Early childhood professionals are familiar with finding and appreciating daily moments of joy. Teachers smile inside and out when toddlers are able to pull up their own pants, preschoolers write their names for the first time, or kindergarteners figure out how to make complicated patterns with blocks. Working with young children can also be very…

Educational reforms have created tremendous stress for teachers in many parts of the world. This paper discusses the inadequacies of policy-makers treating teachers as having "deficits" that require "fixes", rather than addressing bigger system issues that cause their stress. Drawing from the case of a Hong Kong professional…

This article describes the independent reading and research project of an early childhood education graduate student who taught in a school district heavily impacted by Hurricane Katrina. She surveyed a sample of kindergarten teachers in the district to determine how they were responding in the aftermath of Katrina. The voices of teachers reflect…

Throughout the past two decades there has been a move away from educating children with disabilities in segregated schools to adopting a more inclusive approach within mainstream schools in all jurisdictions in Australia. This research identifies the concerns of 228 regular class teachers in Western Australia who have all been involved with the…

Teachers are facing an increasing number of changes in their job context, many of which significantly affect their work lives. This study offers a theoretical understanding of the changes in teachers' working conditions, starting from the intensification thesis. The case study of a Flemish (Belgian) elementary school shows the existence of various…

Research supports teacher preparation programs to recognize stress factors and to assist students and new teachers with effective coping mechanisms. Twenty-five to fifty percent of beginning teachers resign during their first three years of teaching (Fleener, 2001; Roulston, Legette, & Womack, 2005). Among all the causes, stress from teaching is…

This digest discusses why special education teachers may become stressed by role overload and lack of autonomy, and presents strategies for successfully managing stresses related to teaching. Strategies include: (1) setting realistic expectations; (2) making distinctions between job and personal life; (3) finding ways to exercise professional…

This research synthesis reviews the negative effects of teacher stress, focusing on teachers in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific. It describes teaching techniques for reducing these detrimental effects and discusses the relevance of such techniques within the cultures of the Pacific region. Section 1 describes what stress is. Section 2 examines the…

This article discusses teacher burnout which scholars define as a condition caused by depersonalization, exhaustion, and a diminished sense of accomplishment. A psychological model of how stress leads to burnout describes it as a syndrome resulting from teachers' inability to protect themselves against threats to their self esteem and well-being.…

This paper summarizes research on both organizational and individual characteristics positively correlated to teacher stress. Organizational characteristics are time constraints, workload, job demands, role conflict, role ambiguity, income, resources, class size, administrative bureaucracy, autonomy/participation in decision making, collegiality,…

This book offers insights on and techniques for dealing with emotional demands in the classroom, noting how highly effective teachers deal with such demands and how they gain help and support from their colleagues and administrators. Based on extensive interviews with educators and others nationwide, the book explains what gives them energy, how…

Through the extensive use of teachers' reports, the many and varied stresses endured by teaching staff and their reactions to them are identified. In focusing on the dual problem of reducing pressures on teaching staff and strengthening their coping resources, this book calls attention to a series of issues within education. Chapters are devoted…