City offers a model for returning to classrooms. That’s a district with a strong union presence. How has the district moved forward? New York City schools benefit from a much larger budget than any Colorado schools. Elementary schools returned to full time in December upon receipt of parent consent forms for COVID testing.

For students to return to school full time in grades 6-8 starting Feb. 25, parents must agree to in-school COVID testing. The random testing occurs weekly for students and staff. The city has improved its CONTINUE READING: NOONAN | Teachers between rock and a hard place | Opinion | coloradopolitics.com

NANCY BAILEY: How the Media and School Districts Shame Teachers During Covid-19

How the Media and School Districts Shame Teachers During Covid-19

How the Media and School Districts Shame Teachers During Covid-19

Listen to the news one moment, and you’re warned about the new variants of the virus. There’s uncertainty about it and whether it’s more deadly than the current strain. Next, the media gives voice to critics who belittle teachers and their unions for not returning to school or being afraid.

There’s a dislike of teachers and disrespect in school districts across the country. When three Cobb County school employees died of Covid, the Superintendent and a school board member wouldn’t put on a mask when asked to honor one of the deceased victims who was a teacher.

Can’t everyone hang on until teachers are safely vaccinated? Teachers have been working diligently with students remotely and in-person since the start of the pandemic. They deserve better.

The Media 

The Washington Post

Here’s an opinion piece. Teachers are vital public servants. Time for them to start acting like it. This title sounds like teachers are throwing a tantrum! The author expresses a dislike for online learning.

He understands teachers are worried about being in the classroom, but since they bargain for better pay, tenure, and a decent pension, that means to him that they’re CONTINUE READING: How the Media and School Districts Shame Teachers During Covid-19

CURMUDGUCATION: Moral Distress and Teaching

CURMUDGUCATION: Moral Distress and Teaching

Moral Distress and Teaching

I've run across this new-to-me term several times in the past few months-- moral distress. It wasn't developed for the teaching profession, but lots of teachers are going to recognize what is being described here.

Andrew Jameton gets most of the credit for drawing the moral distress picture, looking at the world of nursing. This piece from the AMA Journal of Ethics lays out his ideas pretty succinctly and points the way to broadening them. Here's the basic definition:

Moral distress, according to Andrew Jameton’s highly influential definition, occurs when a nurse knows the morally correct action to take but is constrained in some way from taking this action.

This is immediately recognizable for anyone who has been in the teaching world for the past few decades. "Stop teaching all those full literary works," some of us were told, "and start drilling these short excerpts with multiple choice questions instead." Pull these kids out of their electives and put them in test prep classes instead. Stop worrying about their education and their life after school, and start worrying about their test scores instead. 

Honestly, moral distress in teaching can't be blamed solely on education reform. There have always been those moments. The time a supervisor told you that you needed to stop counting spelling for a student's work--including his spelling tests. The students you were required to pass because the front office wanted that kid out of there. I was in a meeting with a special ed supervisor once, debating the scores for a student in my class, and I lost my cool and snapped, "Look, why don't you tell me what grade you expect the student to get in my class, and I'll just fudge the numbers to get that." Without a hint of irony, she told me that would be very helpful. Beyond the special events, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Moral Distress and Teaching

The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid | gadflyonthewallblog

The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid | gadflyonthewallblog

The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid

I am a public school teacher and my life has value.

That shouldn’t be controversial.

But every few weeks in 2020-21 as the global Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread unabated, I have to go to a staff meeting and justify my right to continue breathing.

Administration and the school board want to stop distance learning and reopen the school for in-person classes.

Yet the Pennsylvania Department of Health recommends all schools be fully remote in any county with a substantial level of community transmission of Covid-19. As of today, that’s every county in the whole state.

Allegheny County – the area near Pittsburgh where I live – has averaged about 600 new cases a day since the beginning of December. More than 1,100 people have died – 149 just in January, alone.

Meanwhile, teachers and other frontline workers have to wait to get vaccinated CONTINUE READING: The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid | gadflyonthewallblog

The Debate About School Safety Is No Longer Relevant - The Atlantic

The Debate About School Safety Is No Longer Relevant - The Atlantic

The Debate About School Safety Is No Longer Relevant

Even in places where schools want to reopen, too many teachers are sick or quarantining for classrooms to operate, and substitutes cannot fill the void.

