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Teacher compassion fatigue in predominantly BIPOC classrooms - a qualitative study

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Teacher Compassion Fatigue in Predominantly BIPOC Classrooms
A Qualitative Study

by
Desiree Del-Zio

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education

May 2022

© Copyright by Desiree Del-Zio 2022
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Desiree Del-Zio Certifies the approval of this Dissertation

John Pascarella
Mary Ho
Corinne Hyde, Committee Chair

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2022

iv

Abstract
Teachers come to their work in the classroom with socially generated values, beliefs, and
attitudes, supporting or limiting their ability to create equitable learning experiences. Teachers’
beliefs and practices may include colorblind ideology that interacts with diverse students’ world
views. If those students’ experiences include racial-socialization trauma, a teacher practicing
colorblind ideology may lack the ability to recognize, name, and address such trauma. Moreover,
teachers’ exposure to diverse students’ unaddressed primary trauma can lead to secondary
trauma, an experience associated with compassion fatigue. This study, grounded in the Bandura
(2005) Social Cognitive Theory, uses a qualitative interview approach to collect data from
teachers serving predominantly historically minoritized student populations. This dissertation
explores the assumed influence of intersecting racial-socialization trauma and colorblind
ideology on teachers’ compassion fatigue. The study validates racial-socialization trauma and
colorblind ideology; however, it could not definitively connect these factors to teacher
compassion fatigue. Instead, the study identified a culture of fatigue and assumes all three
identified factors reduce teacher motivation and student performance. Three elemental themes
emerged: a lack of resources and support systems, individual teacher capacity, and fatigue
culture. This dissertation provides recommendations for each identified theme. The research
contributes to an evolving body of research suggesting that teachers experience compassion
fatigue like other helping industries such as social workers, first responders, and therapists. This
dissertation digs deeper into this body of research, exploring if preexisting and juxtaposed forces
such as colorblind ideology and racial-socialization trauma clash in the classroom, exacerbating
teacher compassion fatigue.

v

Dedication
To my daughters, Cassidy Renee and Emily Danielle Jacquez, with my whole heart and
without hesitation. These two beautiful young women came into my life and blessed it in ways I
cannot describe. Since then, I have dedicated every moment to serving their inquisitive and
precious spirits. I am grateful the Universe chose me to be their mother and all the gifts that
followed. There is a reason why a “mother’s love” has its own category. I have experienced no
greater love, and modeling a transformative, appreciative, and curious existence to make them
proud is a life worth living. The two of them inspire me, motivate me, and teach me something
new every day. Our little but mighty family of women has so much to offer each other and this
world. It is my privilege to walk this life beside you and observe as you make your mark. “I
could make you happy, make your dreams come true. Nothing that I wouldn’t do. Go to the ends
of the Earth for you. To make you feel my love.”
To my parents, John and Joyce Del-Zio. Thank you for supporting me, encouraging me,
and believing in me without reservation. I will never forget the sound in your voice and the tears
in your eyes when I shared the news of my acceptance into the Doctoral Program. Making you
proud remains a constant in my life. No matter how old I get or the accomplishments I amass, I
do it in honor of the strong, capable woman you raised me to be. I do it to remind myself that I
am my parents’ daughter, a woman who can achieve whatever she sets her mind to. And I
promise today and always that if I step up to do anything, I will do it completely, with a full
heart, and to the best of my ability. I love you both.
To the racially minoritized world’s children and the fearless and fatigued teachers that
guide them. I did this work for you. I spent the last three years studying and trying to understand
this problem, push back on structural racism, dismantle colorblindness, and change the dialogue
vi

around education. As a White woman and a former teacher, this dissertation represents my desire
to share in this discourse. In my efforts to change this conversation, I changed myself. I see the
historically marginalized children of this country. I recognize and name the struggle placed upon
them by being born into their skin. For all the days of my life, I will never unsee it. I hope to
share this truth in ways that others may hear and respond to. I honor and recognize this historical
and relentless reality and am humbled to fight against it in any way I can.
To teachers. In doing this work, I also noticed and cannot un-notice the struggles of our
teacher workforce. Teachers are the unsung heroes, stepping up each day and taking up the work
of supporting their students’ social-emotional, developmental, physical, and cognitive challenges
and achievements. The dedication and grace exhibited by the teachers in this study are
tantamount to the societal struggles they are thrust into each day of their working life. If the ideas
and concepts shared in this dissertation positively affect the struggles of BIPOC children and
their teachers, I would consider it an accomplishment.

vii

Acknowledgments
From the start of my doctoral studies, individuals in my professional, academic, and
personal life have encouraged me and helped me reach the dream of completing my Education
Doctorate. To all of them, I offer my heartfelt expressions of gratitude. First and foremost, my
dear friends, Jennifer Berry and Anthony Alejandro, both of whom became my family through
the course of this program. Without your encouragement, support, and love, I could not have
endured the countless readings, recordings, asynchronous work, classwork, and the thousands of
words that went from concept to completion. But more than this, you loved me through my
moments of accomplishment, feelings of loss, and moments of despair. No one can endure a
program such as this without friendship, road trips to campus, extensions of kindness, and
moments of appreciation. You offered them all to me, and I have no words. #beatUCLA
#rollerderby #trampolineswithbigandlittlegirls #fivehourlunches. Here’s to the decades ahead we
will use to continue our celebration of each other’s accomplishments.
I want to also express gratitude to the standout professors who made those class hours
exciting and genuinely invigorating. First, thank you, Dr. Adam Kho, who taught Inquiry I with
an open and generous spirit. He invited me into research methodology, creating a sense of
curiosity and a deep desire to continue learning. He made research accessible and exciting,
including ontology and epistemology, two concepts I will never forget regardless of how hard I
try (I mean that in a good way). I am deeply grateful for the enthusiasm so generously shared in
his course.
I wish to extend equal gratitude to Dr. Alexandra Wilcox, who led my “Challenges in
Urban Settings: Leadership” and “Analyzing Organizational Change and Its Effectiveness”
courses. Not only did I savor this coursework, but I had the added benefit of learning from a
viii

remarkable woman who inspires trust, inquisitiveness, and enthusiasm. I am genuinely grateful
for the hours of support and the many book recommendations, including the Trust Factor and
The First 90 Days. I filled both with annotations, notes, and flagged pages. Thank you most
sincerely.
This dissertation and the completion of this program would not be a reality if it were not
for my mentor, friend, and Dissertation Chair, Dr. Corinne Hyde. The countless hours she spent
allowing me to test and retest new ideas, share my passions and curiosity, and my frustrations
and disappointment kept me from walking away from this work. She never failed to remind me
of my talents, strengths, and abilities. Dr. Hyde helped me refocus when my intended and
proposed methodology blew up, and I had to start at square one. She reminded me I was not
alone, of what I was capable of, and held me up when I needed it most. She kept me focused
when I wanted to set it all down, dive into a bottle of wine, and forget I started this work. More
than this, she read my countless dissertation iterations, gently guided my improvements, and
offered a sounding board to bring this dissertation to fruition. There are not enough expressions
of “thank you” to communicate my gratitude.
I also want to extend my most sincere appreciation to Dr. John Pascarella and Dr. Mary
Ho, my Dissertation Committee Members. Dr. Hyde helped me strategically select the
committee members for their areas of expertise and commitment to social justice. Moreover,
they demonstrated their sincere desire to support a budding researcher finding her way through
unchartered territory. This group's guidance, redirection, and encouragement grounded me, kept
me on track, and pushed me to explore my work in meaningful ways. I am deeply grateful to
them both.
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Finally, I must also thank a friend and colleague I will refer to only as R.T. to protect
their identity. When my research methodology took a turn into an unexpected space, R.T.
showed up in the most unprecedented and vital ways. Without a doubt, they “saved” my research
from drifting into the vast ocean of forgotten ideas and helped me bring it back to life. R.T.
opened the gate to make this research study possible. This dissertation’s accomplishment and the
many benefits I may experience moving forward will always stem directly and indirectly from
this support. Thank you, R.T. There are many glasses of wine and evenings on the couch
discussing everything from our children to solving the world’s problems in our future.

x

Table of Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................... vii
List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. xiv
List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xv
Chapter One: Overview of the Study .......................................................................................... 1
Background of the Problem......................................................................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................................ 2
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................................... 3
Significance of the Study ............................................................................................................ 4
Overview of the Theoretical Framework and Methodology ....................................................... 6
Definitions ................................................................................................................................... 8
Race-Conscious Descriptions ...................................................................................................... 9
Organization of the Study ......................................................................................................... 10
Chapter Two: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 11
Racial Socialization and Teacher Compassion Fatigue ............................................................ 12
Racial Socialization and Internalized Racism in BIPOC Students ........................................ 13
Racism and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ......................................................................... 14
The Family’s Role in Managing Racial Socialization Trauma ............................................. 18
The Need for Collective Familial and Scholastic Responses to Racism ............................... 20
Colorblind Ideology .................................................................................................................. 21
Colorblindness Protecting White Dominance ....................................................................... 21
Bias as a Barrier ..................................................................................................................... 23
Teacher Education and Perpetuating Inequity ....................................................................... 24
xi

