Teaching is an emotionally demanding profession. Teacher trainees are especially vulnerable to mood issues and poor emotion regulation as they navigate new classroom challenges. Learning to manage emotions and maintain positivity through emotional regulation training early on is key to wellbeing and success. Here are some evidence-based ways teacher preparation programs can help trainees improve emotion regulation and mood.
Incorporate emotional regulation training.
Integrate instruction on identifying emotions, cognitive reappraisal, mindfulness, and healthy coping skills into the teacher training curriculum. Practice labeling emotional responses to scenarios like student misbehavior. Teach trainees to reframe unhelpful thoughts and de-escalate strong emotions. Guide them to implement strategies like mindful breathing, exercise, and social support. Roleplaying stressful situations can help build regulation skills.
Promote self-care and work-life balance.
Prevent burnout by training teacher trainees on the importance of self-care. Offer tips for managing time, setting boundaries, and taking breaks. Discuss maintaining hobbies, social connections, adequate sleep, nutrition, and exercise to improve mood and the ability to handle workplace stressors. Recommend limiting work outside of contract hours. Provide tools to identify signs of burnout like irritability, lack of motivation, and physical symptoms.
Build resilience and a growth mindset.
Resilience training helps teacher trainees develop traits like adaptability, persistence, and optimism to manage adversity. Teach strategies to reframe challenges as learning experiences, acknowledge progress, and seek solutions. Emphasize effort over perceived talent to foster a growth mindset. Share stories of experienced teachers overcoming early career struggles. Instill the belief that setbacks are normal and that resilience is built over time.
Provide ongoing mentoring and support.
Assign teacher trainees mentors who meet regularly to offer guidance on instruction, classroom management, communicating with parents and administrators, and navigating workplace challenges. Create support groups for teacher trainees to share their experiences. Provide counseling services and resources. Check in frequently on the trainee’s wellbeing and struggles. Give reassurance that challenges will become easier.
Teach Emotionally Responsive Classroom Management
Train teacher trainees in culturally sensitive, trauma-informed classroom management focused on social-emotional needs. Demonstrate validating student emotions and using discipline as an opportunity to teach emotion regulation skills. Prepare trainees to manage their own emotional reactions. Discuss common triggers like student apathy, disrespect, or reminders of personal trauma and strategies to respond calmly.
Practice mindfulness techniques.
Incorporate mindfulness practices like breathwork, body scans, and meditation into preparation courses to improve emotion regulation. Share research on the benefits of mindfulness on mood, focus, and classroom climate. Provide resources for independent mindfulness practice. Build time for mindfulness into a daily course schedule. Consider multi-week mindfulness programs to build habits.
Observe veteran teacher classrooms.
Arrange for teacher trainees to observe experienced teachers demonstrating effective emotion regulation and classroom management. Post-observation debriefs can identify positive takeaways to implement. Look for teachers skilled at establishing rapport, maintaining composure and organization amidst chaos, and modeling healthy work-life boundaries.
Cultivate supportive cohort connections.
Facilitate relationship-building activities so cohorts form strong connections. Embedded social support improves resilience to manage challenges and isolation during the first teaching years. Create group chats or message boards that allow new teacher peers to collaborate and problem-solve together.
Promote counseling and wellness services.
Ensure teacher trainees know about available counseling services to prevent and address mental health struggles that may arise in training or fieldwork. Make counseling easily accessible and confidential. Share wellness resources like support groups, wellness centers, trauma specialists, and mental health days.
Incorporate ongoing self-reflection.
Build in time for regular self-reflection so teacher trainees can identify emotional triggers, thought patterns, and both positive and negative reactions. Self-reflection improves the ability to monitor and adjust emotions and moods. Provide reflection prompts and tools to track progress.
Adjust support as needed.
Check in frequently with teacher trainees to see if existing supports are helping regulate emotions and maintain a positive mindset, or if more assistance is needed in areas like coping strategies, boundaries, or counseling. Adjust supports accordingly to meet individual needs.
Conclusion
Teacher trainees are prone to mood issues from the stresses of new instructional and classroom management responsibilities. Emotion dysregulation can negatively impact teacher performance and wellbeing. By integrating resilience strategies, self-care, mentoring, mindfulness, and a growth mindset into preparation programs, schools can equip teacher trainees with the skills needed to thrive. This benefits trainees, future students, and the teaching profession.