For months, the debate about whether to open schools has centered on one question: Are schools safe? The only trouble is, this hardly matters anymore. Except in the few remaining regions with modest rates of viral spread, the transmission risk from and within schools is now beside the point. So many teachers and staff members are sick, quarantining, or have stepped down that many schools trying to remain open or to reopen just do not have the personnel available to do so well.

The examples are countless. Littleton Public Schools in Colorado, in announcingtheir shift to remote learning, stated that one of their primary reasons for doing so was that “keeping enough staff in schools for supervision is becoming a real concern. It is especially difficult, and impossible on some days, to have enough licensed teachers in classrooms delivering quality instruction.” Jeannine Nota-Masse, the superintendent of Rhode Island’s second-largest school district, was quoted in a local news story as saying, “Now you have students in the building and not enough adults to cover for the adults that are home for various reasons.” One elementary school near Milwaukee lacked 10 teachers on a recent day; Metro Nashville Public Schools has, according to The Tennessean, “had more than 200 teachers or staff members in quarantine or self-isolation each week since the end of October.” In a Reuters survey of 217 districts across 30 states, about half reported significant staffing issues—and this was before Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the arrival of deep winter.

[Nina Schwalbe: Why are we closing schools?]

The reason for the shortages isn’t intransigent teachers’ unions or unreasonable fear; it’s simply that the virus is too widely spread. Upwards of 200,000 new COVID-19 cases are reported most days, and Anthony Fauci recently warned that January numbers will likely look even bleaker. The new viral variant, if it takes  CONTINUE READING: The Debate About School Safety Is No Longer Relevant - The Atlantic

Survey: Oklahoma educators 'overwhelmed' and 'scared' - NONDOC

Survey: Oklahoma educators 'overwhelmed' and 'scared'

Survey: Oklahoma educators ‘overwhelmed’ and ‘scared’

In a recent survey, the Oklahoma Education Association asked more than 3,100 teachers, support professionals and administrators to use one word to describe their current feelings about their job. Words like “stressed,” “overwhelmed,” and “scared” landed in the top 10.

The survey (embedded below) was conducted online Dec. 1 through Dec. 14, and it asked respondents to express their feelings on issues like the pandemic in general, school safety, student learning and how school employees are doing. A total of 3,580 Oklahoma educators completed the survey, with 3,147 responses deemed to be valid. The survey took about 30 minutes to complete and had a 54 percent completion rate, with responses coming from 230 communities.

“As you’ll see in the survey, the number one concern of our members has been the educational progress of our students,” OEA President Alicia Priest said during a Monday press conference announcing the survey results. “However, when the governor released a video last week where blame was placed on OEA and educators for the current state of fear regarding COVID-19 in Oklahoma, or when he declared that all schools must return CONTINUE READING: Survey: Oklahoma educators 'overwhelmed' and 'scared'

27% of teachers are considering quitting because of Covid: survey - CNBC

27% of teachers are considering quitting because of Covid: survey

27% of teachers are considering quitting because of Covid, survey finds

The coronavirus pandemic has put significant pressure on America’s teachers. Some have been asked to weigh risks to their personal health and teach in person. Some have been asked to teach from behind computer screens and perfect distance learning. Many have been asked to do both. 

These pressures are taking a toll on teachers across the country. 

According to a new report, 77% of educators are working more today than a year ago, 60% enjoy their job less and 59% do not feel secure in their school district’s health and safety precautions. Roughly 27% say they are considering leaving their job, retiring early or taking a leave of absence because of the pandemic.

“Before the pandemic, large numbers of U.S. educators were already leaving the profession due to the financial pressure the job puts on their lives,” reads the report. “Then COVID-19 came along.”

Horace Mann Educators Corporation surveyed 1,240 U.S. educators from K-12 public schools for the report.

Richard Milner, professor of education at Vanderbilt University says these figures do not surprise him. 

“In fact, I suspect those numbers will probably increase over time,” he says. “Many teachers are barely keeping their heads above water and we don’t know how much longer we’re going to be in this space.”

Teachers have long raised concerns about the difficult financial circumstances that educators often face. Over the past several years tens of thousands of teachers have gone on strike for improved pay and school funding.

These financial concerns are also highlighted in the Horace Mann CONTINUE READING: 27% of teachers are considering quitting because of Covid: survey

We are 'scared, frustrated, and anxious'; Weingarten says this Yale course can help educators

We are 'scared, frustrated, and anxious'; Weingarten says this Yale course can help educators

We are 'scared, frustrated, and anxious'; Weingarten says this Yale course can help educators

NEW HAVEN — The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has created an online course designed to aid educators battling the anxiety and stress of teaching during the pandemic and, in turn, students.

