If only we could stand and stare; the stress of constant change

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

So wrote W.H.Davies in 1911. When was the last time a teacher had the time to stand and stare? In fact I have found throughout my career that I am running at full pelt often just to stand still. Education has been in a state of constant change since I can remember and there are so signs that this will arrest soon. The problem is that this is on top of all of the other demands associated with this profession and that as soon as you feel confident with a certain aspect of the job it goes and changes.

We are the slaves of change but what keeps changing?:

• Technology
• Specifications and courses
• Communities and society
• Educational philosophies and trends (just think AfL, VAK, starters and plenaries)
• Inspection regulations
• National policy, league tables and so on.

And those were off the top of my head! There will be far more but these seem to be the things that have dogged my career. School procedures change but more often than not these are in response to external factors. But why do things change? Governments change and often the political philosophy changes, and schools find themselves squarely in the centre of the ideological battlefield. Technology changes, tablets appeared, social media sprung forth and so on. Our understanding of how children learn and the effectiveness of different approaches develops through practice and research. The curriculum develops to reflect the needs of an ever changing world. Communities change and their needs change. In short everything changes constantly around education and so education inevitably constantly changes.

Change is unsettling for many reasons. We lose our place in our understanding of the world. The things on which we relied or in which we believed move and we are required to make new meaning out of our professional world. Our beliefs and values may be challenged and leave us confused and uncertain. Change inevitably generates work and this is work in addition to our normal professional lives. New specifications, teaching philosophies and technologies all require a great deal of time to react to and to adapt to. Schemes to write, systems to learn and methodologies to adopt.

So change generates uncertainty and change generates work. I also believe the further we are into our careers the harder change becomes, not because of age but because we have suffered it so many times before and every time our enthusiasm is lower. The workload issue is well explored. The work load generated by change is often on top of the day-to-day workload of planning, teaching and assessment. This creates pressure and excessive pressure can cause stress.

I believe that the stress caused by change itself is significant. We lose our positions of certainty and comfort, we witness others deal better and we can end up doubting our own ability to do the job and handle the constant turmoil. I know how I feel every time I experience change with any IT-based area of my work; I realise that this change causes me stress, and this realisation causes more stress! I know that others will adapt more quickly and that my self-esteem may take a battering. I don't want to appear ignorant so there's another stressor. It could go on and on, but change can fill me with dread and I am sure I am not alone.

What can leadership do? Unfortunately very little. Change is imposed on schools and often the quantity of change experienced by school leaders is even greater. However a good place to start is at least with awareness. Change must be monitored and staff must be cared for during the process. Leaders must be aware of the sensitivity of individuals and that all periods of change generate additional stress. Maybe just talking about and sharing these concerns should be a good place to start.

Mental Health First Aid: get trained

I've just spent 2 days receiving some of the most valuable CPD of my career, the standard course in Mental Health First Aid. I attended the course in Swindon but courses are delivered regularly all over the country. The course is a practical introduction to managing mental health issues in the work place and providing you with a set of core skills to use with colleagues (and students) suffering from a mental health issue.

During my career I have dealt with numerous mental health incidents involving both pupils and staff but I was always operating on gut instinct. I now feel a lot more confident in dealing with such issues at work.

Please take a look at the website HERE and ask to attend a course. The courses are inexpensive and have the potential to provide priceless support in the workplace. 

Scary places: A culture of fear in the teaching profession

Are you afraid? That sounds a little menacing but I know I have been during my career. I've had those nights and mornings where I felt like I was 11 again and ready to feign sickness to avoid a French test or disguise the fact I hadn't done my English homework. But fear for a teacher is very different as what you are afraid of can be harder to define or can have far more devastating effects than when you were 14.

As with many other posts within this blog this will not apply to everybody, but it is vital to remember that whilst "teaching" is a single occupational group there will still be a full distribution of personalities within it and you will have colleagues (it may be you) that lives in fear of something at school.

Nearly 10% of the population suffer from mixed anxiety and depression, that translates to some 45000 teachers. That's a lot and if you are fortunate enough not to be in that "premier league stadium capacity" of your colleagues you are sure to have one nearby. This is a terrible burden for someone to handle and must be taken seriously by schools.

