Philosophy of the Whole Person Teacher: Investigating Experiences of Adversity and Trauma Among Teachers and Students

This dissertation examines the experiences of stress, trauma, empathy based stress, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and Professional Quality Of Life (ProQOL) of K-12 teachers across the United States. Manuscript 1 “Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Vicarious Traumatization Training for Professionals Working with Children and Youth: A Realist Synthesis” investigates how in-service professionals who work with 3–18-year-olds receive training that influences empathy based stress (EBS). Manuscript 2 “At Risk of Trauma: The Exacerbation of Teacher Stress During The COVID-19 Pandemic”, reports the results of an interpretive qualitative study investigating teachers’ meaning making of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on their well-being, their ability to teach, and their perceptions of, and interactions with, student well-being and learning. Manuscript 3 “When Traumas Intersect: A Mixed Methods Examination of Teachers’ Adverse Childhood Experiences and their Professional Quality of Life” examines the relationship between teachers’ response to teaching challenges and benefits, perceptions of the experiences of adversity among students, ProQOL (i.e., compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress, and their personal history of ACEs. The aim of the manuscripts is to uncover the ways teachers’ personal experiences interact with the context of their profession through the philosophical lens of the whole person teacher.