Enlighten Me

Eddie Sanchez (00:00:07):
Hey, this is Eddie Sanchez.

Rodney Crouther (00:00:08):
This is Rodney Crouther.

Eddie Sanchez (00:00:09):
And you are now listening to Enlighten Me. Rodney, here we are at the end of April moving into May, school year's almost over. I think everybody's kind of ready for summer break.

Rodney Crouther (00:00:21):
Yeah, I was out on the Quad yesterday and you could definitely see the students' body language. They're ready for summer to start.

Eddie Sanchez (00:00:28):
And really, I don't think it's just the students.

Rodney Crouther (00:00:32):
Oh no. I'm sure a lot of the teachers at every level, not just higher ed, are ready for a break.

Eddie Sanchez (00:00:39):
It's not just an opportunity for students to get rest, but our educators, right. Everybody working from higher ed, pre-K through 12. I know it can be tiring some for teachers.

Rodney Crouther (00:00:49):
Yeah. I think everybody, teachers, professors, students, parents, everybody's kind of feeling the need for summer to hurry up and get here.

Eddie Sanchez (00:00:57):
Yeah. You get burned out. The reality is you can get burned out working in education and dealing with all of the issues that arise with that sort of field. And so for this month, Rodney, that was one of the topics that we want to cover was teacher burnout. There's been a lot of talk on the news.

Rodney Crouther (00:01:16):
Definitely even before the pandemic. I think that was starting to be a real nationwide concern.

Eddie Sanchez (00:01:22):
Yeah, exactly. And considering that Texas State produces the most teachers, the university produces the most teachers in Texas, I think it's really relevant that we discuss this because there's so many faculty members doing work.

Rodney Crouther (00:01:34):
So who did you find to talk to?

Eddie Sanchez (00:01:36):
So I actually had an opportunity to talk to Dean from the College of Education, a couple of our faculty, and an ex-teacher who was in the field for 14 years.

Rodney Crouther (00:01:44):
So view from right in the classroom there.

Sarah (00:01:56):
My name is Sarah and I am a former teacher that specialized in special education in the Central Texas area.

Eddie Sanchez (00:02:09):
All right Sarah. Well thank you for being here with us this evening. So you are a former teacher and I have a stat that I want to read to you and just to kind of kick off the conversation and get your insight, your opinion on that. So there was a survey conducted back in February and I believe it was 6,000 teachers that were surveyed, 6,000 Texas teachers that were surveyed and two-thirds of those said that they wanted to leave education. What do you think of that stat?

Sarah (00:02:39):
Well, I agree with that stat. I was one of those teachers, and I saw it. I saw in the, I taught for 14 years and I saw every year —

Eddie Sanchez (00:02:49):
That was a good amount of time.

Sarah (00:02:50):
Yeah, every year, teachers leaving until it was me.

Eddie Sanchez (00:02:56):
What grade levels did you teach?

Sarah (00:02:57):
Yeah, I started in special education, so I did that for seven years. I was primarily inclusion resource and then I moved to the autism population and then my last seven years was in the general education classroom, second grade, but I had the inclusion classroom, so I had students with disabilities in my classroom.

Eddie Sanchez (00:03:21):
And from what I'm aware of, I know that there's always limited resources and then even for those classes it's even much more challenging. Is that right?

Sarah (00:03:30):
Yeah, absolutely. There's not enough bodies for the amount of needs that the students have. The amount of room clears we would have because we didn't have enough support in the classroom. That was a big one. We just didn't have the funds and the personnel to serve that population. However, I will say I feel like my school district and my school was one of the better funded areas of Texas, and so I know it's even worse in other places.

Rodney Crouther (00:04:09):
What does she think is the major issue here?

Sarah (00:04:13):
I don't think it's one issue. I think part of it is funding. I don't think teachers make enough money for the amount of work that they have to do. I think teachers are starting to realize that they are asked to do a lot in the, it's not even 40 hours a week, let's be honest. It's 7:30—

Eddie Sanchez (00:04:44):
It's almost like 24/7 type of thing.

Sarah (00:04:46):
It really is. It's not enough money for the amount of work and time that goes into it and there's not enough resources to alleviate some of those difficult things about the day to day. So going to school for eight hours a day and dealing with students and adults and parents and then feeling that burnout when you go home and still having to do lesson plans and grade papers and do trainings. There just wasn't enough there. So I don't think there's one issue. I think there's multiple issues.

Rodney Crouther (00:05:27):
So was it just like an accumulation of everything or was there just a final moment that led her to leave teaching?

Eddie Sanchez (00:05:33):
So I think throughout the years she had had her challenges, but there was definitely a moment that arose further in her career that really made her question whether or not she could continue teaching.

Sarah (00:05:44):
It's called the Reading Academy and it was a house bill and it required all teachers to complete this training. For us, it was virtual, it was a blended learning style where we were doing modules online and then we would have to submit our evidence. And it was all on our own time and my group of teachers was the second round of it. So the first round teachers all said that it took them double what they said it was going to take. So instead of 60 hours, it took them 120 hours to do, all on your own time, and you were not paid to do it. So it wasn't a travel thing or paying for something, but you were required to work without pay.

Eddie Sanchez (00:06:32):
I mean that's like a month's work of pay and you're not really reaping any benefit from that aside from—

Sarah (00:06:38):
No, keeping your certification.