If I were to be a tad more scientific I would conduct a survey, but I'm not so here's a list of things that spring to mind that can cause fear and anxiety. They are in no particular order and may be very different, some will only apply to senior school teachers, some to school leaders, some to every one and so on. But if you are a truly reflective practitioner I am sure that you have experienced fear and sleepless nights and that you could add to this list. Please note though that anxiety is something far more substantial than the simple worry of getting a roasting from the menacing deputy over not having finished writing your reports. Anxiety is a condition which often requires medication and other interventions, but the following may exacerbate the condition. So here goes:

• coping with workload
• disruptive classes
• certain pupils
• staffroom (see earlier blog entry)
• other colleagues
• technology
• initiatives
• OFSTED
• exams and results
• monitoring and evaluation (observations, work scrutiny)
• emails and phone calls
• senior leaders
• parents
• governors
• the unpredictability of every school day
• exposure
• performance management / appraisal
• accountability

The point "exposure" is one felt by many primary colleagues (especially Y2 and Y6 teachers) and those teaching GCSE/A-levels. When results are disappointing you will often find that fingers are pointed. One of the roles I used to have as a school assessment manager was to analyse results to identify those teachers in whose class less progress was made. I would like to think that we used the data responsibly and gave teachers support (if needed) to ensure that more progress was made next year or to move a teacher to remove the heat. But I am not naïve, I know that it must have felt dreadful to have been "named and shamed". Careers can be made with good results and excellent observations, and careers curtailed by the opposite, but do we ever consider that the fear of "exposure" is actually a contributing factor in the results. Fear effects motivation, motivation effects performance, performance effects outcomes.


Can anything be done? I truthfully believe that the maintained school system is fundamentally broken. League tables, OFSTED, the threat of forced academisation, all contribute to an atmosphere of fear. Heads are under ludicrous pressure to ensure that their staff push their pupils to get results. Poor results could bring OFSTED through the door, put the school into special measures and make life truly miserable and put the head's career at stake. Fear, fear, fear.

Acknowledge it is real. Verbalise fears. Be open in conversations and share experiences. As long as teachers remain caring, emotionally-vulnerable individuals and the education system tacitly threads fear through all that it does, fear will always be present. But if you know it is there, if you feel you can talk about it, then at least we may be able to lessen the pain.



 

Patience, Resilience and a lesson from Buddhism

A few weeks ago I was preparing an assembly on the value of “patience” and I was looking for a different approach. I had a quick look on the internet and found an article about a situation someone had experienced when travelling through London. What particularly struck me was that their experience was almost identical with one I had had a month ago when returning from a meeting in London. I found myself angry and frustrated at people I did not know who were in my way as I was rushing to Waterloo Station. The article took a Buddhist slant on the experience and referenced the work of Shantideva, an 8^th century Indian Buddhist monk. I went looking for this book and found a free download of it (“Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life” translated by Stephen Batchelor). Using the original article and bits of Shantideva’s work I then reflected on my experience. I can take no credit for what follows, it really is the product of another (unfortunately I cannot find the original website and give the credit deserved), but there are 6 points that should be considered when reflecting on my frustration with those anonymous victims of my anger:

• Don’t try to change the world, change yourself first.

• Even if someone is annoying you, you are allowing it to bother you. How you are affects how you see things.

• You don’t know their whole story.

• You are not the centre of the Universe, you are not the only person who matters. To the other person (the one annoying you) they are probably the centre of the Universe, and you don’t matter!

• Your enemy is your greatest teacher. Without being challenged you don’t have to think about yourself and try to become a better and more understanding and tolerant person.

• Situations like this are good for us. We only reflect on things when they are not right and we work out ways of dealing with them.

Now what has this to do with teacher mental health? My last posting was on resilience and I would suggest that this Buddhist analysis (especially the last 3 points) are pertinent to the development of resilience.

My suggestion to you is simple. Think about a problem that is currently causing you stress and just try to see it through this lens.