Compassion Fatigue .................................................................................................................. 28
Workplace Trauma and Emotional Exhaustion ..................................................................... 28
Easing Emotional Exhaustion as a Workplace Procedure ..................................................... 29
Teacher and Child Care Workers' Exposure to Trauma ........................................................ 31
Relationship Between Teacher Exhaustion and Child Outcomes ......................................... 32
BIPOC Student Populations and Compassion Fatigue .......................................................... 34
Summary ................................................................................................................................... 37
Chapter Three: Methodology .................................................................................................... 39
Research Questions ................................................................................................................... 40
Sample and Population .............................................................................................................. 40
The Researcher .......................................................................................................................... 42
Data Sources .............................................................................................................................. 43
Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 44
Validity and Reliability ......................................................................................................... 46
Ethics ......................................................................................................................................... 48
Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 49
Chapter Four: Findings .............................................................................................................. 52
Participating Stakeholders ......................................................................................................... 53
Framing the Results and Findings ............................................................................................. 54
Results and Findings ................................................................................................................. 55
Resources and Support Systems ................................................................................................ 55
Social-Emotional Assessment Tools ..................................................................................... 56
Race-Trauma Assessment Tool ............................................................................................. 57
Parents as a Resource ............................................................................................................ 58
Race-Based Classroom Equity .............................................................................................. 59
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Time as a Resource ................................................................................................................ 60
Self-Care Mechanisms ........................................................................................................... 62
Individual Teacher Capacity ..................................................................................................... 65
Teachers’ Colorblind Ideology .............................................................................................. 65
Colorblind Classroom Practice .............................................................................................. 67
Generalized Trauma and Socioeconomic Status ................................................................... 69
Colorblindness as an Intervention Inhibitor .......................................................................... 71
Limited Racial-Socialization Trauma Indicators ................................................................... 72
Fatigue Culture .......................................................................................................................... 73
Fatigue Factors ...................................................................................................................... 73
The Absence of Compassion Fatigue Descriptors ................................................................. 74
COVID as a Fatigue Factor ................................................................................................... 76
Fatigue and Imbalance ........................................................................................................... 78
Teachers’ Descriptions of Fatigue Culture ............................................................................ 78
Summary ................................................................................................................................... 79
Chapter Five: Discussion ............................................................................................................ 82
Discussion of Findings .............................................................................................................. 83
Recommendations ..................................................................................................................... 85
Limited Resources and Support Systems .................................................................................. 87
Adopt a Research and Evidence-Based Social-Emotional Assessment Tool ........................ 87
Individual Teacher Capacity ..................................................................................................... 90
Establish and Sustain Communities of Practice .................................................................... 90
Parents as Community of Practice Partners ........................................................................... 94
Fatigue Culture .......................................................................................................................... 96
Incorporate Self-Care into Communities of Practice ............................................................ 96
xiii

Implementation and Evaluation ................................................................................................ 99
Social-Emotional Assessment Tool ....................................................................................... 99
Community of Practice ........................................................................................................ 101
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 103
Limitations .............................................................................................................................. 104
Future Research ....................................................................................................................... 107
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 109
References .................................................................................................................................. 112
Appendix A: The Interview Questions .................................................................................... 123
Appendix B: The Code Book ................................................................................................... 125
Appendix C: Personal Beliefs About Diversity Scale ............................................................ 127
Appendix D: Coded Analysis ................................................................................................... 129
Appendix E: Interview transcripts .......................................................................................... 146

xiv

List of Tables
Table 1 .......................................................................................................................................... 41
Table 2 .......................................................................................................................................... 86

xv

List of Figures
Figure 1. Percentage of Public School Populations: 9-Year Projection..................................... 5
Figure 2. Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................... 7
Figure 3. Developmental and Ecological Model of Youth and Racial Trauma ....................... 16
Figure 4. Race-Based Traumatic Stress Injury ........................................................................ 18
Figure 5. Exposure Directly Relates to Classroom Implementation ........................................ 26
Figure 6. The Reciprocol Nature of Teacher and Student Social-Emotional Competence ..... 37
Figure 7. Social-Emotional Learning Framework ................................................................... 89
Figure 8. Community of Practice: Teacher Fatigue and Diverse Classroom Populations ....... 94
Figure 9. Self-Care and Community of Practice: Teacher Fatigue and Diverse Student
Populations .......................................................................................................................... 98
Figure 10. Social-Emotional Assessment Checkpoints and Outcome Expectations ............. 101
Figure 11. Community of Practice 2-Month Implementation Cycle ..................................... 103

1

Chapter One: Overview of the Study
This research study addresses the impact of diverse students’ racial socialization trauma
on teachers’ compassion fatigue. Students from diverse backgrounds experience racism early,
resulting in often-overlooked racial socialization trauma (Bryant-Davis, 2005; Dotterer et al.,
2009; Jernigan & Daniel, 2011). These students enter the classroom internalizing this trauma,
causing post-traumatic stress-like symptoms (Butts, 2002; Speight, 2007). Teacher credentialing
programs and other preservice and in-service training models a colorblind ideology meant to
soften racial and ethnic student differences (Milner, 2006). The validation of colorblindness in
the classroom reduces the opportunity to create inclusive learning environments for racially
traumatized students (Aragon et al., 2017). Teachers’ biases are not dismantled in a colorblind
learning environment, impeding their ability to create learner-centered classrooms rendering
racial socialization trauma invisible (Milner, 2006; Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2010). Teachers
exposed to students experiencing unrecognized trauma symptoms express secondary trauma and
compassion fatigue (Koenig et al.,2018). Dissimilar to teacher burnout, which often takes years
to manifest, compassion fatigue can result from a single interaction and may lead to avoidance,
indifference, and depersonalization of student experiences (Koenig et al., 2018; Shoji et al.,
2015). Addressing this problem is important because almost 50% of teachers express compassion
fatigue correlating with teacher distress and emotional exhaustion, impacting teacher and student
motivation (Arens & Morin, 2016; Koenig et al., 2018; Zhang & Sapp, 20013).
Background of the Problem
Historically minoritized students may experience racial socialization trauma
commensurate with clinical levels of extreme trauma. Racial socialization trauma encompasses
the stressful impact and emotional challenges of witnessing or experiencing racism and
2

discrimination (Carter, 2007). BIPOC students who experience such trauma learn in classrooms
led by teachers trained in colorblind ideology, a sociological ideal limiting the influence of race
and ethnicity on personal experience (Lewis, 2001; Rolon-Dow, 2005; D. G. Williams & Land,
2006). Research demonstrates approximately 50% of racially minoritized students entering
preschool witnessed racism and discrimination severe enough to warrant intervention by a parent
or other trusted adult (A. T. Anderson et al., 2014). Education programs using trauma-related
assessments to understand students’ mental health do not consider race and ethnic discrimination
to indicate social-emotional challenges (de Arellano & Danielson, 2008). Teacher preservice and
in-service professional development programs that promote colorblind ideology further intensify
this phenomenon. Teacher training adopts this ideology to diminish the significance of race and
ethnicity on life experiences and that such experiences may be associated with social-emotional
challenges (Aragon et al., 2016). The variances between the traumatic experiences in racially
diverse students’ lives and their teachers’ limited exposure impacted response planning. These
collectively serve as a disadvantage for both students and teachers.
Statement of the Problem
Colorblind ideology restricts teachers from examining racial bias and, in turn, constrains
their ability to pivot in response to the needs of their BIPOC students (Garmon, 2004). The
oppositional relationship between marginalized students’ race-related trauma and teachers’
narrow understanding of these experiences and preconceptions creates an unconsciously hostile
classroom environment (Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). Research demonstrates that historically
minoritized students may struggle to thrive in these classroom environments, and teachers that
witness these struggles experience feelings of failure, guilt, and isolation (Uta et al., 2016).
Teachers’ emotional fatigue mirrors responses experienced by therapists, social workers, and
3

emergency responders regularly exposed to traumatic experiences (D. Williams et al., 2015).
Professionals in these traditional helping industries receive training and support designed to
address these emotional responses, training not typically implemented into teachers’ professional
development. Koenig et al., (2018) recognized this gap in teacher training as an instigating factor
in teachers’ compassion fatigue experiences. Research further highlights that BIPOC students’
unexposed race trauma exacerbates teachers’ feelings of compassion fatigue, leading to
performance challenges for the students and the teachers (Chubbuck & Zembylas, 2008).
Purpose of the Study
This study aims to understand the link between racial socialization trauma, colorblind
ideology, and teachers’ compassion fatigue. While research indicates a correlation between
racially diverse students’ performance outcomes and teachers’ colorblind ideology, there is
limited research on the impact of these factors on teachers’ compassion fatigue. Koenig et al.,
(2018) found that compassion fatigue related to teachers’ exposure to secondary trauma required
self-care and reflective supervision. Research into the importance of emotional competence and
teacher performance and, ultimately, student outcomes have also emerged in the past decade
(Hastings, 2008; Arens & Morin, 2016; Lavy & Eshet, 2018). This research indicates a teacher’s
ability to self-monitor and self-regulate in response to their students’ behavioral challenges
creates an emotionally responsive environment. However, little research has connected racial
socialization trauma to racially minoritized students’ challenging behavior indicators. Arellano
and Danielson (2008) identified the need to assess race and ethnicity-based trauma as sources of
students’ social-emotional challenges. However, research for the current dissertation has not
indicated a connection between race trauma, colorblind ideology, and teacher compassion
fatigue. This study seeks to understand if these phenomena coexist in the classroom and
4

potentially impact one another. This dissertation asks three fundamental research questions to
determine if this coexistence is present in the classroom:
1. How is colorblind ideology evident in teachers’ assessments of BIPOC students’
challenging behaviors?
2. What indicators of compassion fatigue do teachers express when teaching racially
minoritized students?
3. What do teachers describe as the mechanisms available to them to address compassion
fatigue?
Significance of the Study
Hussar and Bailey (2020) determined 31% of all students enrolled in public schools
matriculated on campuses where BIPOC students comprised 75% of the total student population.
The NCES projected, in the coming decade, this percentage would sustain (Figure 1). Teachers
in the public school system will continue to interact with racially diverse students, 50% of which
will experience racism and discrimination significant enough to generate emotional trauma (A.T.
Anderson et al., 2014). Preservice and in-service training programs that consider these factors
prepare teachers to use antibias ideology produce teachers with the capacity to address this
student population’s emotional and developmental needs (Hastings, 2008; Jennings &
Greenberg, 2011; Lavy & Eshet, 2018).
However, research indicates teachers’ professional development remains focused on colorblind
ideology as the pedagogy of fairness (Mabokela & Madsen, 2005). Colorblind instruction and
assessment methods result in the opposite outcomes and further divide dominant and racially
minoritized students’ educational experiences (Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). Moreover, teachers
who perpetually witness the challenges of their BIPOC students feel helpless to affect change
5

and express feelings of doubt, guilt, and shame. Research demonstrates that 41% of teachers
working with minority students express emotional fatigue that requires therapeutic intervention
(Koenig et al., 2018). These researchers determined when teachers do not manage compassion
fatigue, they depersonalize their BIPOC students and develop ambivalence about their success.
Considering that both teachers and historically minoritized students suffer emotionally in an
educational system steeped in colorblind ideology, perpetuating this cycle is not viable.