Eddie Sanchez (00:06:40):
Keeping your certification.

Sarah (00:06:42):
So that was my straw. I decided that was the hill I was going to die on and I was not going to be doing that training. I couldn't find the time to do that training with children of my own and a job to do, and I just didn't do it. It was a very difficult decision for me because I have children who are elementary school aged and I was working in an elementary school, so I was giving up being with them on the day to day and being on the same schedule as them.

Eddie Sanchez (00:07:17):
Throughout those 14 years, I'm sure that you had your ups and your downs and those moments where you've figured out how to maybe better balance it at times. Are there any tips or strategies that you might be able to give a brand new teacher coming into this that's gung ho, and they want to do? They want to do right, because it's an important job.

Sarah (00:07:38):
It is because my knee jerk reaction is run, but I also have children and I want them to have teachers who are good at their jobs and I want them to have teachers who are passionate about their jobs. My advice is set boundaries, and it's hard to, I want to say work the 7: 30 to 3:30, turn off your notifications, go home when you're not being paid anymore. But that's hard to do with the amount of work that you have to do as a teacher. So I guess my advice would be to set as many boundaries as you can and have a life outside of school. Don't take it home with you. Find ways to do it during your school day.

Eddie Sanchez (00:08:34):
If you had a wishlist, if you could sit in front of all the superintendents of all the districts in Texas and tell them, "Hey, this is the thing that needs to change. These are the things that need to change." What would you say?

Sarah (00:08:47):
Pay teachers more. Hire more people to take some of the workload off of teachers or at least reduce the classroom sizes. Less students to work with means less parents to email, means less conferences to have, it means less behavior problems. And so maybe there's less burnout for that too. My last year teaching, I had 24 students in a portable, I mean that's 24 conferences I have. That's 24 parents I email and sometimes 24 responses I get. I mean it's just too much.

Eddie Sanchez (00:09:34):
Because you said portable. In my mind, I'm thinking old school, small, little portables, tiny. You're dealing with that Texas heat, the AC systems don't always work.

Sarah (00:09:42):
I could talk about that. I didn't have AC for three months in the hottest May on record. Wow. From, I didn't have it from May. And then when I came back in August, it still wasn't fixed.

Eddie Sanchez (00:09:54):
It still wasn't working.

Sarah (00:09:55):
And August and then into September, we had fans.

Eddie Sanchez (00:09:59):
How long ago did you leave education?

Sarah (00:10:01):
This is my first year, not in a classroom.

Eddie Sanchez (00:10:03):
OK. So you were at relatively recent. Are there any words of encouragement? This whole podcast has been very dismal and very sad. Yeah, unfortunate. I

Sarah (00:10:15):
Mean, I'm sad about it too. I thought I was going to be a teacher until the day I retired and it's hard. It's hard not teaching. I do believe in change. We have seen change. I mean not in education necessarily, but in other areas we've seen change. And so I hope that in the future some of these things start to remedy themselves. Once all the good teachers are gone and they need someone to teach kids their kids, then maybe then they'll start looking at the root of the problem.

Eddie Sanchez (00:10:57):
What do you think the role of higher education is in preparing teachers for the workforce?

Sarah (00:11:05):
I learned so much in college about teaching, about the rhetoric around teaching and the practices of teaching and the theories on teaching. And there was some hands-on experience, but I think more, I think more hands-on. I think seeing it for what it is and not rose-colored glasses, not necessarily to make it more difficult, but for them to see more of the behind the scenes of teaching and not just going into a classroom and teaching a lesson and getting marks on how they did, but sitting in on meetings and conferences and watching teachers do the paperwork that goes along with teaching and the lesson planning and the grading. And I mean maybe they do that, but my experience with student-teachers ’cause I've had a couple in my career is they don't see that. They see the fun part of teaching, which is why we all get into teaching.

Eddie Sanchez (00:12:12):
Are you going to miss teaching?

Sarah (00:12:14):
I miss the people I worked with. I miss seeing my kids every day, my personal children during the school day. And yes and no. I miss being around students and feeling like I'm making a big difference in someone's life. I don't miss working 70 hours a week both in a school and at home and being a shell of a human. Yes and no.

Eddie Sanchez (00:12:54):
This might be a bit personal, but do you regret doing it?

Sarah (00:12:57):
No, I don't regret it at all. I made lifelong friendships, trauma bonding as they call it, and I learned a lot about myself and what I'm capable of. And now that I am not in education and I am in the corporate world, I know how much teachers can do and I know how very undervalued they are.

Rodney Crouther (00:13:29):
That was kind of heavy, but a powerful interview, hearing that perspective from the classroom from Sarah. And I don't think a lot of people get to hear that firsthand account of what it's like to be a teacher today. I'm really hoping that we hear some possible solutions from some of our faculty experts.

Eddie Sanchez (00:13:46):
And that's exactly why I wanted to bring them in so that way they could talk about some of the research that they're doing and ways that we can better improve the situation for our public school educators.

Rodney Crouther (00:13:57):
So who did you speak to first?

Michael O'Malley (00:13:58):
I'm Michael O'Malley, Dean of the College of Education here at Texas State University and I have been at the university for 16 years.

