Researchers of the University of Missouri analyzed survey data of 2,300 teachers from Missouri and Oklahoma who were asked to rate how stressed they were at work, if they found ways to deal with work stress and how satisfied they were with their jobs. The study found teachers who struggle to deal with the stress of their job report far lower job satisfaction compared to teachers who find ways to manage the pressure. While the findings were not particularly surprising, the study highlights how the ability — or inability — to deal with work stress can be a significant factor contributing to teacher burnout, which ultimately leads many teachers to leave the profession.

This research confirms that it is necessary to start devoting more time and resources to helping teachers identify and adopt healthy coping mechanisms (应对机制). Finding ways to relieve teacher stress and investing in ways to help them deal with stress in positive manners will pay back in not having to constantly hire and train new teachers all the time. In addition, keeping experienced teachers will likely benefit student achievement as well.

The researchers explained that positive, healthy coping mechanisms can be quick, easy and free. One healthy coping mechanism they suggest for stressed teachers is writing and delivering a short letter of gratitude to a colleague they enjoy working with. Simple things like increasing positive interactions with students and peers, improving classroom management skills, and avoiding gossip (闲话) at work can also help.

School principals, district superintendents and school administrators can all play a role in supporting stressed teachers who may be struggling to cope. They should communicate with teachers about their concerns, show empathy (共鸣) and check in on their health and well-being to show the care. The overall goal is to create school environments that allow teachers to develop and give them the tools they need to be successful.

My parents never shared their financial worries, but I knew that certain things my friends had weren’t be available to me. I brought lunch from home every day: homemade bread, cookies, and a small apple. I’d look on longingly as the rich kids proudly sat down with their steaming plates of fried chicken or fish sticks. I never said anything, but my first grade teacher, Mrs. Caruso, saw the eagerness in my eyes. One day she quietly pressed a note into my hand for my mother.

At home, Mum read it and smiled. “Well, Mrs. Caruso said because of all your hard work, she wants to buy your lunch tomorrow.” The next day, I proudly sat at the hot-lunch table. Honestly, the food wasn’t as great as I had imagined, but I was pleased to be there and felt honored to be a part of the group.

One rainy day, Mrs. Caruso asked me to stay after school, saying she’d drive me home after work. She knew I had a long walk. We pulled up to my house and she got out, placing a few bags at the door before she drove away. Inside the bags were clothes, toys, and books.

That summer, Mrs. Caruso invited us all to her home. She gave us lemonade and sugar cookies, and we marveled at the fancy pond in her back yard.

I don’t know why Mrs. Caruso took a shine to my family. Maybe she also grew up in a family that struggled. Somehow, even with her quiet charity, she made me feel loved and important. Thanks to her, I learned that I had just as much right as anyone to sit at the hot-lunch table.

I don’t remember what Mrs. Caruso looked like anymore, but I sure remember how she made me feel. I’ve never lost that feeling of being important to someone and being protected by her. After all these years, I’m still grateful to that wonderful teacher.

An excerpt from Shoes Were for Sunday by Molly Weir

One of the phrases which greatly puzzled me was “entertaining angels unaware”. How could anybody be unaware of entertaining an angel, I thought? It never occurred to me that angelic qualities could hide under very ordinary voices and in everyday bodies.

My angel, as it turned out, hid inside the little figure of my school-teacher, Miss McKenzie. To me she was always a little old lady, with her grey hair framing a round rosy face and caught up in an old-fashioned bun (发髻) on top of her head.

Although I enjoyed Miss McKenzie’s approval, I never really felt very close to her. It never dawned on me to ask her advice as to what I should do when I left school. Surely there was only one thing to do:get a job and earn money as quickly as possible. But Miss McKenzie had other ideas. We in our house knew nothing of scholarships for fatherless children. The idea of a child from a working-class household going to college was the very stuff of story-books.

Unknown to us, she forced the headmaster to put my name forward for a special scholarship open to children who showed some promise, and who would benefit from further education. He agreed, although he was a bit worried about the expense of keeping me at college for a whole year. No earnings from me, and fares and clothes to be covered, for, of course, only the fees would be paid if I won.

Miss McKenzie brushed all argument aside. To this day I can remember my complete astonishment when, on being asked if she felt I had any particular qualities, this elderly teacher banged the desk with her fist, and declared in an American idiom I never suspected she knew, ‘I’d stake my bottom dollar on this girl!’

I trembled at the passion in her voice, and at her faith in me. “What if I fail her?” I gasped to myself. “What if she has to pay all the money back if I let her down?” I knew we hadn’t a spare dollar to repay anybody, and I was sick with a sense of responsibility in case I messed up.

The time at college went by quickly. At the end of my year at college I was able to lay before her the college gold medal as the year’s top student and a whole pile of certificates.

And suddenly as I gazed at her, and saw her eyes shining with pride behind the gold-rimmed glasses, I realized how widely she had thrown open the door of opportunity for me. And I knew for the first time what the phrase “entertaining angels unaware” meant. For there, standing before me in class, was my very own angel, Miss McKenzie.