Figure 1
Percentage of Public School Populations: 9-Year Projection

Note. From Projects of Education Statistics to 2020 (39th ed.) by W. J. Hussar, & T. M. Bailey, 2011, National
Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.edu.gov)

6

Overview of the Theoretical Framework and Methodology
The Social Cognitive Theory provides a framework for examining the role of learning in
socially interactive environments and how such learning molds how people understand the
world. Bandura (2005) asserted that people living and learning in the community context
develop, adapt, change, and build self-efficacy as they assimilate information within the social
structure. Social learning integrates knowledge, values, beliefs, and attitudes into behavior when
supported by a community (Bandura, 2005). This research study will use this framework to
understand how colorblind ideology, a learned practice reinforced by the community, prevents
recognizing racial socialization trauma in BIPOC students. The Social Cognitive Theory also
accounts for racism and discrimination as community phenomena generating race trauma and the
racially minoritized community’s protective behaviors and post-traumatic stress-like responses.
These collective experiences, supported by the teachers and BIPOC students’ respective
communities, clash in the classroom, creating a space for compassion fatigue to develop. Teacher
preservice and in-service training, influenced by the educational community, neglect compassion
fatigue as a problem to address in teacher development leading to the cyclical nature of this
problem.
A qualitative study will include interview questions asked of five teachers in a district
located in the Southeastern United States to help understand if classroom environments nurture
the suggested conceptual framework (Figure 2). The interview responses will allow the
researcher to understand these phenomena in a regional context that represents higher rates of
racial diversity than other areas of the nation. The interview will ask for general information
about the length of service and racial make-up of the classroom for analysis purposes and to
understand if the length of service correlates with responses. The researcher will not seek out
7

teachers of a specific race or gender but instead interview any teacher interested in participating
in the study. This is to limit inadvertently impacting the study’s outcomes. It is plausible that
being a teacher from a racially minoritized group living in the Southern United States who
received the same formal colorblind ideological training would be subject to the same
exhaustion. (Fergus, 2017). There may also be an opportunity to explore the teacher’s racial
identity as a factor, dependent on the study’s outcomes. The researcher will solicit respondents
from K-12 public school settings.

Figure 2
Conceptual Framework

Note. This framework illustrates how racial socialization trauma and colorblind ideology, independently learned
experiences, affect each other in the classroom environment. These collective experiences lead to teacher
compassion fatigue, which reduces teacher and student motivation.
8

Definitions
Antiracist ideology: A sociological idea intended to counteract the persistence and impact
of racism by promoting social justice that considers race a primary factor in physical, cognitive,
and emotional development.
Colorblind Ideology: A sociological ideal that limits the influence of race and ethnicity
on personal experience. Teacher education programs train on this ideal to create fairness in
students’ learning opportunities.
Compassion Fatigue: The emotional stress and exhaustion associated with exposure to a
traumatized individual rather than trauma itself. It may lead to emotional suffering,
preoccupation, physical pain, ambivalence, indifference, and depersonalization.
Emotional Exhaustion: Interchangeable with compassion fatigue for this study.
In-service: Teacher training and professional development conducted during the school
year and in the professional school setting where the teacher performs educational services to the
community. In-service can be teacher conferences, professional learning communities, teacher
training sessions, or other professional development.
Multicultural Ideology: A sociological ideal meant to create an inclusive learning
experience that frames learning within the community’s diverse citizens. It is meant to
implement an inclusive learning experience capitalizing on the multiple perspectives and cultures
of the surrounding community.
Preservice: Teacher training and professional development programs conducted before
the teacher offers services to students in a formal school setting. Preservice can be university
coursework toward earning a degree or credential, internships, or student-teacher experiences.
9

Racial Socialization Trauma: Trauma from experiencing or witnessing racism and
discrimination. Behaviors and emotional experiences linked to racial socialization trauma mirror
those experienced by victims of extreme trauma and often appear as a post-traumatic stress
disorder.
Secondary Trauma: The emotional experiences associated with indirect exposure to
trauma through the interactions with individuals that have endured firsthand trauma. Secondary
trauma can be experienced by observing individuals exhibiting behaviors associated with trauma
recovery, hearing stories of another’s trauma, or witnessing another’s trauma.
Underrepresented groups/individuals: Groups or individuals identifying with any one of
the minority groups represented in the United States, including but not limited to Black/African
American, Asian/Asian American, Latino/Latino American, Middle Eastern, Native American,
Pacific Islander, Immigrant Status, etc. This dissertation also referred to these groups as BIPOC,
historically minoritized, racially minoritized, racialized groups, and racially diverse.
Race-Conscious Descriptions
Throughout this dissertation, I refer to racial minority groups as BIPOC (Black,
Indigenous, People of Color), historically minoritized, racially minoritized, racialized, and
racially diverse groups. I will cite the accepted racial or ethnic group name when referring to that
group. The study intends to highlight colorblind ideology's contributions to structural racism and
compassion fatigue (Koenig et al., 2018; D.G. Williams & Land, 2006). The language used to
describe the race and ethnicity of individuals and groups referenced in this study can contribute
to these factors if intentional word choice is not considered (Harper, 2012). Therefore, I
incorporated currently accepted race descriptors to honor individuality and limit the generalized
10

reference to racial groups. I intentionally made this choice to avoid referring to historically
minoritized groups as a figurative and literal monolith and to honor their complexity.
Organization of the Study
The researcher designed a five-chapter dissertation in the following structure:
Chapter One introduces the study framing the dissertation by identifying the problem of
practice and the study’s scope and purpose. The chapter also introduces the theoretical and
conceptual frameworks in which the study is grounded and offers a brief description of the
study’s methodology. The researcher also included relevant definitions in this chapter.
Chapter Two highlights research studies related to this study’s three overarching
phenomena: racial socialization trauma, colorblind ideology, and compassion fatigue. The
Literature Review explores these areas of study individually while connecting these concepts.
This chapter also discusses the importance of addressing teachers’ compassion fatigue to
improve teacher and student classroom experiences.
Chapter Three outlines the research questions, the research design, and the participants.
This chapter will describe the development of the interview prompts used to answer the research
questions and the data sources. The chapter also describes the researcher’s positionality, the
study’s validity and reliability, and ethical responsibilities.
Chapter Four will answer the research questions based on interview results, data analysis,
and the identification of trending themes. The chapter will summarize the findings within the
context of interview outcomes.
Chapter Five will use the findings to develop teacher training and professional
development recommendations designed to name and mitigate the effects of compassion fatigue
on teacher and student performance.
11

Chapter Two: Literature Review
This chapter offers an overview of current literature discussing the relationship between
historically minoritized students’ racial socialization trauma and the lack of institutional support
preparing teachers to address them. This literature further explores teacher compassion fatigue
and its correlation to teacher and student underperformance. Initially, this chapter provides the
historical context of race trauma in school settings. Specifically, the historical literature explores
school desegregation designed to unite White and BIPOC students in the same learning
environments. This politicized and unpopular effort resulted in resegregation: segregation
created by structural racism (Lane & White, 2010). Structural racism is the social and legislative
mechanisms that link cultural, class, and racial differences to achievement, including academic
achievement (Merolla & Jackson, 2019). This literature review focuses on structural racism’s
resulting racial trauma and its impact on racially minoritized communities. The chapter outlines
empirical studies and analyses to understand racial socialization trauma’s historical endurance
and its effect on mental health.
The literature review also examines the advancement of colorblind ideological teaching
practices. Evidence will demonstrate that these practices, initially developed as a socially just
and fair pedagogical model, hinder racially diverse students’ success (Mabokela & Madsen,
2005). The research will highlight that colorblind classroom practices prohibit reflective methods
that help teachers unpack racial bias. Finally, this literature review explores a link between
education and helping industries such as mental health, medical, and social service providers.
Evidence demonstrates that teachers experience much of the same exposure to trauma,
particularly when working with students experiencing racial socialization trauma. However,
unlike other helping industries, teacher preservice and in-service do not prepare them to identify
12

and mitigate compassion fatigue in self or others. In particular, this literature review establishes
the conceptual framework. It asserts that the juxtaposition of racial socialization trauma and
colorblind ideology collectively impacts teacher compassion fatigue and BIPOC student
performance.
Racial Socialization and Teacher Compassion Fatigue
The American Civil Rights Movement started a social and legislative dialogue about
school segregation’s inherent inequalities (Goldring & Smrekar, 2002). This led to an eventual
Nationwide movement to desegregate all schools. However, schools’ desegregation led to
outcomes in the learning environment that have perpetuated race-based ideas of learning and
achievement to the detriment of BIPOC students. Frankenberg (2013) analyzes historical housing
and lending patterns designed to limit racially minoritized community members’ ability to build
wealth through home and business ownership. Therefore, the public school system’s primary
funding source, property taxes, was not accessible to schools in primarily minority communities.
High rates of poverty and poor school systems led to the migration of White community
members to affluent suburban communities (Frankenberg, 2013). This migration created
diversity disparities in urban areas, effectively recreating pre-Civil Rights segregation. This
pattern essentially maintained segregation, limiting upward mobility for BIPOC citizens and
relegating them to communities with low-performing and underfunded public schools.
Lane and White (2010) described this effect as resegregation, an indicator of educational
inequality. Achievement gaps and the related efforts to resolve these issues gave rise to a
colorblind ideology intended to neutralize this effect. Research demonstrates such ideologies
have not resolved these discrepancies in performance and have instead exacerbated them
(Nicholson-Crotty et al., 2011). A culturally neutral approach to classroom interactions dismisses
13