Eddie Sanchez (00:14:07):
Dean O'Malley. The reason I brought you in today was because in our office we circulated an article about teacher burnout, and specifically here in Texas and understandably we're coming up on 125 years, we started off as a education school to create teachers. And so this is very close to home I feel. And that was really why we wanted to talk about this topic. So if you don't mind, I'd like to start off with just a quick statistic and that'll lead us into our actual conversation. So nearly 70% of the 6,000 Texas educators surveyed by the Texas American Federation of Teachers Union say that they are ready to quit their jobs. And about 75% of those respondents also reported experiencing burnout. So what are your initial thoughts or reactions to these statistics?

Michael O'Malley (00:14:59):
Well, I think it's a little bit alarming for sure. Our teachers are public servants. These are people who have chosen careers of public service. They're not our highest paid professionals in our society. They're working with our children and our youth. Texas has 5.5 million school children. And so our teachers are doing really hard work to set up their whole lives really for these students, what are going to be the possibilities and their careers as well as their personal growth. So to see that kind of statistic is alarming. I'd say Texas has about 350,000 teachers, so 6,000 completed the survey, so it's not a high percent, but what we see out of that sample is, yeah, it's disturbing.

Eddie Sanchez (00:15:45):
So from your perspective, Dean O'Malley, what role do educational institutions have in addressing these sorts of issues of educator burnout?

Michael O'Malley (00:15:53):
A lot of our work is, I guess you'd say sort of on the front end. So the university prepares teachers. We work with people who aspire to be teachers and we work with them through the time they come into the university, which might be as a first time in college student, an undergrad or a transfer undergrad, but also graduate students are coming in for initial teacher certification too. So our work is really heavy in the preparation phase and we do that initially through course work with the students here on campus. Then we start to move them out into our partnerships with school districts. So clinical experiences, I could share more about that. And then we work with them in placement and job placement. We do some work with professional development with the school districts, but our big work is getting high quality, prepared, passionate, committed teachers through excellent preparation and into their first job. We work really hard with our future teachers at Texas State and our future teachers work really hard to be what we call day one ready so that when they get to their first job as a teacher and this is their classroom and they're what we call the teacher of record, that they are completely ready to be a high quality teacher for those students for their educational needs and also their personal growth needs.

Rodney Crouther (00:17:15):
OK. So did Dr. O'Malley give some insight into how we help teachers prepare for that kind of stress and workload so they don't get burned out?

Michael O'Malley (00:17:22):
A key part of that is built into the courses, both the courses here on campus and then what we call again, the field or clinical experiences out with our school district partners. What we're really trying to do is connect students to the mission of teaching and to help them see the impact that they will have, the difference that they make for those students' trajectories and what that means for our future teachers, personal fulfillment, lifelong goals, career goals, what's the impact they want to have in the world, what's the difference that they want to make? And so I think that gets embedded throughout the courses in a sort of reflective process of how do you do this well, how do you take joy out of the impact that you're having? And also the strategies we provide to help work through difficult circumstances because teaching is really challenging. It's really demanding.

Eddie Sanchez (00:18:14):
What role do our student-teachers play in assisting with teacher burnout at the local level, and are there any strategies or anything that they're taught to help improve the situation?

Michael O'Malley (00:18:25):
We have two pathways by which we place students out in the school districts during their preparation. One we call standard student teaching. Most people are familiar with that. That's the one semester student teaching experience. And the other component we offer that we've been building up for about the last four years is called teacher residency. So teacher residency places the student in the school for an entire school year. So they're there the first day of classes. They see how the classroom's set up by the teacher, and so they're working in that classroom with their cooperating teacher and with the same students for the entire school year. They get to see the students's growth and they get to see their cooperating teacher's strategies and skill and expertise across the whole year from the first day to the last day. So they're working side by side and the cooperating teacher's providing a lot of mentoring and guidance. But I think our students also value added. Our student provides an extra educational expertise in the classroom to be able to work with students in small groups and individual learning activities as well as in the whole group instruction.

Eddie Sanchez (00:19:30):
I'm curious if the College of Education works with the school districts or policy makers to help create any sort of guidelines or infrastructure to support teacher retention and wellbeing?

Michael O'Malley (00:19:44):
I think our most fundamental strongest commitment to teacher retention and wellbeing is the quality of the preparation that the faculty here at Texas State offer. And that over the last four years, we've really elevated the way we do that in partnership with school districts. So it's not the old model anymore that you would've seen a decade ago where the students prepared at Texas State, then we shift them a little bit to student teaching and then they're out on their own. It's much more sort of that, so it used to be that sort of our student and then handoff to the district. Now we're much more collaboratively at the table with our school district partners. So what's high quality teacher preparation look like? What should their field experiences be? What are we doing in our classrooms at Texas State? How are we embedding the students through field block experiences, through teacher residency and other kind of experiences?

(00:20:36):
How are we embedding them back in the schools and the classrooms where they can also learn from our faculty, but also from current experts, the teachers in the schools. And so we all work together on that much more carefully. And I think now teacher preparation down at Texas State is a mutual partnership with the school districts where we both shape it together. And I think that has a huge impact in terms of retention. Again, teacher well-being, the teacher experience, because we're all collaborating together and we're behind these future teachers supporting them and getting them to the launch of their careers.

Rodney Crouther (00:21:14):
So is Texas State research influencing policy like at the Texas capital to help address teacher burnout and teacher resilience?

