Teaching Under Pressure to D.B.C

Teaching Under Pressure To D.B.C. with love, affection and gratitude Teaching Under Pressure: Looking at primary teachers' stress Anne D. Cockburn Teaching makes many immense demands on the mind and feel ings of the teacher. Tbere is constant danger of overload, and the teacher must be aware of the hazards of personal stress. (Laar, 1989, p.42) With illustrations by Peter Kent I~ ~?io~f!;n~~:up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1996 by RoutledgeFalmer Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright© A.D. Cockburn 1996 Copyright © Cover artwork and illustrations by Peter Kent, 1996 The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. A catalogue record of this publication is available from the British library ISBN 9780750705035 (hbk) ISBN 9780750705042 (pbk) library of Congress cataloging-in-Publication Data are available on request Jacket design by Caroline Archer Typeset in 11/13 pt Garamond by Graphicraft Typesetters Ltd., Hong Kong Contents Introduction and Acknowledgments 1 SECTION I: Understanding and Tackling Stress 1 Sussing Out Stress 7 Introduction 7 Types of Stress 7 Unravelling Our Stress 8 Stress Strategies 10 Summary 21 A Challenge 22 Further Reading 22 SECTION II: Challenges in Teaching 2 Starting Out 27 Introduction 27 Before the Classroom Door 28 Early Days 36 Discussion 43 Summary 45 Further Reading 47 3 Classroom Stresses 48 'Smile Please' 48 Classrooms 50 Planning 51 Teaching 53 Control and Discipline 57 Help in the Classroom 62 A Veritable Juggling Act 63 After School 65 Some Final Comments 68 V Contents Summary 69 Further Reading and References 70 4 Sta.ffrooms, Colleagues and Friends 72 Staffrooms 72 Working Relationships 73 Dissecting the Distance between Colleagues 75 The Value of Good Relationships 78 In Times of Difficulty 81 Follow-up Questions 82 Further Reading and References 83 5 The Trials and Tribulations of Senior Staff 84 Early Days 84 On Being a Deputy Headteacher 87 Some Headteachers' Priorities 89 The Stresses and Strains of Being a Headteacher 90 Tried and Tested 96 Headteachers and Teachers 100 Concluding Remarks 108 Summary 109 Further Reading and References 110 6 The Challenges of Time 111 'The Race is On' 111 Time to Understand: You as a Human Being 113 Time to Understand: You as a Teacher 115 Summary 124 Further Reading and References 126 7 Change and Control 127 Some Thoughts on Why Change can be Stressful 128 Potential Problems with Imposed Change 130 The National Curriculum and Change 133 Strategies to Ease Innovations and Change 135 A Couple of Reflections 139 Summary 140 Further Reading and References 140 SECflON ill: Life Beyond Teaching 8 Life Beyond Teaching 145 Rivers and Waterfalls 145 Vi Contents Hemispheres Apart 146 Teacher-learner, Parent-child 147 Body, Mind and Soul 149 Postscript 152 Further Reading and References 153 Useful Addresses 154 vii Introduction and Acknowledgments It is to teachers that we entrust our children and thus our future. (Farber, 1991, p.44) I would assume that it was more stressful than any other job if we're talking about stress being the non-stop demands on you all day long. (Joan, a reception teacher) This is a book about teachers and the trials and tribulations they face in daily life. It is not full of tales of woe nor, I am afraid, is it the definitive answer to all your problems. Much of it, however, is derived from practising teachers' actions, feelings and thoughts. Some of it you may have heard before, some of it will be entirely new and some of it you may dismiss out of hand. Nevertheless I hope that there is a strong possibility that - for you - it will have succeeded in at least one, if not all, of its three aims: 1 It provides snippets of conversations and text with which you can identify. 2 It introduces possibilities to you, which you may later reject, but which stimulate your thinking towards finding a solution to some of the stresses and strains in your life. 3 It encourages you to explore, and gain greater insight into, what it means to you to be a human being and a teacher. The book is primarily intended for student teachers, beginning teachers, more experienced teachers and their senior colleagues. It may be seen as a quick skim read. It is also intended to be a more de manding book which invites you to explore yourself, your life and your situation. Although my name appears on the front cover of Teaching Under Pressure the voices of many of your colleagues are found throughout. Some arose as a result of in-depth discussions about teacher stress 1 Teaching Under Pressure while others stem from casual remarks made in staffrooms, corridors or yet another professional