Cari Nierenberg wrote an interesting piece for LiveScience.com about a new study that draws a correlation between depression in teachers and their students’ learning experience. Here’s an excerpt, and you can click the link below for the full text. And if you are a teacher in the greater Cleveland area and recognize yourself or a colleague in this article, remember that we are here.
Elementary school teachers who have more symptoms of depression may have a negative influence on some students’ academic performance, a new study suggests.
In the small study, third-grade teachers who were struggling with symptoms of depression — such as poor appetite, restless sleep, crying spells and feeling like a failure — were generally less likely to create and maintain a high-quality classroom environment for their students compared with teachers who had fewer signs of depression.
The research also showed that students who had weak math skills tended to be more affected by their teachers’ depressive symptoms and the poorer-quality classroom environment. In contrast, the performance of their classmates with stronger math skills was not affected by the learning environment.