Cultivating Teacher Renewal: Guarding Against Stress and Burnout

by Barbara Larrivee

Overview

Teachers today are more stressed than ever. It is crucial that teachers develop the tools necessary to keep from falling prey to the potentially destructive effects of stress and burnout. Cultivating Teacher Renewal: Guarding Against Stress and Burnout offers the antidote by providing the knowledge, skills and practices that will keep teachers from surrendering to burnout. Cultivating Teacher Renewal is evidence-based presenting an extensive review of the abundant research on stress and burnout specifically applying it to the teaching profession. This book adopts a comprehensive approach spanning the fields of education, the social sciences, and the neurosciences. The array of strategiesoffered will help teachers become stress hardy to stay in a renewal cycle by, building up defenses against burnout, successfully negotiating the emotional terrain of teaching, instilling new ways of thinking and behaving to preserve well-being, and limiting stress exposure by exercising healthier choices. This book will also help you to maintain a work-life balance and develop practices to sustain resilience and optimism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475801101
Publisher:	R&L Education
Publication date:	10/23/2012
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Barbara Larrivee is education professor at California State University. She writes about classroom and behavior management, creating learning communities based on respectful dialogue and authentic communication, and building reflective practice.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART 1: Understanding the Many Facets of Teacher Stress and Burnout

Chapter 1: The Consequences of Stress and Burnout
Stress and Its Impact
Factors Contributing to Teacher Stress and Burnout
Teachers Most Likely to Experience Burnout
Chapter 2: Job Characteristics and Their Impact on Burnout and Well-Being
Multiple Models for Understanding Burnout and Well-Being
Research on the Impact of Job Characteristics on Burnout
Research on the Impact of Job Characteristics on Well-Being
Maintaining Work-Life Balance
Chapter 3: The Vital Role of Social Support for Counteracting Burnout
The Importance of Perceived Support from Colleagues and Supervisors
System Support
Creating a Spirit of Mutual Support
A Schoolwide Crisis Intervention Plan for Teachers under Stress
Chapter 4: Teaching is Emotional Labor
Emotional Labor: Managing Emotions at Work
Emotional Labor and Teachers
Challenging the Emotional Rules Teachers Live By
Emotion Regulation and Coping Strategies
Strategies Teachers Use to Regulate Their Emotions
Chapter 5: Why Teacher Emotions Are Important
Emotional Triggers and the Brain
Negative Emotions and Flooding
Addressing Teacher Anger
What Teachers Need to Know about Emotions

PART 2: Becoming Stress Hardy: Guarding Against Burnout

Chapter 6: Approaches to Student and Classroom Behavior Management that Reduce Stress
Classroom Management and Teacher Stress and Burnout
Teacher Burnout and Teacher Renewal Cycles
The Importance of Forging Relationships with Students
Teacher Reflection and Classroom Management
Establishing the Classroom as an Arena for Respectful Dialogue and Authentic Communication
Chapter 7: Modifying Destructive Ways of Thinking
Challenging Irrational Beliefs
Changing Self-Defeating Thoughts
Strategies for Disputing and Replacing Destructive Thought Patterns
Chapter 8: Changing the Way You Communicate with Yourself
Curbing Stress-Producing Self-Talk
Types of Stress-Producing Self-talk and Strategies for Transforming StressConverting Overbearing Judges to Realistic Guides
Chapter 9: Learning to Quiet the Mind
Cultivating Mindfulness
Practicing Mindfulness as a Pathway to Managing Emotions
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
The Power of the Breath
Relaxation Techniques
Stress-Free Life Skills
Chapter 10: How to Thrive and Flourish: Sustaining Resilience, Optimism, and Hope
Building Character Strengths
Promoting Well-Being
Cultivating Optimism and Hope
Epilogue
References

Editorial Reviews

This is a rare and remarkable book, which I highly recommend to all teachers, teacher trainers and school administrators. Based on extensive, solid research, it presents simple yet powerful techniques for preventing burnout in teachers (and students as well). Read it! It could very well save your sanity, your career, even your life.

Jack Canfield

This book skillfully combines practical strategies, cutting edge research and the inspiration educators need to be proactive in how they approach the potential of stress and its consequences in their lives. Barbara Larrivee has given educators a great gift many will return to again and again when seeking the replenishment of mind and spirit teachers so often need.

Linda Lantieri

Cultivating Teacher Renewal is the best and most complete book on teacher stress and what to do about it on the market today. It takes the reader inside the problem of burnout and then shows clearly how to avoid or get out of it. Great ideas for reaching inside yourself, and outside to those around you to achieve new levels of energy and renewal.

