Boards grapple with teacher stress research

School board officials say they are not surprised by the findings of a doctoral thesis about mounting stress and hefty workloads of high school teachers.

Lynda Younghusband says continually expanding and changing duties not to mention abusive students are pushing some teachers to the breaking point.

"They used words like 'bombarded,' 'impossible' [and] 'overwhelmed,'" said Younghusband, who conducted the research for her PhD.

"I don't think there was one participant who didn't use the word 'overwhelmed,' and they used [it] over and over."

For her doctoral thesis, Younghusband conducted extensive interviews with 16 high school teachers across the island.

While the sample size was small and she cautions against generalizing Younghusband said the findings were nonetheless revealing about stress in the classroom.

Younghusband used a "grounded theory" approach to her research, in which a researcher conducts an in-depth interview with subjects until common ground emerges.

Younghusband said she reached the "saturation point" regarding stress after 12 interviews, although she kept proceeding.

"That may seem a small number," she said. "[But] I was getting the same stories over and over."

She said teachers routinely told her about a "heavy, heavy workload that was changing all the time, demands coming from all angles that were changing, and nothing was let go."

School board officials are not surprised by the findings, but are not sure what to do about them.

Brian Shortall, the executive director of the province's School Boards Association, says there is no question that teachers have more work now than 20 years ago.

"The accountability demands [have increased}, as well as the instruction that has become more individualized," Shortall said.

"Teachers have to address the learning styles of the students and modify their strategies to respond to those, so teaching is more more individual and therefore much more complex," he said.

Darin King, director of education with the Eastern School District, says hiring more teachers and more support staff is one solution, although it is not likely to happen.

"The reality is that as a district and province, we have to maximize the resources that we have, and that's not always easy," he said.

"From my perspective, we focus on the positive. We take the resources we have and, as best we can, apply them to the system so we meet the needs of students in collaboration with teachers."

Younghusband said since she completed her research, she has been approached frequently by other teachers who have echoed the same point of view.