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A thread on something that is really concerning me. The level of stress and overwhelm I'm seeing in educators is at an all-time high. We need to talk about emotions, vicarious trauma, and #highered leadership.
#AcademicChatter
#highered
#AcademicChatter
#highered
I want to start by saying that many professions, obviously, have a higher likelihood of vicarious trauma, and that needs attention, of course. I work with educators, so that's my focus. I'm not discounting any other field, just focusing here on mine.
I'm also going to try to come at this by discussing two levels of what I'm seeing in educators: 1-a more generalized experience of picking up other people's emotions and 2-a more specific and serious experience of vicarious trauma.
Let's start with the first. If you aren't as familiar with setting healthy boundaries b/t yourself and others (your students, your colleagues), when you enter a room (virtual or f2f) filled with stressed people, it's very normal to pick up that stress as your own.
Some of what people are attributing to #zoomfatigue is actually the fatigue of carrying the emotions of the 72 people you met with today inside of your one human body.
Just noticing and naming this is a great place to start. Second to that, BOUNDARIES! Boundaries for days.
Boundaries help us to know where we end and the other person begins. I think of boundaries as guidelines that I set for myself about what I will and won't accept. I don't think I can set a boundary for anyone else, only for myself.
A boundary I have been using for myself lately is to log-off at the end of my workday (and weekends) and STAY OFF. If you are logging in to stressful situations every five minutes, you are constantly activating your amygdala. Let it rest. Let your brain and heart rest.
On a more serious level, I am realizing that many educators are moving closer to first responders in the level of trauma they're seeing in students. Repeated exposure to someone else's trauma is called vicarious trauma. I am REALLY concerned about our #studentaffairs folks here.
Vicarious trauma builds up and can have very real consequences for our physical and mental health. It is not to be taken lightly, and if our employers know we are being exposed to it, it is their RESPONSIBILITY to put support systems in place to mitigate and address it.
Your counseling team is a great resource, but your counseling team is understaffed. I don't even need to know the details; your counseling team is understaffed. And they are experiencing vicarious trauma too.
If y'all spent a crap ton of $ on revamping a classroom for HyFlex that could've been used for another f/t counselor, we're in a fight.
#HigherEd leaders can and should be prioritizing the emotional and physical needs of their faculty, staff, and students (and themselves!). But if that's not happening, please reach out to other communities for support.
And to the extent that you can, please stop having meetings that focus solely on logistics and schedules and various minutiae and start creating space for people to show up and tell the truth about what they're experiencing.