Michael O'Malley (00:21:22):
Texas State's College of Education is ready to help provide information to legislatures and their staffs. We respond when called upon. So sometimes we're asked to testify at a hearing, for example, or to provide some part of our faculty's research base. And so we have found legislatures and their staffers to be really receptive to wanting to know what's our experience. So we've shared experiences around teacher residency, for example, which has high impact on teacher readiness for day one, but also teacher retention in the profession. The school districts are reporting back sort of like an excellence with the teacher residents and readiness for that teaching that they're really excited about. So we go back into our research and we kind of help put that together and share that out as needed. There were, in the last legislative session, there were some really strong proposals to support teacher preparation and to support current teachers that did have a lot of bipartisan support. Legislation's complex. Those didn't get through that particular session. But I think there is really strong interest across the aisles in supporting our teachers and supporting our aspiring teachers. And I think and hope that those conversations will continue to move forward. And Texas State is usually ready and available to help with insight into the teacher experience and the preparation experience.

Eddie Sanchez (00:22:57):
Is there are any changes to the curriculum or adaptations that the college is considering to help alleviate some of this burnout?

Michael O'Malley (00:23:05):
I think just like the K-12 schools, we're really attentive to social emotional learning now. So how's the future teacher bring their whole person into the preparation experience? And we're really focused in terms of our faculty in receiving that whole person. So how do you support a person through their goals and their aspirations? But this preparation is really challenging. And so I think our faculty are really attentive to how do you help our students reflect on those challenging moments, particularly in their field-based training. They're in the classroom inside the school and a lot of things are going well and then they have a challenging interaction maybe with a student and they don't feel maybe they were as helpful as they could have been, and they're thinking back, what could I have done differently or how could I have helped that student? So what we try to help them with is this reflective process that lets them kind look at, OK, well what's the learning and growth opportunity for me here as a teacher? Are there ways I can go back and support that student? But also, how do I understand myself as growing in the profession? This is why they have mentors in the schools with them all the time when they're working with the students. So how can I lean on my mentor and see myself as growing and learning and not needing to be perfect all the time before I'm even a certified teacher? So I think helping them to balance that challenge to grow while also being caring and respectful for themselves and patient with themselves.

Eddie Sanchez (00:24:37):
So do you have any advice on how our average everyday Texan can better advocate for our public school teachers?

Michael O'Malley (00:24:45):
Eddie, I am so happy to get that question. This is crucial. The public needs to support teachers. Again, teachers are public servants, not highly compensated in comparison to a lot of professions. They are the experts that we need to ensure that our children and our youth are educated. They're career ready, they're college ready at the right moment, but that they're thriving, joyful human beings who have been brought up with a lot of support and support is the learning that challenges them to grow. And also all of the care and effort and expertise that helps our young learners meet those challenges. So support your teachers. Teaching is a noble profession. That's what LBJ said. LBJ was a Texas State University graduate, got his teaching certification here at Texas State and his history degree and was a teacher and he calls it a noble profession. And I think at large as a public, we need to get behind our teachers to let them know that they are valued, that they are respected, and how much that we recognize, how much we rely on our teachers and our expertise.

(00:26:03):
So there's this intangible kind of adding prestige and recognition to the profession and celebrating this that people who go into or have had long careers of 20, 25, 30 years as educators in our Texas schools, that needs to be celebrated in our local communities. But also at the same time as a public, I think we really need to advocate for reasonably important supports for teachers. Compensation is a real issue and that when we talk about teacher burnout, part of it is the amount of effort going into teaching and they're not quite seeing the similar compensation that you'll see in other professions. So the words and the images and the activities by which we support teachers are so important, but then action needs to go behind that as a society in terms of providing compensation and competitive salaries for teachers that recognize their worth.

Rodney Crouther (00:27:03):
Wow, that's a lot of information. Did he have any words of encouragement for our up-and-coming teachers or even our veteran teachers?

Eddie Sanchez (00:27:10):
Yeah, so he definitely had some positive words for our educators out there.

Michael O'Malley (00:27:14):
The first thing I would say is thank you. Thank you. We're incredibly grateful to our teachers who just makes such a difference for the well-being of the state of Texas. The work that you do as a teacher with the children and the youth in your classrooms is also strengthening families and communities and is probably the greatest asset that we have as a state. None of our faculty, none of our students here at the university would be successful in all the myriad wonderful ways that they are without the teachers that they had in K 12 schools and education. So I would say to our teachers, thank you. Please know that we see the impact that you're having on our children and families and on our society.

Eddie Sanchez (00:28:07):
We'll be right back after this.

Rodney Crouther (00:28:23):
While it's great to see how much our College of Education and leadership is focused on addressing teacher burnout, were you able to find some researchers who are working on the helping teachers cope with the day-to-day stress of managing burnout and maybe researching how that affects, because burned teachers aren't just quitting, they're still in the classroom and trying, so I'm sure they could use some help with coping.

Eddie Sanchez (00:28:44):
Yeah, I did actually, Rodney, I was able to reach out to a couple of our faculty members. I spoke with a teacher, spoke with the educator in the Department of Psychology and another in the College of Applied Arts, and they kind of came from these two different perspectives. One of them focused on early childhood education and the other one focused on higher ed education, but they both kind of tied in teacher burnout and they provided a few strategies on how teachers can better prepare themselves and deal with the day-to-day situations in the classroom and how to move beyond compassion fatigue and things of that nature.

