Life Of E's

A teacher who signed up for Patricia Hutchings’ teleseminar, “Why Be Wiped Out at Work?” sent in the question below ahead of time.  Although Patricia addressed it in the teleseminar, I wanted to add some additional thoughts for the blog:

I’d like to know how to cope with working in a school environment where I am never given positive feedback, but only negative. An environment where the only comments given to me are critical, but not constructive. How do you keep your spirit and passion when you are never positively acknowledged for creativity, hard work, and willingness to do whatever needs to be done to help students? I’m on my third school in 7 years with ___ School District, and this harsh working environment appears to be the norm here. If I want to continue teaching here I need some means of coping with this kind of stress because my 13 previous years in other school districts did not prepare me for this.

This is sadly, more common than most of us would think – and certainly than we would hope.   Here are a few possibilities for coping:

1. Leave.  Smart people, good people, folks trying to help others (and so on) don’t need to put up with this.  Sadly it has become the norm too many places…but one option is to leave.
2. Bring it up in a faculty meeting (you have to be quite brave to do this).  Sometimes, though, you have to ‘go for it.’
3. Talk with the administrator privately.  Use language such as the kind we discussed in the ‘toxic work environment’ workshop (which was recorded and is available).
4. Talk with individual teachers privately and inquire as to their perceptions.  Do this in a non-gossipy way, of course.  It needs to be a ‘checking on perceptions’ kind of conversation.  “Is it me or do you sometimes feel there is a lot of negativity in our school?’  Something like that. 
5. Try to identify the real source.  Is it one person or is it 5 people or is it the entire culture?  As Roger Mellott says, “You can’t enlighten the unconscious.”  Some people are so clueless there’s no way to reach them.  Many people aren’t clueless, however…and conversations may help.

I wish I had easy answers…I don’t.  I’d suggest #1 again, though.  Life is too short….

If you have not already accessed Patricia’s excellent teleseminar recording and handouts, you may access this webpage, sign up and everything will be sent to you automatically:  http://www.meggin.com/PatriciaHutchings.php

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Tags: Patricia Hutchings, stress, toxic work environment