Teacher Well-Being and coping strategies during and after COVID
Dasha Bunks
Liberty University
PSYC 775 - Teaching of Psychology
Dr. Winn
2022
Teacher Well-Being and coping strategies during and after COVID
The Covid 19 pandemic will continue to present challenges to the quality of education at
many different levels. The following discussion by the authors suggests possible interventions
or guidelines to maintain and promote teachers' well-being during a difficult time. According to
Waters (2021), actions taken to promote school well-being should be systematized and based
on scientific data to gather empirical evidence that will eventually be reported in academic or
professional environments.
The authors promote goals to empower teachers through teaching practices that
integrate wellness practices into their curricula. Creating interventions with a context-based
approach that will foster skills to increase well-being in the classroom (e.g., Waters, 2021).
Social relationships and connections are the building blocks of multidimensional well-being
models. Relationships between teachers and students are paramount in the development of
well-being and these have a special importance during the Covid-19 pandemic. Studies have
revealed the relevance of the interaction between teachers and students in an online teaching
environment (Alqurshi, 2020; Bao, 2020; Chanchí-Golondrino et al., 2021; Hamdan et al., 2021;
Jelińska and Paradowski, 2021).
Consequently, it is important that interventions aimed at promoting teacher well-being
include practical strategies to improve interpersonal interactions. These include emotional
intelligence, empathy, assertiveness, compassion, etc., which can influence the socioemotional
classroom environment and improve relationships between colleagues and teaching peers.
Psychological working resources that enhance reflective teaching practices and improve
teaching and learning should be promoted. These would include character strengths such as
gratitude, creativity, love of learning, bravery, and others (White, 2021). Fostering teacher
autonomy in decision making may be achieved with institutional support and a respectful
leadership based on mutual trust and adjusted to different working conditions (Naegeli Costa et
al., 2021).
The authors identify the importance of promoting flow experiences, which will lead to
lasting engagement to teaching experiences as they create lesson plans and classroom
materials, deliver lessons and other teaching duties. These flow experiences may prove to be
protective factors against stressors, burnout, and teacher drop out (Millán de Lange et al.,
2014). The authors stress the essential inclusion of a trauma informed care focus in well-being
interventions for teachers during and post-Covid (Brunzell, 2021) as the pandemic may be
experienced as a psychosocial trauma by the teachers (Gonçalvez-Boggio, 2021). This trauma-
informed care perspective may be useful for teachers to help themselves and to better
understand other members of the educational community that may need support in the re-
adaptation process.
One of the proposals is the implementation of Professional Development Teacher
Communities (Webb et al., 2009; Vaillant, 2019; García-Álvarez, 2020) focused on well-being as
a systematic way to expand the knowledge oriented to the continuous development of
teachers, both at a personal and professional level to improve the quality of education. In this
regard, the role of educational leadership is key to implementing this initiative. In addition to
strategic alliances with other specialists inside and outside the school such as psychologists,
counselors, etc., it is important to consider the overlap between sectors either inside or outside
the educational system. For example, the areas of labor and health (Karaman et al., 2021).
The benefits of this initiative will be the improvement of pedagogical practices,
reconfiguration of professional teaching competencies, increased recognition of teamwork and
the organization of work teams. The advice and help of teaching leaders and colleagues will be
sought and examples of good educational practices identified. A systematic intervention
oriented to medium and long-term outcomes must be framed with quality educational
management and with the school as a construction of well-being spaces, a center for promoting
mental health (García-Álvarez et al., 2021).
The professional teacher learning community can mobilize the factors that generate
organizational learning with a clear management commitment open to continuous learning and
a climate that promotes learning. Members of the educational community must be located in
an environment that favors training and the exchange of experiences, and must have an
infrastructure that allows the educational organization to function optimally in all its aspects.
Valid and reliable psychometric scales to assess constructs related to teacher well-being should
be included in any proposed study (e.g., Renshaw et al., 2015). Through this initiative, teacher
empowerment would be promoted by involving teachers in decisions (Yusoff and Tengku-
Ariffin, 2020). In conclusion, the authors call for the design of public policies for teacher
training, professional development and retention in the education system to face the
challenges ahead. Challenges that the political and educational actors of the system must
assume with leadership.
References
Alqurshi, A. (2020). Investigating the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on pharmaceutical
education in Saudi Arabia–A call for a remote teaching contingency strategy. Saudi
Pharmaceutical Journal, 28(9), 1075-1083.
Bakker, A., & Demerouti, E. (2013). Job demands-resources model. Revista de Psicologia del
Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 29(3), 107-115.
Bao, W. (2020). COVID 19 and online teaching in higher education: A case study of Peking ‐
University. Human behavior and emerging technologies, 2(2), 113-115.
Brunzell, T., Waters, L., & Stokes, H. (2021). Trauma-informed Teacher Wellbeing: Teacher
Reflections within Trauma-informed Positive Education. Australian Journal of Teacher
Education, 46(5), 91-107.
