Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Teachers and Its Impact on the Teaching Practice

Abstract

Teacher socioemotional health has always been an important area of study, but the global COVID-19 pandemic made it a priority. The emotional well-being of teachers is so important because it directly impacts on their teaching abilities and as a result on students’ well-being and learning. This article documents how a university-based professional development center addressed these SEL needs of teachers during the year of the pandemic, how teachers felt about this support and its implications on their teaching practices. We show how immediately after schools closed and teachers had to teach online, their priority was to learn about the technology and how to teach online. We also show as the year progressed, how the basics of technology had been covered, how teachers sought professional development to care about their own mental health, and detailed how the intersection of SEL made the teaching practice more meaningful. The lessons learned this year and data gathered from other organizations that offered free of charge professional development suggest a possible shift in how schools may perceive the need to offer professional development to teachers, and therefore embrace a teacher training program that incorporates holistic self-care strategies and mental health related training.