Michael Fullan

Today's stressed-out teachers need this book. It consolidates the abundant research coming from multiple domains to help teachers develop a repertoire of proven strategies for managing stress, maintaining emotional balance, and sustaining well-being.This book gives teachers the tools to keep flourishing in their teaching career and reap the joys of this wonderful profession.

Kenneth Pelletier M.D.

In a field where people might think there is nothing new to be said about stress and burnout among teachers, Cultivating Teacher Renewal squarely acknowledges that burnout and stress are, in the end, emotional conditions and therefore require a sophisticated inclusive understanding of the factors that affect teachers' emotional states. Barbara Larrivee does not peddle her own pet theory of emotion at teachers' expense, but creates a magisterial synthesis of the research on emotions in many traditions in order to help the teachers who are the audience for her book. Cultivating Teacher Renewal is a book with a sweeping yet solid theoretical base, and this enables it to set out very practical ways of diagnosing, anticipating, offsetting and ameliorating the onset of stress and burnout, that is such a scourge of the profession today.

Andy Hargreaves

Without a doubt, Larrivee (California State Univ.) has written a must-read book for all classroom teachers. Grounded in a strong theoretical base and combining research from the fields of education, the health profession, and psychology, Larrivee gives readers a thoughtful approach about how to deal effectively with the short- and long-term pressures of teaching. Without resorting to blame, Larrivee leaves no stone unturned in her review of the literature about stress and burnout as well as teacher emotions. In the second part of her book, she engages readers with proven strategies for dealing with stress and burnout, learning to reflect about student and classroom behavior management realities, and learning to listen to oneself effectively. She advocates mind-over-matter techniques combined with inner control of one's body and maintaining a positive outlook on classroom teaching while continuing to build strong character and healthy body and mind. Larrivee has authored a remarkable book that will benefit teacher educators, school administrators, physicians, and psychologists. Clearly, this work has the potential to become a seminal volume in the teacher renewal literature in the near future. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Choice Reviews

This is an important book. Teaching is an inherently stressful — and often distressful — experience. Cultivating Teacher Renewal provides a practical and helpful set of guidelines and concrete strategies that will not only support and help teachers who are experiencing significant stress/distress but also promote health and wellness. I hope that all educators have the opportunity to read this book.

Jonathan Cohen Ph.D.

This is a very valuable book for anyone who wants to be a stress-free, mindful teacher.

Ellen Langer

The goal of our noble profession is the development of healthy, capable, and vibrant children. The paradox is that these very goals subject us to stresses that undermine our own health, vitality, and effectiveness. Larrivee presents us with thoughtful and practical strategies for teacher renewal leading to rebirth of our well-being, excitement, and productivity.

Henry M. Levin

Without a doubt, Larrivee (California State Univ.) has written a must-read book for all classroom teachers. Grounded in a strong theoretical base and combining research from the fields of education, the health profession, and psychology, Larrivee gives readers a thoughtful approach about how to deal effectively with the short- and long-term pressures of teaching. Without resorting to blame, Larrivee leaves no stone unturned in her review of the literature about stress and burnout as well as teacher emotions. In the second part of her book, she engages readers with proven strategies for dealing with stress and burnout, learning to reflect about student and classroom behavior management realities, and learning to listen to oneself effectively. She advocates mind-over-matter techniques combined with inner control of one's body and maintaining a positive outlook on classroom teaching while continuing to build strong character and healthy body and mind. Larrivee has authored a remarkable book that will benefit teacher educators, school administrators, physicians, and psychologists. Clearly, this work has the potential to become a seminal volume in the teacher renewal literature in the near future. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

Choice

Without a doubt, Larrivee (California State Univ.) has written a must-read book for all classroom teachers. Grounded in a strong theoretical base and combining research from the fields of education, the health profession, and psychology, Larrivee gives readers a thoughtful approach about how to deal effectively with the short- and long-term pressures of teaching. Without resorting to blame, Larrivee leaves no stone unturned in her review of the literature about stress and burnout as well as teacher emotions. In the second part of her book, she engages readers with proven strategies for dealing with stress and burnout, learning to reflect about student and classroom behavior management realities, and learning to listen to oneself effectively. She advocates mind-over-matter techniques combined with inner control of one's body and maintaining a positive outlook on classroom teaching while continuing to build strong character and healthy body and mind. Larrivee has authored a remarkable book that will benefit teacher educators, school administrators, physicians, and psychologists. Clearly, this work has the potential to become a seminal volume in the teacher renewal literature in the near future. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above

CHOICE

Today's stressed-out teachers need this book. It consolidates the abundant research coming from multiple domains to help teachers develop a repertoire of proven strategies for managing stress, maintaining emotional balance, and sustaining well-being. This book gives teachers the tools to keep flourishing in their teaching career and reap the joys of this wonderful profession.

Kenneth Pelletier