The course came after a recent YCEI survey “of over 2,500 educators nationwide found that their top emotions were anxious, exhausted, frustrated, stressed, and overwhelmed,” prompting members of the center to strive to “preserve the well-being of the nation’s school staff and their ability to teach and work” through the new educational offering, according to a university statement.

The course, “Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty and Stress,” will offer participants information on “why social and emotional learning is an important component of education” and how to “identify and manage emotions, including how to support their students with their emotions in scientific and culturally responsive ways.”

Participants will use what they’ve learned to fill out weekly plans, which as designed to give them a guide toward lasting change, according to the statement.

“Research shows that school staff who are better at managing their emotions have greater physical health, well-being, and job satisfaction,” said Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and professor in the Child Study Center. “They also create more supportive learning environments for students where there’s more CONTINUE READING: We are 'scared, frustrated, and anxious'; Weingarten says this Yale course can help educators

America's children are facing a mental health crisis that no one is talking about | Salon.com

America's children are facing a mental health crisis that no one is talking about | Salon.com

America's children are facing a mental health crisis that no one is talking about

Mental health-related hospital visits for children are way up, as kids’ lives are disrupted by the pandemic

With a third wave of COVID-19 infections sweeping the United States and widespread infection around the world, some schools are grappling with how to stay open safely, while others remain shuttered with remote learning curricula. 

For many children, this new wave of infections will mean additional disruptions to their daily lives: reduced access to nutritious food, less physical activity, perhaps even limits on playtime with friends. Taken together, these and other overlapping impacts affect both their physical and mental health.

I've worked on health issues around the globe for decades, including during the Ebola epidemic and other crises. Though the pandemic has created global health challenges previously unseen, as president and CEO of UNICEF USA, I know that children are becoming the hidden victims of the pandemic.

A new CDC analysis finds that since 2019, the proportion of mental health-related emergency room visits for children aged 5 to 11 and 12 to 17 years increased approximately 24% and 31%, respectively. So why are more kids ending up in the emergency room for mental health issues? Part of the answer seems to be that critical mental health services, like counseling, are being disrupted by the pandemic. Indeed, a recent report found that 93% of countries worldwide are facing such disruptions. Many of those services are typically made available through schools and other community institutions, institutions that are now being forced to move online or adapt their programming.

I've seen firsthand — not just in the United States but in all corners of the globe, from Syrian refugees in Jordan to Sri Lanka — that psychosocial support for children in moments of crisis is the key to ensuring that critical years of learning are not lost. To help kids cope with this crisis today, and to reduce years of turmoil and future trauma and health impacts, governments, schools and nonprofit organizations must act urgently to expand equitable access to mental health services and other forms of psychosocial CONTINUE READING: America's children are facing a mental health crisis that no one is talking about | Salon.com

Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic

The New York Times published an article recently by Natasha Singer–one of the best reporters on education issues in the Times–about the toll that the pandemic is taking on teachers. An extraordinary number say the burden of teaching remote classes and in-person classes is not sustainable. Large numbers of teachers are planning to retire, or have retired.

All this fall, as vehement debates have raged over whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction, teachers have been at the center — often vilified for challenging it, sometimes warmly praised for trying to make it work. But the debate has often missed just how thoroughly the coronavirus has upended learning in the country’s 130,000 schools, and glossed over how emotionally and physically draining pandemic teaching has become for the educators themselves.

In more than a dozen interviews, educators described the immense challenges, and exhaustion, they have faced trying to provide normal schooling for students in CONTINUE READING: Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

Growing Consensus that Young Children Can Safely Return to School | Diane Ravitch's blog

Growing Consensus that Young Children Can Safely Return to School | Diane Ravitch's blog

Growing Consensus that Young Children Can Safely Return to School

The New York Times reports that scientists are converging on a consensus that it is safe for young children to return to school.

After a summer of uncertainty and fear about how schools across the globe would operate in a pandemic, a consensus has emerged in recent months that is becoming policy in more and more districts: In-person teaching with young children is safer than with older ones, and particularly crucial for their development.

