Emotional Journeys: Teacher Resilience Counts Qing Gu Christopher Day

2 Contemporary Contexts for Teaching: Policy Relevance  Successive and persisting government policy reforms and initiatives  “Performativity” agenda and increased workload pressure upon teachers  Teaching rated as the most stressful professions in the 21 st century (Kyriacou, 2000; Nash, 2005; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2001)

The Nature of Resilience  as the capacity to continue to ‘bounce back’, to recover strengths or spirit quickly and efficiently in the face of adversity;  presupposes the presence of threat to the status quo;  is not a quality that is innate or fixed; Rather, it can be learned and acquired;  personal characteristics, competences and positive influences of the social environment independently and together interact to contribute to the process of resilience building 3

Research Relevance (1)  It is unrealistic to expect pupils to be resilient if their teachers do not demonstrate resilient qualities (Henderson and Milstein, 2003).  The ability to exercise resilience is closely allied to a strong sense of vocation, self- efficacy and motivation to teach which are fundamental to sustaining a commitment to promoting achievement in all aspects of students’ lives. 4

Research Relevance (2)  A shift in research focus from teacher stress and burnout to resilience provides a promising perspective to understand the ways that many teachers manage the intellectual and emotional demands in their workplace and sustain their motivation and commitment and the effectiveness of their contributions to the quality of their students’ learning and achievements over a career. 5

6 Resilience: Advances in Understandings over Time (1)  A marked paradigmatic change to the concept of resilience in the disciplines of psychiatry and developmental psychology in 1980s: from focussing upon understanding the pain, struggle and suffering involved in the adaptation process in the face of adversity, to understanding positive qualities and strengths (Gore and Eckenrode, 1994, Henderson and Milstein, 2003)

Resilience: Advances in Understandings over Time (2)  In the first decade of this century: the focus of resilience research in the disciplines of social and behavioural sciences has shifted from identifying personal traits and protective factors to investigating how understanding such factors may contribute to positive outcomes (Luthar et al., 2000). 7

Resilience: Advances in Understandings over Time (3)  Since the turn of this century: groundbreaking advances in biology research have provided powerful evidence of the robust effects of early caregiving environments and thus promising and compelling arguments for the kinds of interventions which are likely to make a difference (Luthar and Brown, 2007; 8

Building Teacher Resilience in Three Interrelated Settings (1)  Individual resilience: teachers’ vocational selves  Relational resilience: drawing strength from each other Relationships lie at the “roots” of resilience: … the present of support, love, and security fosters resilience in part, by reinforcing people’s innate strengths (such as self-efficacy, positive emotions and emotion regulation) with these personally attributes measured biologically and/or behaviourally. (Luthar and Brown, 2007: 947) 9

Building Teacher Resilience in Three Interrelated Settings (2)  Organisational resilience: leadership matters Teachers, students, parents, support personnel are the fabric of the school. Leaders are weavers of the fabric of resiliency initiatives. (Henry and Milstein, 2006: 8) 10

Sustaining Resilience, Commitment and Effectiveness in Times of Change  The central task for all concerned with enhancing quality and standards in schools is not only to have a better understanding of what influences teachers’ motivation, commitment and their capacity to teach well over the course of a career, but also the means by which the resilience necessary for these to be sustained may be nurtured and developed. 11