The Science and the So What? #2
Teacher Burnout Actually Raises Measured Cortisol Levels in Students
Marcy Crawford and Louis Wilde, Ph.D.
The Science
Teacher burnout has long been a concern of educators because of its potential effects on the well-being and performance of both teachers and students. In a remarkable, one-of-a-kind, large-sample study, Oberle and Schonert-Reichl (2016) actually linked classroom teacher burnout as assessed by a modified version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory with salivary cortisol levels of their elementary students. While not a direct measure of stress, neuro-endocrine regulation of cortisol often has been used as a biological indicator for children’s stress-related experiences. The teacher surveys were completed when convenient during the school day and the salivary cortisol samples in children were collected at 9 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 2 p.m. in the classroom setting.
As put by the authors, ”we found that after adjusting for differences in cortisol levels due to age, gender, and time of awaking, higher morning cortisol levels in students could be significantly predicted from higher burnout levels in classroom teachers.”
The So What?
The authors frame the potential connection between teachers’ emotional exhaustion and feelings of depersonalization from their students in the context of stress-contagion theory, “where stressful experiences can spillover from one stressed individual to another within a shared social setting.” While it makes intuitive sense that teacher stress will lead to student stress, in this study we have direct objective evidence of that effect. There is also substantial literature related to the beneficial effects of mindfulness meditation on teacher well being and performance in general and on teacher burnout in particular. It takes only one step to put these two together, providing a link between teacher mindfulness training and beneficial student outcomes. Remarkably, there are almost no studies of this connection. In fact, in a comprehensive review of mindfulness training in K-12 education, Meiklejohn, et al (2012) apparently found no research on the impacts of teacher mindfulness training on student outcomes. However, recognizing its importance, the authors instead suggest that the entire topic awaits future research.
Oberle, Eva, and Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, “Stress contagion in the classroom? The link between classroom teacher burnout and morning cortisol in elementary school students,” Social Science & Medicine 159 (2016) 30-37, DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.031.
John Meiklejohn, Catherine Phillips, M. Lee Freedman, Mary Lee Griffin, Gina Biegel, Andy Roach, Jenny Frank, Christine Burke, Laura Pinger, Geoff Soloway, Roberta Isberg, Erica Sibinga, Laurie Grossman, and Amy Saltzman, “Integrating Mindfulness Training into K-12 Education: Fostering the Resilience of Teachers and Students.” Mindfulness, 3 (2012): 291-307. DOI 10.1007/s12671-012-0094-5.