Stress in the classroom can be as contagious as the flu

Quartz highlighted a UBC study which found that when teachers are stressed, so too are their students. UBC education psychology professor Kimberly Schonert-Reichl and Eva Oberle, an assistant professor at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, studied levels of a stress hormone in 400 saliva samples collected from students between grades four and seven. They also surveyed the children’s 17 teachers for their emotional stress levels. The researchers found higher levels of stress in the students whose teachers reported feeling burnt out and exhausted.