Teachers who manage pupils well may struggle to manage themselves

Teachers who rate their social and emotional skills more highly tend to report lower stress, research by Tallinn University doctoral student and junior researcher Marilyn Jurman shows, ERR reports.

A teacher may be empathetic, understand pupils and handle difficult social situations well, yet still find it hard to manage their own emotions, time pressure, conflicts and decisions, Jurman writes.

In the latest TALIS survey assessing schools’ working and learning environments, 29 percent of Estonian teachers of pupils in grades 7 to 9 said they experienced high levels of work-related stress, compared with an OECD average of 19 percent. Nearly half of Estonian teachers said they planned to leave the profession within five years.

Jurman and her colleagues surveyed nearly 530 Estonian basic and secondary school teachers. They asked participants to rate their perceived stress and five areas of social and emotional competence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.

Overall, teachers who rated their social and emotional skills more highly reported less stress. When the researchers considered all five areas together, self-management, including the ability to guide one’s actions, set goals and work towards them, had the strongest link to lower stress. Self-awareness also had a smaller association with lower stress.

Among teachers who reported the highest stress, only self-management distinguished them from other teachers. The findings suggest that strong empathy and social skills do not necessarily mean teachers can manage their own stress equally well.