Rodney Crouther (00:29:18):
Great. Who did you talk to first?

Priscilla Goble (00:29:20):
I'm Priscilla Goble. I'm an associate professor in Human Development and Family Science, which is in the College of Applied Arts. And I primarily study teacher-child interactions, which is affected by teacher burnout.

Eddie Sanchez (00:29:34):
We had come across an article and the statistic that stood out was a little bit shocking, and so I just wanted to read that statistic to you and then get your initial thoughts or reactions on that. Nearly 70% of the 6,000 teachers surveyed by the Texas American Federation of Teachers Unions say they're ready to quit their jobs, and about 75% of those surveyed reported experiencing burnout.

Priscilla Goble (00:30:00):
Yes. I'm not surprised.

Eddie Sanchez (00:30:02):
Could I get your—

Priscilla Goble (00:30:04):
Reaction to that?

Eddie Sanchez (00:30:05):
Yeah, could I get some thoughts on that, please?

Priscilla Goble (00:30:07):
Yeah. I think this has been an issue that is increasingly getting worse, and then with COVID, it really skyrocketed, but teachers are being asked to do more and more with less, so they have less time. They're not getting financially compensated in the ways that they should, and yet there are higher and higher expectations on what they can do or what they should be doing with students. And so it's resulting in burnout and a real problem for the field.

Eddie Sanchez (00:30:49):
Coming from your background, you have some experience with early education. Are there any strategies or initiatives that you see that could be effective in improving job satisfaction and minimizing burnout, especially amongst Texas educators?

Priscilla Goble (00:31:07):
Yeah, so that is one of my goals with my research is trying to identify factors that buffer this burnout or resiliency in teachers and their emotional exhaustion and stress as a result of their occupation. We have found that there is some efficacy in providing teachers professional development, so providing coaching or coming in and helping them with especially classroom behavior management strategies, because it is challenging behaviors of a few children that can really derail what they're there to do in the classroom. They're there to teach and help all the children grow, especially academically and socially. But when there are few children with challenging behaviors, oftentimes teachers end up spending a lot of their energy with those few children, and that can be really exhausting for them. And so giving them strategies and training and professional development to help them mitigate those challenging behaviors has shown to buffer the negative effects of the challenging behavior on their burnout. However, that being said, it's hard to get time for teachers to engage in these professional development opportunities because they're already being asked to do so much. And then if we're asking them to do professional development outside of the time that they're in the classroom and we're not compensating them for that, then it can be a real challenge to get them those services.

Eddie Sanchez (00:32:52):
What you were talking about right now, was that tied into your article, the Burnout and Teacher-Child Interactions, Moderatin Influence of SEL Interventions? It seems like that's kind of what you were talking about a little?

Priscilla Goble (00:33:03):
Yes, that is what I was talking about.

Eddie Sanchez (00:33:04):
So there was one particular term that you used in that I was curious about. So it's the SEL, right? Social-emotional learning interventions? Yes. Can you explain to us what that is?

Priscilla Goble (00:33:15):
Yes. So social-emotional learning interventions are where we're going into educators, schools and classrooms and giving them more skills to handle challenging behavior in the classroom. So sometimes we're teaching them, in that particular study, there were three different social emotional learning interventions that we were looking at. And so each one was sort of different in what they were providing the teacher in terms of training to help them manage behavior. But sometimes we're teaching teachers how to cope with their own emotions and self-regulate for themselves so that they can sort of take a deep breath, get themselves centered before helping a child in an interaction who's emotionally dysregulated. But oftentimes we're helping them understand children's behavior more and why children get triggered or become emotionally dysregulated. And then how to help children get back to an emotionally regulated place so that they can engage in the classroom activities. Because when the children are dysregulated, there's no teaching that can happen at that point.

Eddie Sanchez (00:34:27):
Seems very cyclical in the sense that obviously the child's behavior is going to affect the teacher's emotional, I guess, resolution. And then that in turn it's going to affect the children and whatnot. You had mentioned that you guys focused on three interventions in this particular study. Would you mind going into a little bit of detail on that?

Priscilla Goble (00:34:50):
Yeah, so that was a secondary data analysis of a larger national data set that was conducted with Headstart classrooms around the US and they implemented a program called Tools of the Mind, a program called Pals, and a program called Incredible Years. And each of those programs is a little bit different, but what they provided the teachers in all three of the interventions was one-on-one coaching where they would receive some training dependent on which program they were getting, and then they would have an instructional coach who would work with them to implement the strategies in the classroom and make sure that they were gaining new skills that they could apply so that they could reduce behavioral challenges in their classroom and improve their ability to engage in actual instruction. And each of them were sort of effective in different ways, and it's sort of a very big data set with many, many outcomes. But what we were looking at was if just the experience of having any intervention to support children's social-emotional learning compared to a control group that did not have any intervention, would help mitigate the effects of teachers' burnout. And it was the case. So for the teachers who did not receive any type of SEL intervention, they had more burnout by the end of the year than the teachers in any of the three conditions, regardless of the type of intervention, just because they had some support.

Rodney Crouther (00:36:36):
What advice did she have for leadership in schools to help their teachers cope with burnout in the classroom?

