Cultivating Teacher Renewal: Guarding Against Stress and Burnout
This is a very valuable book for anyone who wants to be a stress-free, mindful teacher.(Ellen Langer, Ph.D., Author of Mindfulness and The Power of Mindful Learning)Today's stressed-out teachers need this book. It consolidates the abundant research coming from multiple domains to help teachers develop a repertoire of proven strategies for managing stress, maintaining emotional balance, and sustaining well-being.This book gives teachers the tools to keep flourishing in their teaching career and reap the joys of this wonderful profession.(Kenneth Pelletier, M.D., Director, Corporate Health Improvement Program at the University of Arizona School of Medicine and co-author of Stress Free for Good: 10 Scientifically Proven Life Skills for Health and Happiness and author of Sound Mind, Sound Body: A New Model for Lifelong Health)This book skillfully combines practical strategies, cutting edge research and the inspiration educators need to be proactive in how they approach the potential of stress and its consequences in their lives. Barbara Larrivee has given educators a great gift many will return to again and again when seeking the replenishment of mind and spirit teachers so often need.(Linda Lantieri, Director, The Inner Resilience Program and author of Building Emotional Intelligence: Techniques to Cultivate Inner Strength in Children)This is a rare and remarkable book, which I highly recommend to all teachers, teacher trainers and school administrators. Based on extensive, solid research, it presents simple yet powerful techniques for preventing burnout in teachers (and students as well). Read it! It could very well save your sanity, your career, even your life.(Jack Canfield, Co-author of Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul and The Success Principles)The goal of our noble profession is the development of healthy, capable, and vibrant children. The paradox is that these very goals subject us to stresses that undermine our own health, vitality, and effectiveness. Larrivee presents us with thoughtful and practical strategies for teacher renewal leading to rebirth of our well-being, excitement, and productivity.(Henry M. Levin, Teachers College, Columbia University and co-author of The Accelerated Schools Resource Guide and Privatizing Educational Choice: Consequences for Parents, Schools, and Public Policy)This is an important book. Teaching is an inherently stressful — and often distressful — experience.Cultivating Teacher Renewalprovides a practical and helpful set of guidelines and concrete strategies that will not only support and help teachers who are experiencing significant stress/distress but also promote health and wellness. I hope that all educators have the opportunity to read this book.(Jonathan Cohen Ph.D., National School Climate Center, Teachers College, Columbia University)In a field where people might think there is nothing new to be said about stress and burnout among teachers,Cultivating Teacher Renewalsquarely acknowledges that burnout and stress are, in the end, emotional conditions and therefore require a sophisticated inclusive understanding of the factors that affect teachers' emotional states. Barbara Larrivee does not peddle her own pet theory of emotion at teachers' expense, but creates a magisterial synthesis of the research on emotions in many traditions in order to help the teachers who are the audience for her book.Cultivating Teacher Renewalis a book with a sweeping yet solid theoretical base, and this enables it to set out very practical ways of diagnosing, anticipating, offsetting and ameliorating the onset of stress and burnout, that is such a scourge of the profession today.(Andy Hargreaves, Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education, Boston College and co-author of Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School and Sustainable Leadership)Cultivating Teacher Renewalis the best and most complete book on teacher stress and what to do about it on the market today. It takes the reader inside the problem of burnout and then shows clearly how to avoid or get out of it. Great ideas for reaching inside yourself, and outside to those around you to achieve new levels of energy and renewal.(Michael Fullan, professor emeritus, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (from the foreword))Without a doubt, Larrivee (California State Univ.) has written a must-read book for all classroom teachers. Grounded in a strong theoretical base and combining research from the fields of education, the health profession, and psychology, Larrivee gives readers a thoughtful approach about how to deal effectively with the short- and long-term pressures of teaching. Without resorting to blame, Larrivee leaves no stone unturned in her review of the literature about stress and burnout as well as teacher emotions. In the second part of her book, she engages readers with proven strategies for dealing with stress and burnout, learning to reflect about student and classroom behavior management realities, and learning to listen to oneself effectively. She advocates mind-over-matter techniques combined with inner control of one's body and maintaining a positive outlook on classroom teaching while continuing to build strong character and healthy body and mind. Larrivee has authored a remarkable book that will benefit teacher educators, school administrators, physicians, and psychologists. Clearly, this work has the potential to become a seminal volume in the teacher renewal literature in the near future.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.(CHOICE)