historically minoritized students’ life experiences, prohibiting teachers from recognizing and
responding to racial socialization trauma (Dotterer et al., 2009). The combination of racial
trauma and colorblind ideology in the classroom denies students access to teachers who can
recognize their bias and reflect on their contribution to racial trauma (Jennings & Greenberg,
2011). The reciprocal relationship between racially diverse student trauma and teachers' limited
racial awareness leads to poor student performance and compassion fatigue.
Racial Socialization and Internalized Racism in BIPOC Students
Perceived racism and discrimination among BIPOC youth in personal and social settings
may result in feelings of isolation, low self-esteem, anger, and anxiety; the denial of these
experiences exacerbates the effects (Call-Cummings & Martinez, 2016; Coker et al., 2009;
Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). Research designed to understand systemic racism demonstrates
the cross-section of discriminatory experiences with White-dominated rhetoric that denies racism
may invoke doubt and shame among racism victims (Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). Call-
Cummings and Martinez's (2016) study of Latino students’ experiences in White teacher-led
classrooms found these students accept the White denial of racism, despite evidence to the
contrary. Latino students in this study believe it is incumbent upon them to forgive their White
teacher’s ignorance resulting in students’ feelings of apathy and helplessness. The prevalence of
racism denial in classrooms results in depression, oppositional defiant disorder, and ADHD
symptoms (Coker et al., 2009). White peers and teachers observe racially minoritized students’
social-emotional exhibitions as character flaws within the racially diverse community rather than
an outcome of systemic racism.
Discriminatory behaviors in the community and the classroom, ingrained in beliefs,
attitudes, and values of White-dominated school environments, mire social-emotional challenges
14

in BIPOC students’ academic experience (Byrd & Carter-Andrews, 2016; Fisher et al., 2000). A
study of 1,468 Midwestern middle and high school students reveals discrimination leads to
racially minoritized students’ feelings of “otherness,” depression, low self-esteem, and
dissociative behaviors (Byrd & Carter-Andrews, 2016). Moreover, Fisher et al., (2000) identify
wrongful discipline, racial discrimination, and poor academic performance positively correlate
with the distress associated with BIPOC students’ perceived racism in social settings. Research
shows ongoing racism and prejudice in historically minoritized youth, in some cases, manifested
into more complex emotionally traumatic expressions.
Racism and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Continued exposure to racial discrimination and intolerance leads to emotional responses
similar to those expressed by victims of extreme trauma; however, racism is generally not
characterized as trauma, limiting systems of support (Combs et al., 2006; Saleem et al., 2019;
Schmitt et al., 2014). A meta-analysis of 300 studies indicates racism, and the inability to
conceal race, positively correlated with emotional responses reflective of PTSD, such as feelings
of isolation and fear for safety in White-majority groups. (Schmitt et al., 2014). Approximately
50% of 128 African American college students’ exposure to racism led to mistrust, anger,
hostility, unrelated blame of others, paranoia, and increased interpersonal challenges and
maladaptive disorders (Combs et al., 2006). The research shows that some racially minoritized
individuals store racism and discriminatory experiences as long-term memories. Research
suggests this may lead to ongoing emotional stress.
BIPOC youth and adults’ emotional experiences are complex and layered in social and physical
realities (Saleem et al., 2019). The Developmental and Ecological Model of Youth Racial
Trauma (Figure 3) is a conceptual framework designed to understand how race-based
15

discrimination develops into pathological social-emotional challenges in some youth of color
(Saleem et al., 2019). The Model illustrates that the evolution of adolescent and youth responses
to racial stress and trauma mirrors that of their adult counterparts exposed to similar experiences.
The Model’s authors emphasized that some historically minoritized youths’ emotional
expressions after a single racist incident were fear, sleeplessness, and substance misuse (Saleem
et al., 2019). The Model demonstrates that mitigation of these experiences requires intervention
from within the discriminatory space, such as the classroom.

16

Figure 3
Developmental and Ecological Model of Youth and Racial Trauma

Note. Adopted from “Addressing the ‘Myth’ of Racial Trauma: Developmental and Ecological Considerations for
Youth of Color” by F. T. Saleem, R. E. Anderson, & M. Williams, M, 2019 Clinical Child and Family Psychology
Review, 23, p. 5 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-019-00304-1

Racially diverse students, adolescents, and adults' discriminatory experiences differ
dependent on uncontrollable physiological factors, namely skin hue (Butts, 2002; Roberts, 2011).
Racism victims describe varied discriminatory experiences that differ when Minorities have
darker skin (Butts, 2002). Working in psychiatric medicine, Butts (2002) finds his patients with
darker skin expressed more severe discrimination and subsequent PTSD symptoms such as
17

nightmares, frequent recall of frightening experiences, avoidance, and sleeplessness. The direct
correlation between skin hue and racism makes Blacks and Latinos more likely to experience
discrimination prevalent enough to result in PTSD-like symptoms but are 60% less likely to seek
support (Roberts, 2011). Despite these race-based stressful experiences, social and community
services such as psychiatry, the Department of Education, and teacher learning programs, do not
create platforms to discuss and respond to the needs of historically minoritized groups and
individuals.
Because PTSD is traditionally associated with near-death experiences, the psychiatric
industry does not classify racism as a precursor of PTSD, worsening isolation experiences when
episodes occur, or seeking help (Butts, 2002; Carter, 2007; Comas-Diaz, 2000; Scurfield &
Mackey, 2001). Race-based trauma is commensurate with the levels of stress experienced by
victims of violent crimes without the benefit of this trauma rooted in psychological and
sociological response systems (Carter, 2007). Racially minoritized groups did not receive the
same opportunities to mitigate their experiences with psychotherapy because responses to racism
are considered personal rather than traumatic (Carter, 2007). The lack of response associated
with race-based trauma forces BIPOC families to address these challenges alone, further
isolating them, removing their lived trauma from mainstream dialogue and response planning, as
illustrated in Figure 4.

18

Figure 4
Race-Based Traumatic Stress Injury

Note. Adopted from “Racism and Psychological and Emotional Injury: Recognizing and Assessing Race-Based
Traumatic Stress” by R. T. Carter, 2007, The Counseling Psychologist, 35(13), 13-105.
http://doi.org/10.1177/0011000006292033

The Family ’s Role in Managing Racial Socialization Trauma
Intergenerational exposure to racial socialization trauma creates familial approaches to
combatting its effects, focusing on generating cultural pride and positively impacting self-esteem
and academic outcomes (A. T. Anderson et al., 2014; Constantine & Blackmon, 2002). Fifty
percent of 114 African American, Latinos, and Asian American families of young students found
these parents discuss racism with their students within the first four years of life (A. T. Anderson
19

et al., 2014). Discussions included addressing discrimination, understanding bias, and cultural
pride in early childhood development (A. T. Anderson et al., 2014). Parents’ efforts to influence
self-esteem by addressing racism in the home resulted in improved self-esteem, a sense of
cultural pride, and the ability to make friends with same-race contemporaries (Constantine &
Blackmon, 2002). Researchers find family plays a key role in child and adolescent understanding
and responses to racial discrimination.
The families’ role in child development and understanding the pervasiveness of
discrimination creates a sense of unity within communities but falls short in schools (A. T.
Anderson et al., 2014; R. E. Anderson et al., 2018; Constantine & Blackmon, 2002; Neblett et
al., 2006). Parent interventions focused on building self-esteem and cultural pride while
managing additional community stressors (R. E. Anderson et al., 2018). This research suggests
African American parents and youth do not differentiate between racial and general coping
because they appear the same in the racially minoritized experience (R. E. Anderson et al.,
2018). While these efforts help create a sense of unity within the BIPOC community, parent
intervention did not correlate with improved academic outcomes (Neblett et al., 2006). Studies of
racially diverse students experiencing these parental interventions negatively related to academic
commitment (Constantine & Blackmon, 2002). This research finds when parents try to influence
conformity to “White” institutions such as schools, African American youth associate this
influence with “acting White,” serving as a possible reason for disengaging from the school
experience (Constantine & Blackmon, 2002). Parents’ efforts to offset racism and the subsequent
lack of influence in improved academic outcomes highlight the importance of this work in
harmony with other groups such as teachers, social workers, administrators, and civil servants
(A. T. Anderson et al., 2014; Neblett et al., 2006). While research indicates minority parents play
20

a highly influential role in their child’s racial socialization experience, evidence suggests they
cannot do this work alone.
The Need for Collective Familial and Scholastic Responses to Racism
Young people experiencing racially-based discrimination and prejudice spend a
significant amount of time in the school setting, where many teachers and administrators fail to
address racism’s emotional challenges (Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006; Rosenbloom & Way,
2004). Historically minoritized youth can arrive in classrooms with concerns for safety, grief,
shame, blame, anger, and resistance requiring teachers, counselors, and administrators to
recognize such emotions as self-protection (Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006). These researchers
suggest that school staff develop social-emotional and academic improvement plans for these
students. This research is relevant when considering more than 60% of African American,
Latino, and Asian American high school students report feeling isolated after open and public
discrimination from authority figures in schools (Rosenbloom & Way, 2004). While BIPOC
youth and adults report cultural bonding within their community, they do not experience these
bonds with teachers and their White counterparts in schools.
The difference in the youth of color experiences in the community and the classroom
implies that parent-teacher partnerships can alleviate this disparity (Dotterer et al., 2009; Saleem
et al., 2019). African American protective behaviors developed from years of racial socialization
trauma associated with challenges in developing trusting relationships with teachers and peers of
other races (Dotterer et al., 2009). Therefore, educator awareness of racially minoritized
students’ protective instincts is necessary to break down barriers and create the trust needed to
produce quality academic outcomes (Dotterer et al., 2009). Research demonstrates that teacher
awareness of minority students’ experiences with racism and their defensive responses to racial
21

