Since 2019, Renata has been teaching science to students in a neighborhood on the outskirts of a city in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul. Then the pandemic hit, and her routines—and those of the entire teaching staff—changed drastically.

After conducting a survey to determine which students had smartphones or computers to access the classes, he noticed that fewer than 10% of the assigned assignments were turned in.

The pressure to keep activities going came to be reflected in numerous live training and planning sessions. We had to get organized to be able to participate in the online meetings, while at the same time leading the group activities.

Before an appropriate platform was implemented, she used her personal WhatsApp account to share content and stay in touch. She recalls being woken up in the middle of the night by parents of students expressing their dissatisfaction with the situation and asking her for solutions. She even taught a four-hour online class for a single student.

Those were very difficult months, during which I had to deal with pedagogical challenges while putting up with other people’s snide remarks that teachers were privileged because they weren’t “working.”

In October 2021, educators in the municipal school system were given a week off. She felt that not even six months of vacation would be enough to relieve the physical strain she was feeling. On the first day of the break, she suffered a transient ischemic attack (TIA) and had to be hospitalized.

She has recovered, but she feels that the high level of stress she was under may have been the cause of this health problem.

This is just one of many examples of reports received by the Center for the Study of Human Development: Family and School (Nedefe), a research group in the Department of Psychology at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM).

“It is an outreach project focused on teachers’ mental health during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, designed to address the essential needs of the community in the municipality and surrounding region,” notes Professor Naiana Patias, coordinator of the center.

A difficult time

The program emerged as a necessity in 2020, when researchers realized—during conversations with elementary and secondary school teachers—that there was a lack of a space for speaking and listening, free from judgment, about teachers’ mental health.

Initially, in collaboration with other faculty members in the department, an online survey was developed in which teachers identified both physical issues in the workplace and those related to knowledge, teaching, needs, and interpersonal relationships. “In addition to all the information collected, it has become a tool for assessing symptoms of burnout syndrome (read more about this topic below),” explains the researcher.

These professionals began to learn about and engage with this environment during a challenging time in their daily lives. From the very beginning, she points out, there was this search for a safe space, conducive to sharing situations and experiences with psychologists from UFSM. It was during these opportunities that the researchers were able to hear, for example, the account of an early childhood education teacher, Elenara, as she addressed the insecurity she was feeling at that time. 

“My mental health has certainly been affected by all the problems we face every day with students and their families; we feel insecure in certain situations because we’re not sure how to act or what to do. We end up acting on instinct or following our hearts,” she confided.

These sessions were initially conducted remotely, via the internet. Later, they shifted to in-person sessions, and today, several partner schools benefit from Nedefe’s on-site support.

Another risk factor

In Naiana Patias’s view, the pandemic compounded a series of difficulties that teachers were already facing. “The problem was yet another burden for a group that was already struggling with countless issues—a profession that was already in poor shape and has historically faced challenges such as low pay, a lack of recognition, and excessive workloads, among others,” she says.

During virtual meetings held during the lockdown, the group of psychologists heard accounts of the difficulties faced by students and their families, including problems related to the lack of separation between work and home spaces, the abrupt shift to using technology—and also the scarcity of such resources. “We heard stories of teachers who had to take turns using the only computer in the house for both teaching activities and their children’s homework,” he says.

After nearly a year of returning to in-person work, Nedefe has observed a delicate situation regarding the well-being of these professionals. “Those who did not take time off for health reasons are experiencing symptoms such as anxiety, depression, irritability, and insomnia—difficult moments to cope with,” he reports.

Aggressiveness

From the perspective of classroom dynamics, teachers discuss the challenges of dealing with behavioral issues among students, which ultimately interfere with their teaching practice.

“Students have been acting more aggressively and anxiously, and teachers have to deal with complex situations, including cases that resemble the very symptoms these professionals have been experiencing,” he says.

There is a case of a school where all the students in a class went to the principal's office on more than one occasion to report anxiety attacks.

Patias also discusses examples of empathy and learning, such as that of a teacher who, in her daily interactions with students, uses the strategies she learned from her own anxiety diagnosis to guide and comfort students who are experiencing the same problem.

“We realize the importance of interpersonal relationships and the support people receive from teachers and classmates. We need each other to survive,” he emphasizes.

“No one learns through fear”

In a recent interview about the challenges faced by teachers, Adriana Martinelli, content director at Bett Brasil, used the following expression: “No one learns when they are afraid or highly anxious.”

In his view, learning is a process that occurs primarily within a dialogic relationship, through interactions between people mediated by information and knowledge. The more this relationship is based on trust, the greater the openness to learning.

“The current situation has brought relief, on the one hand, with the return to the comfort zone of in-person classroom instruction; however, after this experience, people are not the same—more than ever, it is necessary to rebuild relationships of trust among all stakeholders in the school,” he emphasizes.

According to the expert, learning to live harmoniously with the concept of uncertainty can be considered the most essential skill of our time. “Being open to the unexpected and dealing with rapid, necessary changes are fundamental skills for education, which has always shown us that the only certainty is change,” she says.

Teachers should shift their perspective toward a less rigid and resistant outlook—one that is more optimistic, flexible, open, and curious. “I like to challenge teachers to incorporate the phrase ‘what if’ into their daily internal vocabulary. It’s as if they were engaging in constant self-reflection on everyday situations, prompting their minds to imagine and embrace the unexpected,” he emphasizes.

The BNCC and Teacher Training

Martinelli is emphatic in stating that teachers’ professional development—especially their personal growth—plays a “more than intrinsic” role in conducting educational activities in vulnerable classrooms.

It emphasizes that the ten social-emotional competencies included in the National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC) represent a contemporary perspective on education.

However, she believes that not enough emphasis is being placed on helping educators develop these skills. “How can they foster these skills in their students if they’ve never had the chance to reflect on themselves and have no opportunity for self-development?” she asks.

According to the director, initial teacher training does not adequately address this topic, and continuing education programs are focused primarily on students—that is, on teaching strategies and methodologies for students.

“It is more than urgent to provide professional development opportunities for teachers that focus exclusively on them, so that they can become people with greater capacity for listening, empathy, and collaboration; so that they can navigate their daily emotions; and so that they can strive to engage in meaningful conversations with their students, based on respect and ethics,” he concludes.

Article originally published in Mundo Escolar magazine.

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