The myth of "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger": a call for resilience development

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger” – attributed to Nietzsche. Really? I would argue that whatever it is that may not kill us may end up shattering our self-esteem, destroying our hopes and dreams, ruining our careers and changing our lives forever. I would like to suggest: that which does not kill us can leave us suffering a living hell. The unnamed event which we survive may have a raft of effects and very much depends on the individual and I would suggest that at the heart of this is an individual’s resilience.

I am writing this having had a chat with Jo Higgins-Cezza who runs a consultancy business specialising in resilience training (www.resiliencematters.eu). I spent the afternoon thinking about resilience and teachers and reflecting on my own experience. Some of what I write here may be nonsense as it reflects only my experience, some of you may think that I’m being ageist whilst others may completely reject what I say.

It is worth saying that stress is the product of the way in which an individual handles pressure. Two individuals may be exposed to identical pressures, one may breeze through whilst the other may experience stress. I must emphasise that stress is a product of an individual and that it is personalised and real. Just because dealing with irate parents causes you no problem does not mean that the same is true of a colleague. Now going back to my chat, I believe that a key element in all of this is personal resilience, having a mindset which aids an individual to deal with pressure. Being less resilient is not a failing, in just the same way as being wheat-intolerant is not a failing, it is what it is. Unlike wheat-intolereance I do believe that lack of resilience can be worked upon.

This bit may annoy some of you and I may be wrong regarding the population of younger teachers but I am simply writing from experience. Over the last 10 or 15 years I have noticed that the least experienced teachers and trainee teachers appear to be less resilience than those before them. I remember being thrown into the maelstrom of an inner-city comp along with a bunch of other novices and we all floated. As a school leader I have encountered younger teachers over the last 10 years struggling to cope with pressures that my contemporaries had taken in their stride. Here’s my theory (which may be rubbish). Since the birth of the National Curriculum, SATs, OFSTED and league towers the pressures on schools have grown to the extent that teachers place less pressure on children to succeed as a result of their own actions. What I mean is that 25 years ago if I messed up my A-levels it was my fault, plain and simply. Now however the pendulum has swung to a point where the fault is seen to lie with teachers and schools. Teachers have worked hard to insulate their children from failure, they constantly reinforce positives and have done their best to make sure children succeed. The responsibility for success has shifted from pupil to teacher since results have become such a high stakes game. The result is that young people have not experienced enough failure, they lack resilience, they have become porcelain tea-cups that if tapped, they crack.

This generation have now reached an age where they are themselves teachers and I routinely see them struggle coping with pressures that their predecessors handled more effectively. This is not the fault of these teachers and so must not be seen as a negative character trait, I believe that those entering teaching now are simply a product of an over-protective education system (and generation of parents) that discourage resilience.

We must protect these teachers. We must develop these teachers. Just because they may not possess the resilience that others do does not mean they are poor teachers or that they do not have the potential to be future school leaders. This is not a Darwinian nightmare in which only the fittest should be allowed to survive. But we can’t simply put sticking plasters over the problem. We can’t simply make every experience for them positive. As teachers they (we) need to fail, they need to struggle but they also need to learn how to cope. In short we must make our teachers more resilient.

So what should we do? We must start by recognising the issue. We must articulate the problem and recognise that doing nothing is not an option if we want to retain teachers, maintain standards and develop future leaders. There needs to be a change in mindset of teachers of my generation; just because I coped with rioting Year 10s 20-odd years ago (as a new teacher) doesn’t mean that my new teachers should be able to; their educational experience has failed them and they simply may not be resilient enough at the moment. We need to care for each other and act as mentors and counsellors for our colleagues. It is in the interest of all teachers to retain good teachers and not just school leadership so we should all help out. However those vulnerable teachers need to do something themselves. They must share their worries, they must reflect on their practice, they must be willing to learn. I have found that through adopting a reflective-practice approach throughout my career has allowed me to cope with lots of difficulties and ensure that they have been learning experiences.

Schools would be wise to recognise that resilience is a key issue in the emotional well-being of their staff. Maybe then Nietzsche has a chance of being right.