International Publishers 2014

Building Resilience to cope with the Teaching Challenges

by Dr. Theodora Papadopoulou

The new academic year is flirting us and another educational trip is about to begin for both teachers and students. The excitement and desire for exploration is also accompanied by the anxiety of reaching the high expectations that all parties have set for themselves.

Younger students are eager to have a great time with their peers in a safe school environment that offers unconditional support every time they need it whereas older ones remain focused on successfully passing the exams and receiving the certificates they so eagerly want.

Both parents and teachers seek ways to increase students’ commitment to their goals without leading them to emotional and psychical burn out. What is worth considering though is that educators and most particularly the new ones, are also threatened by physical and emotion exhaustion. The aim of this article is to identify how internal strengths and external strategies promote teacher resilience.

It is very important to sustain the teachers’ commitment and reduce teacher s’ attrition throughout the academic year.

Let’s start by exploring the resilience process for every individual. According to Richardson, Neiger, Jensen and Kumpfer (1990), the resilient process is a function of conscious or unconscious choice. It is explained as an interaction with the environment and making a choice to reintegrate with resilience back to a state of stability or to continue in a state of uncertainty. This means that people have a choice -consciously or unconsciously- of how their reactions to the various disruptions of life will shape their future. The coping process or “resilience” could result in growth, knowledge and self- understanding or possibly not.

Masten (1994) underlines that the term “resiliency” carries the implication of a

personality trait. We should bear in mind that the conceptions regarding resilience as a process are emerging from various scientific fields such as psychiatry, psychology and sociology. The idea of resilience as a process, that people can learn to bounce back from negative life experiences, is a fairly new approach. It challenges people and educators in particular to focus on strengths instead of deficits.

Many of us keep wondering whether all individuals are able to engage themselves into a resilience building process.

It seems that when an individual of any age encounters adversity, he/she

experiences individual and environmental protective aspects that buffer against adversity.

With enough “protection”, the individual adapts to that adversity without experiencing a significant disruption in his/her life (Silliman, 1998).

The individual stays within a comfort zone or moves to a level of increased

resilience because of the emotional strength and healthy coping mechanisms developed in the process of overcoming the adversity. It should be noted that without the necessary protection, an individual may go through a process of psychological disruption. It is well known that stress evokes tension. Thus, the psychological changes that accompany stress reactions lead to a disruption in life (Flach, 1997). Over time the individual incorporates the processes from that disruption. The availability though of personal and environmental protective factors may govern the type of behaviours incorporated. Richardson et al., 1990, believe that positive or negative behaviour assimilation is just the process of life.

The resilient individual, throughout the various stages of life, develops problem solving skills. That means that resilient people are aware of how to find and use information to solve problems. When they face various  difficulties in life, they employ a problem solving model in order to determine alternatives for dealing with their dilemma (Jones, 2003).

According to Wolin and Wolin (1993), internal resiliencies are: initiative, independence, insight, relationship, humour, creativity, and morality.

Henderson and Milstein (2003) indicate there are also individual internal

protective practices that promote resiliency-facilitating behaviours.

These behaviours are:

• Gives of self in service to others and /or a cause

• Uses life skills, including good decision making, assertiveness, impulse

    control, and problem solving

• Has ability to be a friend, ability to form positive relationships

• Has sense of humour

• Has self discipline

• Has independence

• Has positive view of personal future

• Has flexibility

• Has capacity for and connection to learning

• Has self-motivation

• Has personal competence, is “good at something”

• Has feelings of self-worth and self-confidence

An understanding of how adults exposed to both personal and work-related

stress bounce back is a relatively new but very interesting field of study. It is proved though that the process of resilience building in adults is similar to the one for children (Richardson et al., 1990).  Benard (1991) characterizes resilient children as socially competent, with life skills such as problem solving, critical thinking and the ability to take initiative. Resilient children usually have special interests, goal directedness and motivation to achieve in both school and in life (Benard, 1991).

Higgins (1994) characterizes resilient adults similarly. According to Maddi and Khoshaba (2005) resilience could be learned in adulthood. They state that resilience is not just an ability one is born with, but something all people can learn and improve. This, of course, opens a new window to the role of parents, educators and society itself.

There are six consistent strategy themes -bonding, boundaries, life skills, support, high expectations, and meaningful opportunities- that show how schools as well as families and communities can provide both the environmental protective factors and the conditions that foster individual protective factors. Educational organisations of all kinds must have practices that operate to build resilience by enhancing a sense of inner self, which in turn allows the individual to build the skills needed for engagement with the outer world (Robinson, 2000).

