Janeeta Shaukat & Anna Jesseman

The shift to online classes during the pandemic has underscored the crucial need for mental health support for teachers. While this need was obvious to most of us as we watched teachers juggling the challenges of online teaching, it's crucial not to overlook their well-being beyond the pandemic. In an interview with Anna  Jesseman, a clinical social worker with the Medstar Georgetown Center for Wellbeing in School Environments (WISE), it becomes evident how tightly the well-being of teachers and students are intertwined. 

Teacher and student mental health: Intricately connected

Currently conducting research in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, Anna works with Public Charter Schools in DC through the WISE Center, investigating the impact of adult well-being interventions, such as therapy, on students' social and emotional outcomes. She poses the central question: What impact does offering well-being interventions to teachers have on the long-term development of students' social and emotional indicators? Anna's research is inspired by her extensive exposure to classrooms worldwide. Her teaching career in the Bronx ignited her interest in student mental health as she found that many of her students had behavioral and emotional disabilities. Later, when working for “Teachers for All,” she closely collaborated with teachers in India and Lebanon and noted the prevalent struggles in teacher and student mental health across the globe. Anna shared the story of a teacher during her work with “Teach For Lebanon.” The teacher was working in the southern part of the country and shared with Anna that her students were operating with high stress levels because of the current increased conflict with Israel and violence in the region. She explained that from her classroom window they could see smoke and sometimes hear explosions on the other side of the border nearby, and that this was so distressing for the children that even when the sounds and scenes were not active, the kids were obsessed with looking out the window and ruminating over the next rupture. Anna and her team walked the Lebanese teacher through the principles of psychological first aid and how to do some somatic grounding exercises with her students. They even talked about using humor and art/music to create outlets of expression for the kids. The teacher came back the following week and reported that the exercises and strategies that she had used in the classroom had created a really nurturing and psychologically safe environment for the kids, even when they did not feel physically safe, and that had enabled her to be able to actually teach them.

An innovative solution

Through her work Anna found that regardless of teaching methods, pedagogy, or the strength of educators, teachers were involuntarily translating their stress and tension onto their students. In an effort to support teachers and, consequently, students, Anna, in partnership with Teach for All, engaged in therapeutic interventions in areas facing acute crisis situations where therapist access is limited. One innovation has been the adaptation of the single-session consultation model, a 90-minute evidence-based therapeutic approach that was found to have remarkable mental health benefits for educators. Most importantly, given that this model can be administered by non-clinicians, it increases access to mental health support for the community. Despite the seemingly brief nature of training sessions, research has shown the exponential impact they can have. The team at WISE has also been working to build the capacity of teacher training programs on the ground to deliver this and other non-clinical teacher wellbeing interventions. For example, a 2020 Zoom workshop series Anna led for 180 teachers in India enabled them to provide subsequent training for thousands more. To her surprise, the information she presented was combined with generations of communal wisdom, creating the best ways to cope with stress in that community. This emphasizes the cultural adaptability and scalability of this mental health initiative.

The way forward

Anna's work demonstrates the need for mental health support for teachers globally. While teaching has persistently been a profession under constant stress, it is only recently that the significance of their wellness has gained importance. Building upon the initial success that the WISE team has found in working with teachers internationally, Anna is focussed on proving a relationship between teacher wellbeing interventions and student outcomes. Knowing that schools ultimately exist to serve students and that funding models often follow student achievement data, proving the link between teacher wellbeing efforts and student growth is a critical part of the puzzle that Anna aims to unlock through her research. As we work to foster healthy and supportive educational environments, it is important that we also recognize how our well-being is connected to the well-being of others.