stress and trauma is critical in corrective action in the classroom (Saleem et al., 2019). As such,
teacher preservice and in-service training play a key role in understanding the need for these
partnerships with parents.
Teacher education programs that emphasize racism as a factor in BIPOC student
performance develop teachers’ capacity to respond to these experiences (Constantine &
Blackmon, 2002; Neblett, et al., 2006; Saleem et al., 2019). Preservice and in-service that focus
on racially diverse students’ exposure to racism and their responsive behaviors set a stage for
understanding these students and creating partnerships with their parents (Saleem et al., 2019).
Parents’ and teachers’ collective support of students directly impacts lessening teachers’ beliefs
that poor academic performance is due to a lack of motivation, enthusiasm, and curiosity in the
classroom (Neblett et al., 2006). Teachers continued research and understanding of how racism
impacts student performance requires collaborative mediation practices between the teacher, the
administration, and parents (Constantine & Blackmon, 2002). Research confirms that racial
socialization trauma and its negative impact on student success have long-term implications and
require interactive and organized response planning between home and school.
Colorblind Ideology
Colorblindness Protecting White Dominance
Although research demonstrates the negative consequences of racial socialization on
students, teacher preparation and continuing education predominantly emphasize colorblindness
in the classroom, disabling parent-teacher partnerships for change (Epstein, 2019; Lewis, 2001;
Liu & Milman, 2013; D. G. Williams & Land, 2006; Young, 2010). Studies of in-service teacher
learning programs explore the contrast between race visibility and White teachers’ race adverse
behaviors when implementing multicultural pedagogy (Epstein, 2019). The study finds teachers
22

simultaneously acknowledge multicultural education’s importance while claiming students do
not benefit from it (Epstein, 2019).
Moreover, Epstein (2019) also identifies teachers described race-conscious classroom
pedagogy as negative and race avoidance as evidence that society is moving past
institutionalized and structural racism. A similar study sought to understand how colorblind
ideology cloaked the importance of race and prevented color-consciousness in the school
environment (Lewis, 2001). This study finds White adults blame historically minoritized
students for their challenges and qualify their behavior as playing the race card (Lewis, 2001).
This research further highlights that schools use Black History Month or World War II studies as
opportunities to develop racial curriculum because White parents described anything more as
hostile and offensive. The White community influences race-related classroom learning
experiences and tempers multicultural curriculum with subject matter aligned to their interests.
White dominance in educational institutions perpetuates colorblind pedagogy and creates
institution-wide justification for its value regardless of the students’ race (Lui & Milman, 2013;
D. G. Williams & Land, 2006; Young, 2010). Education policies that repeatedly focus on
colorblindness as a pathway to fairness result in the opposite outcomes (D. G. Williams & Land,
2006). These policies position racially minoritized students into subordination in the classroom,
ultimately maintaining their secondary position in the larger society (D. G. Williams & Land,
2006). Qualitative research indicated educators believed culturally relevant learning as
intermittent and designed to create “feel good” learning opportunities in the classroom (Young,
2010). These educators did not embrace opportunities to confront racism and equity. Learning
indicators such as teacher candidates’ ability to modify the curriculum for racially diverse
students proved superficial (Lui & Milman, 2013). Specifically, they did not allow these teachers
23

to reflect on the social factors that impact their students’ life experiences and learning styles.
Institutional and social bias exacerbate the educational community’s inability to create equitable
learning experiences for BIPOC students.
Bias as a Barrier
Colorblind ideology, woven into teacher learning and professional development, fails to
challenge teachers to question their biases (Aragon et al., 2016; Rolon-Dow, 2005). A study of
1,179 participants of a teacher STEM institute demonstrated teachers endorsing multicultural
ideology were more likely to implement inclusive teaching practices in their post-training lessons
(Aragon et al., 2016). In contrast, teachers adopting colorblind ideology did not practice BIPOC
student inclusion or solicit their responsiveness after the summer institute. Aragon, Dovidio, and
Graham (2016) find teachers using a colorblind ideology believe adapting their teacher style to
students’ race is unfair. Teachers’ unwillingness to depart from colorblindness to honor fairness
results in the opposite outcome.
Students in mixed classroom populations recognize their teachers do not understand their
experiences, further isolating these students from their learning environment (Rolon-Dow, 2005).
A qualitative study in the United States of nine low-income Puerto Rican girls and their teachers
in secondary education environments finds teachers practicing colorblind ideology believe the
practice led to equitable learning experiences (Rolon-Dow, 2005). Classroom observations
indicate that teachers did not develop a commitment to these students. These same students
perceived the teachers did develop these feelings for students when they shared the same race.
Rolon-Dow (2005) indicates this study highlights the importance of a teacher’s awareness of
their bias and its impact on genuinely caring relationships with all students. Further evidence
24

stresses the entire educational community plays a role in developing teachers’ awareness of their
bias.
A collective responsibility between preservice programs at the university level and in-
service training at the district level helps address bias systemically (Garmon, 2004; Nicholson-
Crotty et al., 2011; Mabokela & Madsen, 2005). The absence of bias awareness directly impacts
students’ academic experiences and reduces their exposure to enhancement programs
(Nicholson-Crotty et al., 2011). For instance, research finds district leadership and teachers’ race
positively correlates with racially diverse students’ poor assessment results and lack of selection
in gifted and talented programs. Moreover, a qualitative case study of Black and White school
administrators found White leaders hesitated to address diversity issues, placing the
responsibility on Black staff members, indicating White leaders identify diversity as the
minoritized groups’ problem (Mabokela & Madsen, 2005). Teacher bias directly impacts the
experience of racially diverse students, but this bias is not measured, evaluated, or moderated in
teacher training or professional development.
Teacher Education and Perpetuating Inequity
Teacher education programs do not push teachers to question structural racism and
inequities despite teachers’ role as influencers in students’ growth and development (Galloway et
al., 2019; Irizarry, 2009; Liu & Milman, 2013; Whipp, 2013). Galloway et al. (2019) found that
teachers believe culturally responsive antiracist pedagogy celebrates differences. Teachers
express comfort and even enthusiasm for these classroom experiences applauding it as evidence
that racism is no longer an issue in the education system. However, research finds antiracist
pedagogy, with a more direct focus on racism and social systems that perpetuate inequality,
evoked discomfort, rage, and avoidance in teachers (Galloway et al., 2019). Teachers, and
25

specifically White teachers, actively avoid the subject of race, White privilege, and dominant
culture membership benefits.
Teachers’ preservice and in-service experiences reinforce negative beliefs about BIPOC
students, resulting in oppressive classroom environments and the continued failure of these
students (Irizarry, 2009; Liu & Milman, 2013; Whipp, 2013). The reinforcement of
colorblindness as fairness in teacher learning programs prevents teachers from identifying their
students’ poor academic achievement as evidence of structural racism (Irizarry, 2009). However,
socially just teacher preparation programs that intentionally expose teachers personally and
professionally to diverse populations inspire teachers’ interest in their students’ lives (Whipp,
2013). This research finds that when school district administrators build on preservice social
justice training, the result is teachers’ ability to continue this in the classroom, but few
administrators take up this work (Liu & Milman, 2013; Whipp, 2013). Mitigating the short and
long-range effects of teacher colorblindness is currently taken up by individual teachers instead
of the educational institution.
Individual teachers recognizing the limits of colorblind ideology are often from the same
communities as their racially diverse students and share similar lived experiences (Irizarry, 2009;
Johnson, 2002). The characteristics of White, Latino, and African American peer-selected
exemplary teachers that took up antiracist education are from the same neighborhoods as their
students (Irizarry, 2009). These teachers attributed their awareness of their students’ experiences
as a primary factor in their shared empathy and motivation to create change within the school
community. White teachers believed to be race-aware among their peers, and students shared
similar life experiences of rejection, prejudice, and oppression (Johnson, 2002). In interviews,
these teachers shared their socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or ongoing personal and
26

professional interaction with historically marginalized communities helped them develop the
emotional fortitude to fight injustice. Johnson (2002) reflects the conceptual framework created
by Aragon et al. (2017), illustrating the importance of exposure on implementation (see Figure
5).

