An Exploration of the Lived Experience of Participating in Three of CARE for Teachers' Mindful Awareness and Stress Reduction Practices, as well as Three Caring and Compassion Practices
Open Access
Author:
Briggs, Kevin Thomas
Graduate Program:
Educational Leadership
Degree:
Doctor of Education
Document Type:
Dissertation
Date of Defense:
September 21, 2020
Committee Members:
Deborah Lynn Schussler, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor Deborah Lynn Schussler, Committee Chair/Co-Chair Gerald K Letendre, Committee Member Ronald Robert Musoleno, Committee Member William Calvin Diehl, Outside Member Patricia Ann Jennings, Special Member Kevin Kinser, Program Head/Chair
Keywords:
Education Mindfulness Compassion CARE Phenomenology Giorgi Husserl Qualitative MBI MBIs Leadership Stress Attrition Teacher Leader Administrator Caring Mindfulness-Based Intervention
Abstract:
Teaching in K-12 settings is demanding and can lead to high levels of teacher stress. As a result, teachers can experience burnout and psychological distress, which can cascade and may result in teachers leaving the profession, especially teachers who are towards the beginning of their career. As a result, Mindfulness-Based Intervention (MBI) programs such as the Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) for Teachers program have emerged as an effort to mitigate teacher stress by promoting – among other traits – mindfulness and compassion. This dissertation builds on current understandings of the relationship between mindfulness and compassion by providing new, qualitative data focused on three of CARE for Teachers’ Mindful Awareness and Stress Reduction practices, as well as three of CARE for Teachers Caring and Compassion practices, and thereby exploring links between mindfulness and compassion. Results of this study include individual descriptive phenomenological structures of the lived experience of participating in the six practices. The structures suggest that, as a result of participating in the program, participants felt more connected to others, and participants reported experiencing compassion for themselves and others as a result of participating in the practices.