Priscilla Goble (00:36:42):
To focus on emotionally supporting the teachers? So I believe it was a different article that we have. I don't think it was out of that same study, but in one study where we were looking at teacher emotional burnout, we found that the relationships that the teachers have with each other impacted their emotional burnout also. So if we can't give them more money, what we need to give them is more support. And that looks like social support in terms of having opportunities for them to have relationships with other people in their environment so that they can relate and commiserate about their experience, but also support in their teaching skills and professional development to help them feel more efficacious in the classroom and so that they don't feel like they're sort of on this wheel that they can't ever get off of.

Eddie Sanchez (00:37:30):
I had the opportunity to read one of your articles about teacher burnout and turnover rate at the Sead start level, and I was kind of shocked by those numbers. Would you mind speaking to that and also what the implications are for pre-K through 12 as well?

Priscilla Goble (00:37:44):
Yeah, it's a challenge right now. The turnover rates are very high. We are struggling to get professionals into teaching roles and then to keep them there. And it has consequences for children because sometimes this turnover is happening within an academic year. So they start with one teacher and then they have a new teacher come in the middle of the year, which can make it very hard to establish routines and relationships and get the classroom functioning properly. And then there are a lot of vacancies in positions. And so Head Start centers and early education environments are struggling to fill classroom positions and make sure that they meet teacher-child ratios. So yeah, it's a real problem. And then it trickles into K through 12, of course, because the goal of early childhood environments is to prepare children to be socially and academically ready to enter kindergarten. But if we don't have stable educators in those early education environments, we can't adequately prepare children to enter into those programs. And I think, from what I understand, although it's not my area of expertise, there is also a significant amount of burnout happening in K through 12. And so we're seeing it across the lifespan of children's education.

Eddie Sanchez (00:39:10):
What does this mean for our communities?

Priscilla Goble (00:39:11):
I don't know. It's a systemic issue. I think we need a lot of things to support teachers. We need an investment in education. We need for people to see the work that educators are doing and value that so that it can supported financially. And then we also need to make sure that they have the social support, again, the psychological resources that they need to feel like they can do their job and that their job is valued.

Eddie Sanchez (00:39:43):
So what role do you see Texas State playing in helping to overcome these systemic issues that teachers are facing?

Priscilla Goble (00:39:49):
I think we can prepare pre-service teachers for what they're going to experience, doing more on teaching social-emotional learning strategies prior to them getting into the field, because as I said, going in later with professional development around social-emotional learning helps, but that is an extra thing that we're asking teachers to do when they're already working. So if we can provide training pre-service teachers about social-emotional learning for both children and for themselves, so teaching them how to do some mindfulness stuff, how to prepare themselves for regulating their own emotions and behaviors when they go into the classroom, and then giving them strategies to help, especially the most challenging children in their classroom, that will help. And then also speaking to pre-service teachers about the value of relationships. Find another teacher that you can talk to and commiserate about your experience. Try to develop relationships with people within your school environments so that you have a social support network built in when things become challenging.

Rodney Crouther (00:41:00):
So what advice did she have for future teachers or aspiring teachers?

Priscilla Goble (00:41:04):
I would say try to understand development and children's behavior because if you can manage that, then you can teach them anything. But if you don't have a handle on children's behavior, it will be hard to teach.

Eddie Sanchez (00:41:20):
Could you share a positive message for our educators that are out there?

Priscilla Goble (00:41:25):
Yes, we love you. We love educators. I think we want to make sure that educators feel valued, and there are people working really hard to figure out ways to support teachers and to make them feel valued so that they stay in their role and continue to help children grow and develop in positive ways. And so I support all teachers, and I'm working actively in my research to figure out ways to support them. And one way is by providing them more resources and helping them understand the value of relationships.

Rodney Crouther (00:42:07):
Well, those are some serious systemic issues we're facing, but hopefully with her research, she sees some reasons to hope for improvement going forward.

Priscilla Goble (00:42:16):
I do. I think if we adequately prepare students who are going into the profession to understand the demands that they're going to face and how to create resources for themselves, then they will be better off than teachers we've had in the past. I do believe though, that it's going to take a lot more investment from the state, federal investment in teachers and valuing that profession for it to really start moving in the right direction.

Rodney Crouther (00:43:00):
OK. Yeah, those are some serious issues that we're highlighting, but it's encouraging to hear that we have professors that are actively working on solutions. So I'm interested in hearing what our psychology professor has to say about possible solutions.

Eddie Sanchez (00:43:12):
Well, Dr. Goble talked about in-classroom strategies, Dr. Cordaro, she actually spoke about how to improve the mental wellness and emotional well-being of our educators so that way they can better function in the classroom.

Millie Cordaro (00:43:25):
My name is Dr. Millie Cordaro, and I'm a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology, and I study compassion fatigue and burnout in higher education.

Eddie Sanchez (00:43:37):
Nearly 70% of the 6,000 Texas educators surveyed by the Texas American Federation of Teachers Union say they're ready to quit their jobs. So 70% of 6,000 teachers, about 75% of those surveyed respondents reported experiencing burnout. So just interested in your initial thoughts on that?