Figure 5
Exposure Directly Relates to Classroom Implementation

Note. Adapted from “Colorblind and Multicultural Ideologies Are Associated With Faculty Adoption of Inclusive
Teacher Practices” by O. R. Aragon, J. F. Dovidio, & M. J. Graham, 2016, Journal of Diversity of Higher
Education, 10(3), 201-215. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000026

27

A 1-year case study investigating White teachers’ experiences in university-level
antiracism education finds teachers do not examine their bias except when interacting with
BIPOC peers and real-life racism (Garmon, 2004). These experiences broke through teachers’
resistance to change, offering opportunities to examine and re-examine their core beliefs and the
social constructs that lead to injustice in the classroom.
The work of addressing injustice in the classroom using a colorblind teacher and
administrative workforce creates inconsistent pockets of success that are not sustainable
(Jernigan & Henderson, 2001; Liu & Milman, 2013; Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2010). To
successfully assess students’ needs and performance, teachers must understand how their belief
systems impact student success (Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2010). These researchers assert training
on self-awareness is morally responsible. Sanger and Osguthorpe (2010) identify morally
responsible teachers’ characteristics as accountable to students and their families, establishing
the necessary components of socially just learning environments. However, longitudinal research
into the effectiveness of equitable learning experiences demonstrates teachers lack motivation
and interest in scaffolding socially just learning experiences and only intermittently infuse them
(Liu & Milman, 2013).
Systemic breakdowns in academic settings create frustration among BIPOC students who
often act out in the classrooms (Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). White students and teachers
witnessing these challenges without effectively naming them experience anxiety and guilt,
furthering the adverse outcomes of colorblind ideology (Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). However,
educational quality change will not occur unless teacher training programs address the reciprocal
relationship between White teachers’ emotions and BIPOC students’ racial trauma, similar to
industries like health care, emergency response, and social work.
28

Compassion Fatigue
Workplace Trauma and Emotional Exhaustion
Traditional helping industries such as health care, emergency response, and social work
recognize the impact of exposure to others’ traumatic experiences (Cieslak et al., 2014; LaFauci
et al., 2011). Studies found that 55% of trauma response care workers expressed secondary
traumatic stress and compassion fatigue (Cieslak et al., 2014). This research suggests a
correlation between working with traumatized patients and workplace emotional exhaustion.
Moreover, a quantitative study of 197 emergency management professionals indicated a link
between PTSD symptoms and workers’ personality and frequent exposure to others’ trauma
(LaFauci et al., 2011). The analysis identified that 61% of emergency managers expressed
emotional exhaustion due to perpetual trauma exposure. Health care providers’ indirect and
direct exposure to distress either by working with a traumatized individual, hearing about
trauma, or seeing traumatic images affect their health and well-being.
Repeated exposure to others’ trauma leads to exhaustion and burnout, driving
professionals out of their fields (Morse et al., 2012; Shoji et al., 2015). Research in the United
States’ mental health field found organizations reported 67% of workers who directly served
traumatized community members suffered compassion fatigue and burnout (Morse et al., 2012.)
This research also found 54% of these same mental health worker populations experience
emotional exhaustion, increased absences, and a staff turnover rate of 58%. Comparative studies
of civilian and military social work in Poland and the United States identified a positive
correlation between secondary traumatic stress and job burnout (Shoji et al., 2015). The
pervasiveness of emotional exhaustion in helping industries is present in the United States and
29

abroad, indicating exposure to individuals experiencing the effects of trauma is, in turn,
traumatizing.
Empirical research shows a negative impact on behavioral healthcare providers who work
with clients that experienced first-hand trauma; however, this is not limited to the healthcare
industry. Chau-Kiu and Oi-Wah Chow (2011) conducted a quantitative study of 232 caregiver
and eldercare recipients in Hong Kong. This study found a relationship between a care
recipient’s level of physical and mental needs and their caregiver’s emotional exhaustion.
Results indicated these relationships’ reciprocal nature led to a simultaneous reduction in mental
well-being for both the giver and receiver of care. Moreover, increased emotional exhaustion
reduces work performance with short and long-term implications for professional commitment
and effectiveness. Due to the intimate nature of this relationship, the risk to both parties was
high. The researchers point out that this risk requires professional development targeting
emotional well-being strengthens caregiving. Healthcare and social work industry-wide
awareness of secondary trauma influences workplace procedures and professional development.
Easing Emotional Exhaustion as a Workplace Procedure
Helping industries’ historical awareness of their service members’ burnout rates and
emotional suffering influenced response planning (Wallbank, 2010; D. Williams et al., 2015).
The efficacy of 11 emotional exhaustion interventions among medical students and practitioners
demonstrated that strategically designed support systems improve workplace exhaustion (D.
Williams et al., 2015). Specifically, study respondents using recommended journaling methods,
participation in support groups, stress management training, and educational awareness
experienced moderate to considerable improvements. Integrating these practices into medical
school, residency, and beyond tempered long-term effects of emotional fatigue on practitioners
30

in later years (D. Williams et al., 2015). In addition to general self-care techniques, Wallbank
(2010) implemented a reflective supervision pilot study for 157 maternity ward staff members,
measuring its effectiveness in improved self-care and stress management. The researcher
selected this population because of the high secondary traumatic stress rates associated with
infant mortality, familial loss, and neonatal intensive care. The pilot’s reflective supervision
included supportive dialogue, emotional reflection, self-care, and stress management techniques.
Treatment group participants reported increased compassion satisfaction, reduced burnout, and
nonclinical stress levels. The control group did not exhibit before and after statistical differences.
Studies of stress-mitigation techniques prove stress moderators’ effectiveness among
practitioners in high-secondary traumatic work environments.
The extended use of self-care techniques and their relationship with workplace
satisfaction and decreased compassion fatigue is noticeable, mainly when sustained by
workplace environments (Cuartero & Campos, 2018; Killian, 2008). Killian (2008) designed a
mixed methodology study of 20 interview respondents and 104 survey responses. Respondents
were therapists supporting clients processing traumatic events. Results found 49% indicated their
work was emotionally draining, 30% lacked morale, and 32% expressed a sense of
powerlessness. Respondents stated these experiences led to reduced compassion satisfaction and
overall burnout. Coping strategies such as peer consultation, assessing causes of increased
cynicism, and participating in self-care were key mollifying factors. Quantitative research on 270
social workers addressing clients' needs experiencing extreme trauma found 33% scored high in
rates of compassion fatigue (Cuartero & Campos, 2018). These social workers reported spending
time with friends, a sense of humor, self-care, and healthy eating habits were vital contributors to
retaining a sense of self and re-engaging their clients’. Service workers who regularly received
31

the intervention and support to manage trauma exposure stress improved workplace
performance.
Teacher and Child Care Workers' Exposure to Trauma
Although not generally considered a helping field, teachers and childcare workers
experience similar workplace emotional trauma and compassion fatigue, but it is often
unmonitored and unresolved (Eastwood & Ecklund, 2008). A study of 57 residential childcare
workers serving distressed, traumatized, and emotionally disturbed students found workers who
regularly interacted with students experienced high levels of secondary trauma and stress
(Eastwood & Ecklund, 2008). The research found that increased compassion fatigue levels
impacted the worker’s ability to respond empathetically to students. Findings indicated that when
childcare workers placed personal meaning on their work, believing their work benefited the
clients, they experienced reduced fatigue. Childcare workers created informal support with peers
to offset the lack of available formalized assistance. In addition to residential treatment centers,
research into special education teachers reflect similar outcomes.
A qualitative study of six middle school special education teachers indicated a positive
correlation between compassion fatigue and professional support (Hoffman et al., 2007).
Specifically, teachers reported experiencing a lack of support from professional counterparts,
such as administrators. This experience led to feelings of isolation, guilt in their inability to
influence change in their classroom, and feelings of incompetence in addressing students’ needs.
The researchers were among the first to use a theoretical framework of compassion fatigue to
indicate teacher burnout and turnover. Additional research suggests the emotional exhaustion
experienced in the classroom extends to all school personnel.
32

School personnel outside of the classroom, also exposed to secondary trauma, articulated
a lack of systematic support to address these challenges (Borntrager et al., 2012). A quantitative
study of 229 school staff members in the Northwest United States indicated high-stress levels
resulting from exposure to students’ trauma (Borntrager et al., 2012). While research
demonstrated these staff members did not express burnout or the desire to give up on their
profession, they consistently reported a lack of on-the-job support to address emotional
exhaustion (Borntrager et al., 2012). The researchers emphasized that mental health training and
self-care techniques were not present in preservice and in-service learning experiences, creating
discrepancies in how education professionals addressed personal emotional crises. This emphasis
is significant because research shows school personnel and teachers experienced compassion
fatigue commensurate with mental health, healthcare, and social work professionals.
Relationship Between Teacher Exhaustion and Child Outcomes
Research indicates continuing to ignore teaching as a service with exposure to secondary
trauma leads to teachers’ and students’ perception of the classroom as an unsafe space of
personal failure (Koenig et al., 2018). For instance, examining the benefits of a workshop pilot
for 64 educators in Canadian public schools found value in strategies designed to identify and
mitigate compassion fatigue (Koenig et al., 2018). The study indicated 41% of teachers
expressed high levels of emotional exhaustion, and of these teachers, 70% reported exposure to
students’ trauma. Teachers also expressed experiencing PTSD-like symptoms requiring
therapeutic intervention. The researchers suggested it stands to reason that if teachers are
experiencing emotional exhaustion concerning their classroom experiences, their relational
counterparts, the students, may also experience negative outcomes (Koenig et al., 2018). A series
of reflection and self-care-focused workshops demonstrated benefits to teachers’ emotions,
33

suggesting ongoing workshops could positively affect teacher and student performance.
Research into teachers’ emotional needs and the impact on their performance shows a connection
between teachers’ emotions and student outcomes.
Teachers in long and short-term teaching environments express emotional exhaustion, in
some cases, within a single month (Arens & Morin, 2016; Bauer et al., 2006). A quantitative
sample of 438 teachers in 10 German high schools indicated a positive correlation between
students’ aggressive behavior and teachers’ emotional exhaustion and early retirement (Bauer et
al., 2006). Results showed more than half of respondents expressed increased mental health
challenges, and approximately 30% presented emotional fatigue symptoms. Approximately 20%
of respondents indicated psychological challenges commensurate with a clinical disorder (Bauer
et al., 2006).
A second 1-year study in Germany of 380 teachers and 7,899 4
th
grade students enrolled
in a supplemental literacy program found teachers described feelings of overstrain and reduced
emotional resources after only one month of student engagement (Arens & Morin, 2016).
Research analysis found teachers experiencing these levels of compassion fatigue de-
personalized students and diminished their self-expression. Results determined that teachers’
emotional exhaustion was associated with student performance, their perception of teacher
support, and school satisfaction (Arens & Morin, 2016). The researchers indicated increased
student and teacher performance after teachers created informal support groups, evidencing
community support’s value. Mental health directly correlates with student performance, making
response planning during preservice and in-service training a professional development
imperative.
34

