Success Strategies Developed for Nations Stressed-Out Teachers (Cont.)
by Marli Murphy
On a mission to motivate
For the past seven years, King has been on a mission to motivate and encourage teachers, to keep them in the profession by helping them reclaim their passion for teaching. Using large doses of humor and inspirational stories, he conducts teacher in-service and staff development programs for school districts across the country, leads workshops and gives keynote addresses at state and national education conferences.
"During my 20-plus years as a teacher, I realized the profound impact a teacher's enthusiasm and expectations had on student performance and achievement," King explains. Staying motivated and upbeat in the classroom is key to a teacher's effectiveness in teaching and reaching students, he believes.
"(Teachers) may have the least effective administrator, they may have a falling down school, but when they close that classroom door, they still have the power to be excited and enthusiastic and to connect with those kids," he says.
Drawing on his experience as a high school business teacher, guidance counselor and middle school administrator, King has developed "The 6 Dynamic Strategies of Highly Successful Teachers," which is at the core of his teacher training. His "blueprint for teacher success" was recently published in a book he authored called Teaching - Take This Job & Love It!! (Insight Publishing Company, 2001).
6 success strategies for teachers
King's success strategies for teachers include:
- Unleash your personal power with a dynamic self-image.
- Change your thoughts and you can change your life.
- Strangle stress and extinguish the fires of teacher burnout.
- Touch their hearts before you teach their minds.
- Motivate every student with enthusiasm and high expectations.
- Create a dynamic classroom of excellence and excitement.
"My desire is to go beyond classroom strategy, to inspire and motivate teachers by giving them tools to manage teacher stress and job burnout," King explains.
Recognizing stress triggers
Teachers have responded well to all six of his strategies, King says, but weary heads perk up particularly when he shares insight on battling on-the-job stress. Teachers are often so over-scheduled that they fail even to recognize the causes or triggers of their stress.
At school, for example, stress triggers may include recent events, such as major changes in policies or procedures, requirements to work more hours than normal, sudden increases in the activity level or pace of work. Occurrences that have nothing to do with school can also trigger stress in the classroom, King notes, and the Sept. 11 national tragedy is a prime example. Teachers throughout the country experienced enormous stress while trying to comfort confused, grieving students and to deal with their own shock and sadness.
Other stress triggers at school can relate to ongoing conditions, such as lack of feedback and support from administrators, high noise levels, uncomfortable temperature in the classroom, disruptive students, conflicts with students or fellow teachers and unclear standards and expectations.
These stress triggers teachers experience at school are in addition to those they have in their personal lives, King notes. "I remind teachers that stress at home does affect their performance in the classroom."
The Number 1 point he makes about stress and teaching: It's a teacher's perspective of a situation - not the situation itself - that is the deciding factor in his or her stress level. "It's how you see things that results either in endless, energy-draining worry, or just concern about a situation," he adds.
Dangers of unchecked teacher stress
Although teachers are generally well aware of their high stress level, most seem shocked to learn the serious consequences that unmanaged stress can take on their health, their mental frame of mind, and their classroom effectiveness, says King.
He cites the following statistics about stress:
- 90 percent of all teachers say they experience stress at least two to four times a week.
- Stress contributes to 8 of the top 10 causes of death among Americans and has surpassed the common cold as the most prevalent health problem in the U.S.
- About 65 percent of patient visits to family physicians or internists are not related to medical diseases but are due to symptoms caused by stress.
- 95 percent of all tension headaches are caused by stress.
"The personal toll stress takes on teachers is dramatic!" he says. In addition to the effect of stress on teachers' health, some of the consequences of not properly managing stress include absenteeism, inadequate time spent preparing lessons, less patience assisting students who need one-on-one help and strained family and personal relationships.
10 ways to combat teacher stress
King offers teachers 10 proven strategies for reducing their specific variety of stress.
1. Take action necessary to solve problems at school and at home; don't procrastinate.
Unsolved problems cause needless worry, stress and frustration, King explains. The longer a teacher - or anyone else - puts off solving a problem, the bigger that problem grows in the person's mind and the more stressful the situation becomes.
2. Be flexible and go with the flow.
"During my first year of teaching I met a teacher on our faculty who was so structured he would mentally 'lose it' when we had a fire drill. He allowed something as small as one 10-15 minute time segment to completely blow him out of the water the rest of the day," King relates. Teachers can reduce stress levels substantially by recognizing that unexpected things will happen, particularly in a profession where you spend your day with kids! "Learn to adjust," he advises.
3. Don't take it personally.
Not every administrator will like your teaching style. Not every parent will like your teaching philosophy. Not every student will like your sense of humor. "Everyone is not going to like everything you do or say," King notes. "It doesn't mean you're a failure. It's just their opinion."
4. Use the 5-5-5 Guideline for worry.
<< Previous Page || Next Page >>King points out that according to psychologists, some 80 percent of the items on our "worry list" shouldn't be there because a) we can't do anything about the situation, or b) the situation we're worrying won't happen. So he recommends that when teachers begin to worry about something, they ask themselves "In 5 weeks, 5 months or 5 years, will worrying about this really make any difference in my life?" Usually, the answer is no.