Millie Cordaro (00:43:55):
Sure. So first off, burnout on its own is when we feel like the challenges in our environment are outweighing our inner resources to cope with those challenges. So that's burnout. And then there's also compassion fatigue, which takes into account when we are overwhelmed, when we are trying to support others who are dealing with stress. And by being in a supportive role and trying to help, we then become overwhelmed ourselves. And for teachers, for educators in general, we're not too far away from stepping away from the pandemic. And one thing that I like to write about is how the pandemic was this historical traumatic stressor event. And with that, there was this so many different types of traumatic stress and collective trauma. And for the most part, for most people, our nervous systems are a lot more sensitive than they used to be. And for teachers especially, I think the pandemic started to shed light on how supportive of a role that is in helping students, in being a good colleague, friend, even those in an administrative role who are overseeing and supporting their staff and faculty may find themselves feeling a little emotionally exhausted or a little drained from that.

Eddie Sanchez (00:45:47):
Do you think that was COVID the breaking point? Was this a trend that was already occurring and COVID kind of exasperated the situation? What did your research show you?

Millie Cordaro (00:45:58):
I think even with the onset of the pandemic, there was already a conversation happening around mental health and the implications of mental health for not only people in education, but just the general population. And perhaps the silver lining of the pandemic is that we are having a conversation around mental health that the importance of having good mental health and well-being and what we should be doing to take care of ourselves if we feel like we need a little bit more support in that area.

Eddie Sanchez (00:46:38):
Again, because kind of on the topic of compassion fatigue, and you did explore it a little bit, but would you mind if there's any more information or if there's any way that you could maybe flesh out that concept, compassion fatigue, a little bit more?

Millie Cordaro (00:46:53):
Compassion fatigue. So we're in a supportive role, and as educators, as teachers, we have students who have their own narratives around stress and trauma. And as teachers, we want our students to be successful. So we're listening to and learning about their circumstances, what's keeping them from getting their tests completed, what's keeping them from getting their assignments submitted. And in the process. Some of those narratives are really shocking, really heartbreaking, and that's where the compassion fatigue comes in. Again, it's when we're trying to help someone in distress and they're telling us their story, and we become overwhelmed and feel really drained by being in this helping role. And we also have to acknowledge that teachers are human and they have their own personal lives, they have their own struggles going on. And so what's happening is as teachers, we're wanting to help others and at the same time, ideally helping ourselves, which doesn't always happen, doing the self-care and the coping. And so compassionate fatigue is two parts. One, it's called vicarious trauma, meaning that we can become traumatized by other people's stressful experiences. And then compassion fatigue also includes the burnout piece as well.

Rodney Crouther (00:48:30):
So how can teachers avoid compassion fatigue?

Millie Cordaro (00:48:34):
That's a great question. I would say there's a couple of things that can be done. One is what I like to refer to as a daily mental health routine. And what I mean by that is intentionally engaging in self-care activities when we feel good. So it's almost practicing in advance of that next life stressor, that next difficult challenge, and having a routine in place so that when we feel overwhelmed, when we feel stuck, we already know what to do because it's a habit versus being in that moment of struggle and thinking, what should I do to feel better? And so resilience means that we are engaging in strategies that include setting boundaries, carving out time to take care of ourselves, because when we take care of ourselves, we can show up as our best version of ourself as teachers. And then I also like to talk about professional resiliency as well.

(00:49:53):
So what can we do in our professional lives with our colleagues, with our peers, other professionals where we can engage in activities, whether it's walking or peer-based support, things that we can do together, because an implication of compassion fatigue and burnout is that we tend to self isolate. We don't want people to know that we are symptomatic, and so we withdraw. We sort of hide or mask our struggles. But what the research shows is that we can heal from both burnout and compassion fatigue when we are together, when we are engaging in meaningful connections with each other and sharing in our experiences. So if I'm feeling, if it's Friday and I'm feeling a little drained and you're feeling a little drained, just chatting about it, acknowledging it helps to normalize it, but then also helps to release some of that stress as well.

Eddie Sanchez (00:50:56):
How do you balance that? I mean, if we're getting together every Friday, for instance, and we're just, "Hey, this is my horrible week and these are the things that I was dealing with," and I can imagine that can also lead to that fatigue, right? So how would you say, how do you balance those two?

Millie Cordaro (00:51:12):
I think being a version of yourself where you are authentic, you are congruent. And what I mean by that is that how you feel on the outside is matching how you're expressing yourself and behaviors on the outside. If you are in a place where you feel symptomatic, you feel activated, you're just deep in the trenches of burnout, then maybe you need to be a little bit more transparent and say, "I'm so sorry that I can't support you through this. I'm trying to deal with it on my own." Or just talking about self-care strategies together. At Texas State, the WellCats program, they have a walking program for faculty and staff. I think it's really wonderful. That's a great way to engage ourselves, somatically or physically, but then also have that peer-to-peer conversation if it comes up organically.

Eddie Sanchez (00:52:19):
There was a statistic in there, 2022 actually, so it wasn't that far off. It was staggering. 55% of educators are currently considering quitting the teaching profession. I think this was a national survey, and nearly 60% of Hispanic teachers were also considering leaving the career. So

Rodney Crouther (00:52:37):
Wow, 60%.?

Eddie Sanchez (00:52:39):
Yeah. And there's a little bit more to that question. How concerning is that to you as an educator and somebody that studies both higher education and public K through 12 education?

Millie Cordaro (00:52:53):
I think it is a concern. I can speak to some of the risk factors for those who are feeling in distress or feeling burned out and thinking about leaving the profession, especially for those in primary education, one of those risk factors is being newer to the profession. So what the literature has shown and demonstrated over time is that those who are less seasoned in their position are at a higher risk for both burnout and in turn quitting the profession. Another one is having porous boundaries. So the example, two examples comes to mind. One would be allowing yourself time to not check email. Like if you're at work all day and you're just wanting to be home and surrounded by your creature comforts to allow yourself the opportunity to perhaps let go of some of the work pieces so that you can really enjoy being at home.

