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Viewpoint

Teacher Well-Being and Wellness:

Can Your Canine Help?

By Christina R. Edmonds-Behrend and Anne Papalia

Prologue: Expanding Our Pack

Our story starts in February 2020 at an international
special education conference. Anne was facilitating a session on
service and therapy animals, and I was an eager audience member.
Not only did I learn a lot from Anne, but, furthermore, I was inspired.
Long having trained my own dogs but being new to the therapy dog
world, I felt I had to reach out to Anne after the conference. On a
whim and a prayer, I composed an email to her . . . and I am so glad
I did! In each other, we have expanded our pack. We have found,
through our love of dogs and teaching, a new support for one another
as women in higher education.
Accordingly, we have penned the following article based on
an original presentation on wellness to teachers in Pennsylvania
(Papalia & Edmonds-Behrend, 2021). We want to introduce these
ideas to a larger audience of women in education via Delta Kappa
Lucky Dog at the Lake © Gamma. We invite you, the reader, to join us in interacting with your
Photograph by Judy Rongey, LA; dog and learning more about the human-animal bond. We encourage
Spring 2022 Art Gallery you to take time with your dog to focus on your own well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected us all in different ways. It changed how we shop, work, play, and,
especially, educate young people. Medical and government agencies asked the world to set aside social
norms and comply with guidelines that, at times, may have appeared to be confusing. Unfortunately, this
led to stress and divisiveness. As educators, we have a duty to be leaders, not only in our classrooms but
also in the community. There may be no better time for educators to take the lead, practice self-care, and
be more mindful of their own well-being.
Being an educator at any time can be a challenge. The past 2 years have presented new obstacles and
opportunities in classrooms. Where does “teacher stress” come from and how may this stress manifest?
Teacher stress has an expanding impact on various realms of our professional and personal lives. In
a 2012 study, Richards studied teachers’ stress and their coping strategies. Employing a survey adapted
from the Teacher Stress Inventory, Richards collected data from 1,201 K–12 teachers; the data were
divided and reported as coming from California only or from outside of California. Based on averaged
Likert responses, the top five sources of stress noted by those educators outside of California were a
feeling of work-related over-commitment; teaching students without enough supports; having little
time to relax; teaching students with little perceived motivation; and feeling pressure to be accountable
(for student achievement). Commonly reported manifestations of stress were physical exhaustion, loss
of enthusiasm, and a sense of being overwhelmed and in doubt of one’s ability to “make a difference.”
Teachers reported physical symptoms (e.g., headaches, stomach pains) and negative impact on personal
lives.
Santoro (2020), in an opinion piece, wrote about the distinction between teacher demoralization (i.e.,

16 · Volume 89-4