meeting! All the comments are confidential and therefore, not surprisingly, teachers' names - and sometimes their situations - have been changed. In my view, there is no such person as a 'typical' teacher but, rest assured, the teachers represented here - although unique and talented individuals - are not unusual. Some are young: some are old. Some are highly experienced: others are less so. Some are female but, perhaps a surprising number, are male. Some are noisy, confident extroverts while others are calmer, more placid in troverts. Some are headteachers: some are deputies or standard scale teachers. All work extremely hard and - although none appear to be experiencing severe stress - all consider teaching to be a highly de manding and stressful profession. In brief the teachers are like thousands of others throughout the country. The book is divided into three main sections. The first, 'Under standing and Tackling Stress', is a general introduction to the notion of stress which may provide a useful framework for you when reading later chapters. It is not, however, necessary for you to begin with it as all the chapters are, in essence, free standing. The second and largest section, 'Challenges in Teaching', considers aspects of teachers' pro fessional lives which are often particularly demanding and which fre quently induce feelings of stress. The third section, 'Life Beyond Teaching', focuses on the broader issues of life and realizing your po tential as we head towards the twenty-first century. It is never easy writing such a book because it is difficult to get the tone right and pitch it at an appropriate level for everyone. The truth be known it is impossible but, nevertheless, I hope that to some extent I have succeeded in making the book accessible, but not patronizing; valid, but not tediously familiar; and relevant, but not impractical. To achieve these ends I have many people to thank: • First and foremost, the many teachers and students who gave of their valuable time to tell me about the stresses and strains in their lives and ways they have tried to alleviate the effects of negative stress. It was a privilege to hear of your personal and professional lives in such detail. • I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Nuffield Foundation who gave me a grant to undertake this research. • Grateful thanks are also due to my parents, Richard, Daphne, Anna and Simone for providing useful material and advice. • And, finally, I would like to thank Liz White and Peter Kent for 2 Introduction and Acknowledgments converting an illegible scrawl with some vague ideas into a highly professional text with most apposite illustrations. Anne D. Cockburn July 1995 Reference FARBER, B.A. 0991) Crisis in Education, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. 3 SECTION I Understanding and Tackling Stress This section focuses on stress in general terms. It considers the types of negative stress we most commonly experience and explores a variety of strategies for coping with the stresses and strains in our everyday lives. 1 Sussing Out Stress Children and teachers are not plastic and cannot be moulded ... They mould themselves from what they are and from what they wish to become in the context of the opportunities and con straints they experience. (Hutchinson, 1989, p.160) Introduction Stress can be positively good for you. Indeed, without a certain amount of stress in our lives, most of us would die of boredom. Imagine a world without the excitement of falling in love, the pleasures of the first spring day, the laughter of a joyous moment, or the thrill of ... (flying/ sailing/driving at high speeds or whatever else turns you on). What a tedious place it would be! Stress - or 'distress' as it is often perceived - can, however, present real problems for many people. In this chap ter we will explore the nature of negative stress and begin to examine some of the ways in which it can be alleviated. Types of Stress It seems to me that there are five main categories of stress. Differenti ating between them can provide a useful starting point for analysing the negative aspects of stress in our lives. The first, and most obvious, is that you find yourself in a situation - an examination, a heated argument or dangling over the side of a cliff, for example - which proves stressful for you. In shorthand this could be considered 'here and now stress'. A second type of stress is a reaction to an anticipated event. The thought of a parents' evening, a driving test or a parachute jump, for example, might send you into a panic. In other words it is the 'stress of anticipation'.

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