(00:54:00):
Or another one in terms of porous boundaries is as teachers, again, in that supportive role, we might have students that we really care about, that we really want to support, and we're thinking about them during times when we should be enjoying our family and our friends and taking care of ourselves. And that type of thinking about let's say students during times when we should be taking care of ourselves, is really going to increase the likelihood of burnout, which in turn would make people question whether they should be in the profession. So unfortunately, there's teachers out there who are considering leaving this profession that is this vocation for them that they've worked so hard to get into the career, not realizing that the underlying force there is burnout, which can be treated, which can be resolved.

Eddie Sanchez (00:55:06):
I mean, it seems to me like it's OK to take some time for yourself ultimately, right?

Millie Cordaro (00:55:10):
Yes. I think the better care we take of ourselves as educators, the better teachers we are, we can really show up for them and have good emotional energy for them and positive support, and then some leftover for the end of the day too.

Eddie Sanchez (00:55:29):
For home life, right? If you were talking to administrators, if you were talking to the individuals who are leading public education in Texas, what are some strategies or initiatives that you would say, "Hey, let's consider utilizing this to help improve the burnout, to minimize compassion fatigue, to improve the psychological, the mindsets of our teachers." What are some recommendations you might have?

Millie Cordaro (00:55:58):
I think at the institutional level, like I said, Texas State already has some really great programming in place, and so perhaps taking some of our programming and using it as a model for other institutions who might not have that. Other ideas that I've heard about on other campuses is creating a campus-wide task force that takes into account not only student mental health, which is very important, but also staff and faculty mental health, and finding out where the strengths are, where the areas of improvement should be, and then how to best support faculty and staff as well in those areas.

Eddie Sanchez (00:56:43):
It's challenging to turn this into a positive, but I guess from your perspective, are there silver linings to this situation? Are there any silver linings that you see from your research? Is there anything you kind of mentioned, well, we're at least at the very least, started talking about mental health in these professions. Is there any positive way that you could, I don't know, is there any way to add some positivity to this whole situation?

Millie Cordaro (00:57:12):
Absolutely. I think that the pandemic has raised awareness around the issue of mental health for educators, for faculty mental health. I don't know if we'd be having this conversation prior to the pandemic. It's still progressive, but it's palatable. It's something that we can talk about now that really wasn't on the radar before.

Rodney Crouther (00:57:38):
Well, this has definitely been one of our more serious episodes, but did she see any silver linings in her research for the future?

Eddie Sanchez (00:57:46):
Yeah, she definitely sees some hope.

Millie Cordaro (00:57:48):
I think that as educators, because we're in supportive roles, we more times than not, we're supporting distressed students that in order to provide a quality education and to be a good mentor, an advisor that we have to take care of ourselves, and that's a personal responsibility, but finding ways that we can incorporate that into a professional resiliency practice at work would be really wonderful as well.

Rodney Crouther (00:58:39):
This has been a heavy episode for us, but that was really encouraging hearing that our education researchers are already so invested in finding solutions, like dealing with compassion fatigue, I think will be huge for teachers and probably for a lot of professionals who are dealing with the public and dealing with people in need.

Eddie Sanchez (00:58:59):
And I think one of the key ways that we can contribute to this issue is simply by talking about it and by bringing up these concerns and allowing our educators to voice themselves. And so I was really grateful for everybody that was willing to come in and talk to us because it is not an easy thing to talk about.

Rodney Crouther (00:59:17):
It's not, and actually, I think a few of them did point out that that might be the silver lining to what we've all been through since 2020, is that these conversations are being brought into the sunshine. It's not just something people are suffering with in silence anymore.

Eddie Sanchez (00:59:31):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm happy that, like I said, at the very least, these things are starting to be spoken about at a broader scale, and the public is becoming more aware of this. So hopefully we can keep the ball rolling and make some real meaningful improvements for our public school educators so that they will continue to be as successful and as important in our children's lives as they can be.

Rodney Crouther (00:59:54):
Yeah, they're really vital for communities.

Eddie Sanchez (00:59:57):
So Rodney, curious about what you have for us next month.

Rodney Crouther (01:00:00):
Well, next month will be a bit more of a celebration as Texas State is about to celebrate a birthday. It's our 125th anniversary as an institution. So for next month, we're going to be looking at Texas State's past, present, future. Awesome.

Eddie Sanchez (01:00:16):
Really interested in hearing all that because of how much we've been invested ourselves in this whole learning experience of our Texas State history.

Rodney Crouther (01:00:24):
Yeah, no, this one should be a fun one, especially the history. We got one of our great people from the library to walk us through some of the fun facts that people may not know about Texas State history.

Eddie Sanchez (01:00:35):
Awesome. Can't wait to hear that.

Rodney Crouther (01:00:36):
Thank you for joining us on Enlighten Me. We'll see you next month.

Eddie Sanchez (01:00:39):
This podcast is a production of the Division of Marketing and Communications at Texas State University. Podcasts appearing on the Texas State Podcast Network represent the views of the host and guest and not of Texas State University.