On Sunday, New York City, home to the country’s largest school system, became the most high-profile example of that trend, when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that only elementary schools and some schools for children with complex disabilities would reopen after all city classrooms were briefly shuttered in November. There is no plan yet to bring middle and high school students back into city school buildings.

It was an abrupt about-face for the mayor, who had for months promised to welcome all of the city’s 1.1 million children — from 3-year-olds to high school seniors — back into classrooms this fall.

But the decision put New York in line with other cities around America and across the world, which have CONTINUE READING: Growing Consensus that Young Children Can Safely Return to School | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’ - The New York Times

Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’ - The New York Times

Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’

Teacher burnout could erode instructional quality, stymie working parents and hinder the reopening of the economy.

At Farmington Central Junior High in rural Illinois, classes still start at 8 a.m. But that’s about the only part of the school day that has not changed for Caitlyn Clayton, an eighth-grade English teacher tirelessly toggling between in-person and remote students.

At the start of the school day, Ms. Clayton stands in front of the classroom, reminding her students to properly pull their masks over their noses. Then she delves into a writing lesson, all the while scanning the room for possible virus threats. She stops students from sharing supplies. She keeps her distance when answering their questions. She disinfects the desks between classes.

Then in the afternoon, just as her in-person students head home, Ms. Clayton begins her second day: remote teaching. Sitting in her classroom, she checks in one-on-one via video with eighth graders who have opted for distance learning. To make sure they are not missing out, she spends hours more recording instructional videos that replicate her in-person classroom lessons.

All this fall, as vehement debates have raged over whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction, teachers have been at the center — often vilified for challenging it, sometimes warmly praised for trying to make it work. But the debate has often missed just how thoroughly the coronavirus has upended learning in the country’s 130,000 schools, and glossed over how emotionally and physically draining pandemic teaching has become for the educators themselves.

In more than a dozen interviews, educators described the immense challenges, and exhaustion, they have faced trying to provide normal schooling for students in pandemic conditions that are anything but normal. Some recounted whiplash experiences of having their schools abruptly open and close, sometimes more than once, because of virus risks or quarantine-driven staff shortages, requiring them to repeatedly switch back and forth between in-person and online teaching.

Others described the stress of having to lead back-to-back group CONTINUE READING: Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’ - The New York Times

Contact Tracing Does NOT Prove Schools Are Safe During a Pandemic | gadflyonthewallblog

Contact Tracing Does NOT Prove Schools Are Safe During a Pandemic | gadflyonthewallblog

Contact Tracing Does NOT Prove Schools Are Safe During a Pandemic

“No close contacts were identified within the school district.”

That’s what it says on today’s email from my district reporting that two elementary staff and one student tested positive for COVID-19.

That’s what it said on Tuesday’s email about a different elementary staff member testing positive.

And the email from last Sunday about two elementary staff, and last Monday about a middle school staff member, and the one from Nov. 19 about an entire Kindergarten class and its teachers being quarantined.

Actually, that last email said the outbreak was limited to the Kindergarten class and teachers – that no close contacts were identified beyond its doors, in the building or the wider district as a whole.

However, considering that at least five more elementary teachers and another student tested positive later, I’m not sure I believe it.

All of which prompts the question – how accurate is contact tracing?

How Contact Tracing Works CONTINUE READING: Contact Tracing Does NOT Prove Schools Are Safe During a Pandemic | gadflyonthewallblog

Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids right now

Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids right now

Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids in the Covid-19 crisis

Mindfulness in schools is increasingly being used to help students with mental health and academic performance, but research on its effectiveness is not yet conclusive

Doug Worthen guided his small class of ninth graders at Middlesex School through an exercise designed to focus their attention. On his screen, he saw the students sitting outside or at desks and lounging across their beds as they joined their weekly mindfulness class online. One by one the students clicked off their cameras, each square became a white and gray icon and Worthen began the meditation.

“Notice where your attention is,” he said, prompting them to guide their attention back to their “home base” — the sounds around them or body sensations — when it drifted.

At the end of the meditation, the students were guided to open their eyes. They turned their screens back on and Worthen posed a question to the group. “I learned that my attention isn’t very stable,” a student said. She estimated that her attention was focused on her home base 14 percent of the time.

In this required 12-week “Introduction to Mindfulness” course taught by Worthen, a full-time mindfulness instructor, students at the private boarding school in Concord, Massachusetts, will learn how to develop awareness of their thoughts and body sensations, sit with difficult CONTINUE READING: Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids right now