Although teacher training programs have not incorporated mental health strategies,
wellness, and self-care into their curriculum, national research indicates its clear need (Hastings,
2008; Lavy & Eshet, 2018). Hastings (2008) conducted a qualitative case study of reflective
emotional support for teachers and disclosed the depths of emotions teachers experienced in
executing their work. The research demonstrated teachers did not believe their preservice
training armed them with the tools to address students’ emotional experiences. The absence of
these support systems positively correlated with poor student performance exacerbating teachers’
feelings of failure. A second study found that reflective support designed to address emotional
fatigue and provide emotional regulation techniques was effective in as little as ten days (Lavy &
Eshet, 2018).
An analysis of a journaling pilot designed to assist teachers in directing their negative
emotions into positive response planning identified a direct relationship between teachers’ ability
to regulate their emotions and their students’ learning experiences. Lavy and Eshet (2018)
contend that this outcome shows that teachers’ professional development around emotional
regulation positively correlates with improved student performance. These data demonstrate
teacher performance and student outcomes improved when teachers’ professional development
named and addressed emotional exhaustion.
BIPOC Student Populations and Compassion Fatigue
Compassion fatigue, a genuine professional experience in teachers, worsened when the
complex layers of poverty, racism, language barriers, and racially diverse populations entered the
classroom experience (Chubbuck & Zembylas, 2008). A case study of inexperienced White
teachers serving students in urban communities looked at the link between teachers’ emotions
and socially just classroom practices (Chubbuck & Zembylas, 2008). The authors posited the
35

added layer of social injustice compounds teachers’ compassion fatigue, creating an even more
challenging environment for teachers and students to navigate. The case study highlights
teachers failed attempts to push back on oppressive environmental and political structures lead to
ambivalence. Specifically, teachers’ inability to impact the school’s culture invokes incongruity
in teachers’ intentions to affect change and their ability to do so effectively. Chubbuck and
Zembylas (2008) noted interactions between the teachers and students in the case study reflected
this power struggle. Teachers acted out this unresolved ambivalence in the classroom by
criticizing students and restricting their ability to exercise personal freedoms. In essence, the
intersection of teachers’ emotional fatigue and social injustice compound challenges in the
school environment.
The classroom issues associated with race and ethnicity result in the same compassion
fatigue identified in homogenous classrooms, but the addition of race and ethnicity correlated
with guilt (Uta et al., 2016). For instance, a quantitative study of 1,102 German elementary
school teachers and their students sought to examine the relationship between teachers’
emotional exhaustion and student achievement (Uta et al., 2016). The researchers determined
compassion fatigue positively correlated with the depersonalization of historically minoritized
students. This depersonalization predicted adverse student outcomes, and teachers internalized
feelings of professional failure. Uta et al., 2016, indicated this research found a reciprocal
relationship between depersonalization, student failure, and low teacher self-efficacy.
National and international research examining the impact of emotional exhaustion on
teacher self-efficacy when working with students of varying ethnicities demonstrated teacher
training and support led to teacher and student performance improvement (Cowie, 2010; Cross &
Hong, 2012). Cowie (2010) conducted nine interviews with experienced EFL teachers in Japan
36

to understand their perceived emotions while working with racially diverse students from other
nations. Teachers unanimously indicated the dynamics of inter-racial and inter-ethnic
teacher/student experiences inevitably led to moral and ethical conversations about racism and
discrimination. Teachers expressed these conversations were often emotionally challenging due
to their taboo nature.
Moreover, they believed they lacked the formal training to address such topics in the
classroom. Another qualitative study of elementary school teachers serving high poverty, high
minority populations examined how teachers’ personalities and the environment intersect (Cross
& Hong, 2012). Teachers expressed they lacked the training to effectively address these
students’ needs, leading to their unpleasant emotional experiences and decreased self-worth. The
literature consistently demonstrated teachers’ emotions directly impacted classroom outcomes
suggesting they need to learn emotional awareness, develop empathy for historically minoritized
students, increase self-insight, and implement self-care practices.
Formal and informal teacher learning experiences addressing the emotional needs of their
diverse students positively impact student and teacher performance (Cowie, 2010; Cross &
Hung, 2010, Jennings & Greenberg, 2011). Teachers expressed that even a single professional
interaction per year allowed them to decompress with peers and build the capacity to address
such issues proved helpful (Cowie, 2010). Cross and Hong (2012) found teachers engaged in
learning communities are more likely to overcome emotional exhaustion when learning
incorporates empathy for their students’ experiences. Also, as illustrated in Figure 6, teacher
learning experiences designed to build teachers’ social and emotional competence directly
improve students’ social-emotional competence (Jennings & Greenberg, 2011).
37

Figure 6
The Reciprocal Nature of Teacher and Student Social-Emotional Competence

Note. Adopted from Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2011). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and
emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491-
525. http://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308325693

Jennings and Greenberg (2011) proposed continued research into the efficacy of teachers’ social-
emotional competency training and its impact on student outcomes and classroom management
can inform teacher learning agendas. The research on the intimate relationship between teachers
and students highlights teachers’ emotional self-awareness and well-being are quintessential to
student success.
Summary
The literature demonstrates that racially minoritized students’ early-onset and sustained
racism and discrimination trauma impacts their learning ability and teachers’ emotions (Carter,
38

2007; Roberts et al., 2011; Schmitt et al., 2014). It further illustrates colorblind ideology and
corresponding pedagogical models that do not acknowledge the impact of race and ethnicity on
student achievement, resulting in poor student performance (Lewis, 2001; Rolon-Dow, 2005; D.
Williams & Land, 2006). Teachers’ inability to respond to the mental health of their BIPOC
students sets both teacher and student up for failure leading to teachers’ compassion fatigue
(Arens & Morin, 2016; Hastings, 2008). This chapter provided a theoretical and practical
understanding of these issues.
Moreover, it highlights the importance of creating intentional response planning to these
phenomena reflected in other helping industries such as social work and medical care. Chapter 3
will establish a research method to determine if the Social-Cognitive theory’s values, beliefs, and
assumptions propel these phenomena. Moreover, Chapter 3 will describe the methodology and
research design that will help understand these phenomena in context and ultimately recommend
opportunities for improved teacher and student experiences.

39

Chapter Three: Methodology
This research study asserted teacher development programs and ongoing professional
training opportunities limit teacher access to experiences and topics designed to dismantle
colorblindness and implicit bias (Garmon, 2004; Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2011). The absence of
these training experiences constrains teachers’ ability to reflect on and address their historically
minoritized students' developmental and social-emotional needs, particularly when these needs
result from racial socialization trauma (Aragon et al., 2017). This study’s conceptual framework
establishes that the outcomes of these interrelated challenges fatigue teachers emotionally. These
compassion fatigue experiences reduce teacher motivation and student performance (Koenig et
al., 2018; Neblett et al., 2006).
This dissertation aimed to determine how color-blind ideology fails to address racial
socialization trauma, ultimately contributing to teacher fatigue and motivation and their
collective impact on BIPOC students’ performance. The study assumed that the social cognitive
factors associated with race relations, teacher development, and their interaction in the public-
school environment propel this phenomenon. This chapter will highlight the research questions,
design, setting, data collection methods, and procedures implemented to understand how race
trauma and color-blind ideology impact teachers’ compassion fatigue and, ultimately, teacher
motivation and student performance. It will also identify the strategies for maintaining the
validity and reliability of the instrument and data collection analysis systems. This chapter also
outlines the researcher’s positionality and ethical responsibilities to the study’s human subjects.
Finally, the chapter identifies the study’s limitations to understand their implications on its
outcome.
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Research Questions
1. How is colorblind ideology evident in teachers’ assessments of BIPOC students’
challenging behaviors?
2. What indicators of compassion fatigue do teachers express when teaching racially
minoritized students?
3. What do teachers describe as the mechanisms available to them to address compassion
fatigue?
Sample and Population
This research study was grounded in the Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 2005). This
theory provided a framework for examining the role of social interaction in learning and its
application to the environment. Bandura (2005) contended communities and the cultural and
interactive experiences of the spaces where people live, work, and learn contribute to perspective
and world views. These social factors influence certainty, efficacy, attitudes, and beliefs
individuals and groups adopt. Human interactions grounded in socially learned ideas about race
and corresponding race relations serve as a foundation for race trauma (Carter, 2007).
The current research study was a qualitative design that used interviews to understand the
extent to which color-blind ideology, also socially learned, limited teacher awareness of student
behaviors that may be racial socialization trauma indicators. The study intended to illustrate the
dynamics of the conceptual framework and understand how the social outcome of colorblindness
and race trauma collectively results in teacher compassion fatigue, reduces teacher motivation,
and impacts student performance.
I completed this study with a gatekeeper in a school district titled Southeastern Regional
School District. I assigned the district a pseudonym to protect the identity of the interview
41

respondents and the gatekeeper who currently serve as Kindergarten through second-grade
teachers. The District is in North Carolina, a diverse state where more than 30% of the
population identifies with historically minoritized groups.
The study focused on Southeastern Regional School District because of its self-identified
race-based academic disproportionalities requiring teacher training and intervention. The student
demographic information from the 2019-2020 district-wide assessment demonstrated that
historically minoritized students made up 81% of the total student population (see Table 1). It
further indicated the district had the highest percentage of students receiving free or reduced
lunch among 20 similar schools in the state. These data indicate the student population comes
from primarily BIPOC groups, and among these students, more than 60% receive free or reduced
lunch. The intersectionality of racial minority and socioeconomic challenges indicate the
potential for racial-socialization trauma among enrolled students. The intersectionality of race
trauma and poverty reflected a student population most likely to exhibit racial socialization
trauma and trauma. As such, the study could expect teachers’ expressions of compassion fatigue.
Table 1
Southeastern Regional Public School ’s Population Percentage

Race or Ethnicity Population Percentage
White 48.8%
Black or African American 35.2%
Hispanic or Latino 14.3%
Asian 6.5%
Bi-racial 2.8%
Native American/Alaskan Native 0.4%
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 0.1%
Souce. U.S. Census Bureau (2020).

