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STRESS MANAGEMENT MANUAL FOR K-8 TEACHERS A Project Presented to the Faculty of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts In Education By Wendy Hang 2018 SIGNATURE PAGE PROJECT: STRESS MANAGEMENT MANUAL FOR K-8 TEACHERS AUTHOR: Wendy Hang DATE SUBMITTED: Spring 2018 Education Department Dr. Nancy Prince-Cohen, PhD. Project Committee Chair College of Education and Integrative Studies Eva M. Wong Elementary Education, M.A. Teacher, Ramona School Alhambra Unified School District Thao H. Ly Math Education, M.A. Teacher, Brightwood School Alhambra Unified School District ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not be completed without the support and guidance from a very special group of people. First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Prince-Cohen for helping me complete this project. I would not have been able to do this without your guidance, support, and emails. Thank you for pushing me and for believing in me. I would like to thank my husband, Kenny, for taking one for the team and holding down the fort for us while I completed this project. Thank you for allowing me to pursue this degree and for giving me the time and space I needed. You stepped up and made sure that Kaylie and Milton were taken care of and lifted a lot off of my shoulders during these past two years. I appreciate and love you! Thank you to my parents for supporting me and for always believing in me. I am so thankful that you both were able to take care of Kaylie and changed your schedules around so that I can do homework, go to work, or go to class. I love you both so much. To my editors, Roger and Roddy, thank you for reading my papers. I am thankful that I was able to work alongside the both of you. Last but not least, I want to dedicate this project to my daughter, Kaylie. You are my everything and my motivation to get this project done. I love you so much! iii ABSTRACT This project focused on stress management and K-8 teachers. It presented a handbook of strategies to help prevent and reduce teacher stress and burnout using peer reviewed research and best practices as discussed in Chapter Two of the project. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements........................................................................................................iii Abstract .........................................................................................................................iv Chapter One: Introduction……………………………………………………………...…1 Rationale……………………………………………………………………..……1 Purpose…………………………………………………………………….1 Need……………………………………………………………………….1 Background………………………………………………..………………2 Methodology………………………………………………………………………4 Scope………………………………………………………………………………5 Chapter Two: Review of Literature……………………………………………………….6 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..6 Content……………………………….....................................................................6 Causes and symptoms of teacher stress and burnout……………………...6 Identifying teacher stress and burnout………………………….....6 Emotional exhaustion in teachers…………………………………7 Teacher stress and physical health……………………………......9 Teacher stress and effectiveness………………………………....10 Teacher efficacy……………………………………………….... 12 Mental health of stressed teachers…………………………….....13 v Depersonalization……………………………………………......14 Teacher workload and long work hours………………………….15 Personal achievement…………………………………………….16 Stress Prevention and Strategies…………………………………………17 Classroom climate and organization……………………………..17 Teacher collaboration………………………………………….....18 Social support for stressed teachers………………………….......19 Goal setting for teachers…………………………………………20 Aromatherapy……………………………………………………21 Music…………………………………………………………..…21 Meditation and relaxation……………………………………......23 Yoga………………………………………………………….......23 Time awareness and time management………………………….24 Sleep………………………………………………………….......25 Mentor and administrative support………………………………26 Asking for help…………………………………………………..27 Technology and social media…………………………………….27 Professional development………………………………………..28 Format………………………………………………………………………...….29 Chapter Three: Methodology…………………………………………………………….33 Target Population………………………………………………………………...33 Content…………………………………………………………………………...33 Format……………………………………………………………………………33 vi Chapter Four: Conclusion………………………………………………………………..34 References……………………………………………………………………………….35 Part Two: Project………………………………………………………………………...43 vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Rationale Purpose. The purpose of this project was to create a workload management handbook to help prevent and manage stress in elementary school teachers. Need. In 2015, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Badass Teachers Association collaborated on a survey for educators on their quality of worklife and the findings showed that teachers often felt stressed. According to the survey that included over 30,000 teachers, 73% of those teachers often found work to be stressful (American Federation of Teachers [AFT], 2015). Of the eight sources of stressors found at the workplace that were identified by the survey, the source that teachers reported to have the most impact on stress was the “adoption of new initiatives without proper training of professional development” (AFT, 2015). In addition to improper training, the teachers reported to have “increased the amount of time they spend on work outside their job” (AFT, 2015). When asked what could have been done to improve the workplace, a teacher in the survey responded, “Teachers should be treated with respect in every way. When decisions are made or when problems arise, teachers should not be dumped on. This testing season has been one of the worst experiences in my professional life” (AFT, 2015). Teachers in the survey reported that they did not have adequate time to finish their job within the school day and did not have support to implement new initiatives by their school district. Two years after the initial survey was released, a second survey was administered and the results did not show improvement. The updated 2017 survey showed that more 1 teachers were feeling stressed. The new study found that 58% of the teachers reported that their mental health was “not good” for seven or more days in a 30 day period. This was a 24 percent jump from the 2015 survey. (American Federation of Teachers, 2017) In addition to the same stressors that were reported in the previous survey, teachers reported they still do not feel respected because of the lack of influence or control in decisions that had a big impact in their classrooms. According to the 2017 survey, teachers reported that they “did not have control over setting discipline policy, setting performance standards, and deciding how resources were spent.” (AFT, 2017) The findings in both of these AFT surveys show that teachers have continued to be stressed. It is because of these findings that something has to be done to alleviate and prevent stress in teachers. Background. Work related burnout had been studied since the 1960’s and 1970’s with Herbert J. Freudenberger (1977) being credited as the first one to use the term. Freudenberger was a psychoanalyst and had used the term to describe the patients under his care. As Freudenberger described in his article, Burn-Out: The Organizational Menace, “…one of the first signs of burn-out in a member of an organization is that he or she works harder and harder, longer and longer, yet in reality appears to be accomplishing less and less” (Freudenberger, 1977, p. 26). He noted that many of the men and women had gone into their jobs with high interest but later on in their careers, the patients found themselves to be “fatigued, depressed, irritable, bored, and overworked” (Freudenberger, 1977, p. 26). Educators had also reported a similar loss of interest in their job. In a survey conducted by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) called the Quality of Worklife Survey, 89% of teachers surveyed reported that they felt enthusiastic about their profession at the start of their careers. However, only 2 15% of the same group of teachers maintained their level enthusiasm (American Federation of Teachers, 2015). Over two decades after Freudenberger’s research of burnout, Christina Maslach (1981) created the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to measure burnout using three components that consisted of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and decreased personal achievement (Maslach, 1981). Maslach’s inventory has shed light on work related burnout to many different fields of work, including the teaching profession. The three components of the original survey have been beneficial to identify teachers with stress. In 1986, an adaptation of the survey, the MBI-Educators Survey (MBI-ES) was created specifically for educators (Jackson, Maslach, Schwab, 1986). Maslach’s educator survey was created over 20 years ago and teachers are still reporting signs of stress. Two years after the initial AFT survey was conducted, a follow up survey was completed in 2017. There was an increase in the number of teachers reporting burnout since the 2015 survey. In the first survey, 34% of teachers reported stress. That number increased to 58% in the second survey (American Federation of Teachers, 2017). With more emphasis on the growing number of teachers reporting burnt out, there have been attempts to remedy and prevent the problem. In 1999, the

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