The question is whether the beginning teacher who faces situational hazards is able to build resilience. Traits such as good self-esteem, adaptability and achievement goals do act as buffering strategies.

Another equally important factor that helps teachers to build resilience is the positive feedback and relationships that they receive and build with students, parents, and fellow colleagues. The relationship support that teachers receive helps them build a sources of confidence, motivation, and self-efficacy. (Milner, 2002).

The feeling of being an effective educator is being challenged by multiple factors. All educators, and most particularly EFL teachers, face serious challenges throughout the academic year.  Not only do they have to work long hours including out of school preparation and the creation of extra curriculum  material in order to make their lessons appealing and effective to students, but also cope with all they types of difficulties students may encounter. Learning differences, cultural diversities and negative learning and personal experiences are some of the challenges that educators have to successfully cope with.  What is more, they must successfully cooperate and communicate with colleagues and parents. For all the reasons mentioned above, they should build strong resilience in order to sustain their passion and desire for work even in a  not very fruitful work environment.

Since for some researchers, resilience is no longer considered an innate trait, but a process that happens through an interaction between the individual and the environment, it would be wise to encourage teachers to take ownership of their behaviour and become more resilient in order to avoid burn out. The obstacles will never cease to exist in any field and the chaotic nature of life is definitely going to continue.

Teachers need to develop strategies for resilience in order to enable themselves to thrive in difficult environments and continue being role models for their students. On top of everything, we should not forget that resilient teachers  can  create resilient students both in school and in life.

References

Benard, B. (1991). Fostering resiliency in kids: Protective factors in the family, school, and community. San Francisco: Western Regional Educational Laboratory.

Flach, F. (1997). Resilience: The power to bounce back when the going gets tough! New York: Hatherleigh Press.

Jones, J. (2003). Building resiliency. Retrieved in August, 2011 from

http://www.askdrjami.org/resiliency/resiliency.html.

Johnson, S. (2006). The workplace matters: Teacher quality, retention, and effectiveness. Washington DC: National Education Association.

Maddi, S.R., & Khoshaba, D.M (2005). Resilience at work. New York: AMACOM. American Management Association.

Milstein, M.M., & Farkas, J. (1988). The overstated case of educator stress. Journal of Educational Administration, 26, 232-249.

Wolin, S.J. (2004). Presenting a resilience paradigm for teachers. In H.Waxman, Y. Padron, & J. Gray (Ed). Educational resiliency: Student, teacher, and school perspectives (pp. 189-204). Greenwich, C: Information Age Publishing.

'Παράγοντες Κινδύνου για την Ψυχοκοινωνική Ανάπτυξη του Παιδιού'
Από τον κύριο Ανδρέα Χαμουζά, Παιδοψυχίατρο- Ψυχοθεραπευτή

Βρείτε μας και στο Facebook : Φίλοι Ψυχικής Υγείας Παιδιού και Εφήβου
 
Ως παράγοντες επικινδυνότητας ορίζουμε εκείνους τους παράγοντες που η παρουσία τους θα αυξήσει την πιθανότητα σε ένα παιδί να παρουσιάσει μια συναισθηματική διαταραχή ή ένα πρόβλημα συμπεριφοράς σε σχέση με άλλα παιδιά στο γενικό πληθυσμό. Οι παράγοντες αυτοί γενικότερα είναι σε θέση να εμποδίσουν την πορεία προς την ψυχική υγεία του παιδιού και συνεπώς του ενήλικα.

Κάποιες ερευνητικές προσπάθειες προτείνουν έναν διαχωρισμό των παραγόντων κινδύνου για την ομαλή ανάπτυξη του παιδιού σε β ι ο λ ο γ ι κ ο ύ ς και π ε ρ ι β α λ λ ο ν τ ι κ ο ύ ς . Το σύνολο των παραγόντων αυτών λαμβάνεται υπόψιν προκειμένου να σχεδιαστεί ένα πρόγραμμα π ρ ώ ι μ ω ν π α ρ ε μ β ά σ ε ω ν . Ειδικότερα, υποστηρίζεται ότι η ύπαρξη οποιουδήποτε συνδιασμού παραγόντων κινδύνου είναι αποφασιστικής σημασίας ώστε να επιβάλλει την ανάπτυξη προγραμμάτων παρέμβασης.

Πρόσκληση σε Προβολή ταινίας