Jia Tao

ENG 112-78
Connie Douglas
Round Table Essay
Oct. 27, 2014
Preschool education is very important in forming childrens characteristics, such as
personality, social skills, and emotion. Teaching is one of the most stressful occupations.
Preschool teachers are more likely to be vulnerable to stress, because their work is very
complicated, comprehensive, and stressful, and they experience lower job satisfaction levels
(Johnson, Cooper, Cartwright, Donald, Taylor, &Millet, 178). Burnout is a result of chronic
work stress and has negative impact in education of young children.
Burnout is individuals at the state of tired and exhausted under many stresses of work,
that individuals cannot deal with tasks successfully or cannot give a positive reactions when
they are facing stresses. According to Salami, burnout is a professional hazard that has been
explored in professional literature for teachers since the mid-1970s (110). Steinberg
reported that preschool teachers are physically and emotionally challenged, besides that, it
is difficult for teachers to be creative on their own after they create all day for children
(Steinberg The New York Times). Bunches of research have worked on teachers burnout
from different aspects. Most of them are from teachers side, social side, and the
government.
Preschool children are the age from three to five. Their physics and emotions are still
developing and not complete. Therefore, preschool teachers need support more help and pay

more attention to preschoolers. Some children still have the problem of holding bowel and
bladder. They need help from teachers. Additionally, preschoolers fine motor is still
developing. They have trouble to control their fingers. Teachers need to provide many help
and support to preschoolers.
Moreover, preschoolers have trouble to control their emotions, preschool teachers
have to focus every child who feel sad. Preschool teachers need to help children separate
from their parents and engage those children in activities (School Sparks, Classroom
expectations). Some children cannot independently follow directions from teachers, and
need special attention from teachers. Because the development of preschoolers
characteristics, preschool teachers not only teach academic knowledge, such as letter and
word awareness, and math and number awareness, but also spend a lot of time to take care
of childrens daily lives.
Additionally, teachers really need support and understand from parents. According to
Clark, teachers want parents know that teachers are educated professionals. Teachers know
kids in different ways. Sometimes, teachers know more about the kids than parents. When
teachers provide advices to parents, they hope parents can listen and accept them (What
teachers really want to tell parents, CNN). Unfortunately, a lot of parents do not want to
accept truth of their kids.
From the social view, most of the researches have focus on supervisors of teachers
and parents of students. Teachers experience burnout because they need to sustain higher
expectation and pressure from society, such as parents and supervisors. Just as Leupold
mentioned in her article, some parents just lack of interest and time to communicate with

teachers in the kindergarten. However, they have very high expectations. Parents do not
only have standard about physical and emotional development, but also have whole various
things, such as self-confidence, creativity, intellectual, and so on (113). However, because
some parents do not know they need to communicate with teachers as often as they can,
they just know their own high level standard, that makes teachers feel so stressful and not
being understood.
Besides that, supervisors or principles should always observe teachers carefully, and
communicate with them nicely. Supervisors should concern about the consequence that
might happened when teachers are experiencing burnout (KIPPS-VAUGHAN MasterFILE).
Teacher burnout is a very serious issue because it influences the quality of teaching.
Teachers who feel burnout may teach less and provide fewer commendations to students, as
well as communicate less with them (Salami 229). In order to help teachers relieve the
stress, supervisors have set up different programs, such as increase awareness and skills in
promote stress management (KIPPS-VAUGHAN MasterFILE).
The last part is the view from government. According to the website of United States
Department of Labor, preschool teachers median pay is 27,130 per year. Comparing to
kindergarten and elementary school teachers who are 53,090 per year, preschool teachers
really get low payment (2012). However, their nature of work is really complicated and
stressful. According to the website, preschool teachers need to help children get ready for
kindergarten. They need to educate children in groups or one on one. They also need to
organize activities in the classroom and all different kinds of paperwork. Even most public
preschool only take 10-month school year, with 2-month break a year. However, some

private preschoolers need to work whole 12-month, except more than 2 weeks break.
When talking about teachers nature of work, Bousquet has mentioned that working44
hours a week will increase the risk of burnout (9). However, some teachers even need to
work more than 53 hours includes different kinds of paperwork, such as planning and
grading (Bousquet 9). He also revealed that teachers will get higher risk of burnout when
they need do extra role activities.
In conclusion, preschoolers are experiencing burnout. A lot of research have analyzed
from teachers view, and social view. However, government website is the only way to
know what the view is from government about teachers burnout. There is not a lot of
information about that preschool teachers experience burnout. But it is still obviously notice
when comparing with different grade levels teachers. Anyway, studying burnout among
preschool teachers would help improve understanding of job-stress enhance their career
lives.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Preschool
Teachers, web.15-2014.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/preschool-teachers.htm#tab-1
Bousquet, Sarah. Teacher Burnout: Causes, Cures and Prevention. American international College.
07 Oct. 2012. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED534527.pdf
Clark, Ron. What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents. CNN. 14, March, 2013
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/06/living/teachers-want-to-tell-parents/
Johnson, Sheena; Cooper, Cary; Cartwright, Sue; Donald, Ian; Taylor, Paul. The Experience of
Work-related Stress Across Occupations. Journal of Managerial Psychology 20.2 (2005):
178-187
KIPPS-VAUGHAN, DEBI. "Supporting Teachers Through Stress Management." Education Digest 79.1
(2013): 43. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 16 Oct. 2014
Leupold, Eva Maria. "Demands From All Sides." European Education 26.1 (1994): 112. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.
Samami, O. Samuel. Job Stress and Burnout among Lecturers: Personality and Social Support as
Moderators. Asian Social Science 7.5 (2010): 110-121
Steinberg, Jacques. Giving the Teachers Balm for Burnout. The New York Times (2001)
Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/07/education/giving-the-teacher-balm-for-burnout.html?pagewa
nted=all&src=pm