42

Moreover, the district’s most recent assessment further indicated that while 80% of White
students met or exceeded grade-level proficiency, less than 40% of racially diverse students met
these same proficiency levels. Southeastern Regional Public Schools’ current challenges in
meeting the academic needs of its minority students reflect a common symptom of colorblind
ideology (Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). As such, the selected school district provided a platform
to study the interaction between racial socialization trauma and colorblind ideology and their
collective impact on teachers’ compassion fatigue.
An analysis of the public school system demographics indicated that BIPOC students
comprise almost 60% of the state’s student body. In comparison, more than 80% of the school
personnel were White (United States Census Bureau, 2020). In conjunction with the selected
district’s identification of disparate student outcomes, this disparity provided an opportunity to
validate the conceptual framework.
The Researcher
First and foremost, as the researcher, I am a former teacher, I am White, and I have
experienced compassion fatigue resulting from color-blind ideology. I acknowledge the study
provides an opportunity to establish whether this personal experience extends to others. This
factor created a risk that the study’s analysis could validate my experience, result bias
confirmation, and impose my understanding on the study’s respondents. To mitigate this risk, I
worked to understand contributing factors to teacher compassion fatigue, other than racial
socialization trauma and color-blind ideology. I implemented this into the study design to
prevent bias confirmation and consider the exacerbating challenges in teachers’ professional and
personal lives that are not immediately evident to me. For instance, the timing of the interview is
43

during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, which has implications on fatigue yet to be
understood.
Moreover, while I cannot avoid disclosing my race in the video interview, I limited any
discussion of my past work experiences to prevent the appearance of bias toward respondents.
While I established these conditions for the interviewed teachers, I cannot conceal my reality
from myself. My reliability and validity methods and plans, discussed in a later section of this
chapter, served to lessen these factors.
In addition, the respondents’ demographics were reported and could affect the analysis.
To avoid generalization in the research outcomes, I considered race and ethnicity as partial
factors in responses rather than an indicator of expected reactions. I also shared the findings,
analysis, and recommendations with a peer unfamiliar with the study and accepted critical
feedback. This effort intended to ensure an individual outside the study, with no interest in its
outcome, made the same or similar determinations. In this study, I established a personal goal to
receive peer analysis that did not agree with my findings, reflect on these alternate
interpretations, consider their validity, and incorporate them into my final analysis. By
recognizing the impact of my positionality on this research study, I sought to understand how
personal values, beliefs, and attitudes may influence the analysis process.
Data Sources
The research study was qualitative. I used a single instrument to interview each teacher
with the understanding that individual teacher responses would and did lead to questions asked
of one teacher, not necessarily asked of others. I considered this during analysis to understand
the relevance of any outlying data.
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Methodology
I divided the interview questions into sets of prompts associated with the three research
questions (Appendix A). This helped me view the responses in relation to the questions I sought
to answer, isolate responses that answered a single research question, and apply responses to
multiple questions.
Participants
The volunteer gatekeeper identified professional peers who received informed consent
material to determine their interest level. Teachers expressing interest in participating in this
study’s interview process received an initial email inviting them to select a time and date to
meet. From there, I invited them to a 45-minutes Zoom meeting interview at a time of their
choosing. The five teacher volunteers had experience ranging from 12 to 25 years, taught in
Kindergarten through second-grade classrooms, and were all White. While these respondents
self-selected for this study, the single respondent racial demographic outcome proved beneficial
in supporting the conceptual framework’s assertions. Specifically, if the five teachers
interviewed from a pool of predominately White teachers served predominately racially diverse
students, the social conditions anticipated in this study could help to unearth teachers’
compassion fatigue.
The participants worked for the Southeastern Regional School District and came from the
gatekeeper’s sphere of influence. I did not hand-select or influence the teacher selection pool. I
did not consider age, race, years of service, political opinion, or other social factors as selection
criteria. By allowing the participant pool to generate authentically, I avoided manipulating
respondents and outcomes. I anticipated the teacher pool to reflect the racial and ethnic
demographics identified in the most recent United States Community Census (2020).
45

Specifically, the census approximates that 84% of the community members surrounding the
Southeastern Regional School District identify as either White (48.8%) or Black or African
American (35.2%). However, I did not intentionally manipulate the research by requiring
respondents to represent these demographics precisely or partially. After volunteer respondents
arrived at the Zoom meeting, I determined that all respondents were White.
Instrumentation
I presented twelve interview questions in a semi-structured interview style. I divided the
12 questions into three topic categories: 1. Evidence of colorblind ideology, 2. Indicators of
Compassion Fatigue, and 3. The Mechanisms Available to Teachers to Address Fatigue, if any.
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) recommended the questions be structured but also allow the
respondent to answer flexibly. I used probing and impromptu questions to re-engage discussions
that proved fruitful. I exercised emotional intelligence as much as possible to determine when a
respondent could not answer a question.
I interviewed five teachers via Zoom to honor social distancing and eliminate the need to
wear masks. This allowed me to better understand facial expressions, which are communication
indicators. The interviews took place at the teachers’ requested time, but the researcher
recommended conducting them during after-school hours. I selected this time so teachers were
not in a rush to start the day, as before school may present. Teachers often use lunch breaks to
complete work for the afternoon class limit the interview’s time boundaries. Interviews were
conducted over three weeks and took place in the early morning or evening hours.
Teachers were encouraged to conduct the call from their classroom whenever possible. I
selected the classroom because this is where teachers have their interactive experiences with
students. The classroom is where teachers may practice colorblind ideology, interact with
46

racially minoritized students, and experience emotional exhaustion. Therefore, teachers will most
likely connect with their experiences through sense memory in this environment. However, I did
not prevent teachers from selecting an alternate location, such as their home or a place of
comfort. This flexibility honored potential fatigue and exhaustion by providing options to
conduct the interview elsewhere. It also considered any potential COVID-related school district
limitations on the use of classrooms before or after hours.
Data Collection and Analysis Procedures
Each interview lasted approximately 45 minutes, and the data collection timeline was
three consecutive weeks. As Weiss (1994) discussed, I notified the respondents that Zoom
transcribed the interview in real-time. I also displayed the transcription allowing the respondent
to see their responses and confirm their accuracy. Throughout the discussion, I used the
transcription to refresh topics, and after the discussions, the transcripts supported analysis and
added context to the research study.
I selected verbatim transcription excerpts for analysis and reporting (Gibbs, 2018). As the
primary research intended to understand the impact on teachers’ compassion fatigue, a relatively
unstudied area in the United States education system, determining if the phenomenon existed
was the focus of these interviews. Teachers’ emotional experiences and expressions served as
evidence rendering verbatim transcription of the entire discussion unnecessary. Instead, I isolated
trending responses into the coded analysis identifying themes to help target valuable
recommendations (Gibbs, 2018).
Validity and Reliability
Creswell (2018) identified various qualitative research methods that lend validity and
reliability to a study. I used several methods in this research. First and foremost, Zoom features
47

allowed me to share teachers’ transcription statements in real-time to ensure clarity and offer
them opportunities to clarify any misunderstanding in communication. Creswell (2018)
described this practice as member checking and stated it adds to validity by limiting
misinterpretations. I transcribed specific portions of the recordings verbatim, mainly those
related to colorblind ideology and emotional fatigue associated with all students and diverse
students. Rich comparison of these teacher experiences ensured the study accurately captured
teachers’ experiences in their own words and details (Gibbs, 2018). Finally, the study
recommended interviewing White and BIPOC teachers to reduce potential bias, preventing this
from becoming a White teacher problem. However, as respondents solely represented the White
normative culture, the study’s scope was limited. I could not avoid this in the time available to
do the study, potentially impacting a more global review of the phenomenon.
I piloted the interview protocol and identified consistent responses across all pilot
respondents indicating the prompts were reliable (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I also adopted the
interview questions using prompts from the Pohan and Aguilar (2001) survey instrument because
it was tested and consistently demonstrated validity and reliability. Although the tool, found in
Appendix B, was developed for a quantitative study of racial-socialization trauma, it helped align
the questions with a tested and reliable research instrument. The tool considered psychometric
factors such as diversity, personal and professional experiences, and social and expert attitudes
that influence values and behaviors. The survey examined a more comprehensive range of these
areas, including race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, language,
and immigration status.
I focused on the factors more likely to address the social cognitive dynamics identified in
the conceptual framework for this study. The adopted instrument for this research study used
48

prompts that considered race, gender, and language but did not consider immigration status,
sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or ability. This current study also evaluated the type of
classroom; mainstream, English as a second language, special education, or inclusion, while the
original instrument did not. I carefully crafted the prompts to reflect the validity and reliability of
the original instrument despite these minor variances. At the start of each discussion, the
interview’s demographic questions allowed the analysis to consider the teacher’s history and
self-identified demographic status and their collective or individual impact on teachers’ values,
beliefs, and attitudes. The lengths taken to fashion the prompts using similar language and scales
and dividing the prompts into specific groups reflect the valid and reliable variables Pohan and
Aguilar (2001) determined meaningful.

Ethics
The Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the research study. Participants received
a written informed consent form before participation. Also, before participation, teachers were
made aware, in writing, of the project’s context and the value of their contribution. Consent
forms included a description of the research study, the risks and benefits of participation, and the
promise of confidentiality (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Participants were not compensated and
informed in advance that their participation was voluntary, and they may withdraw at any time
without penalty (Glesne, 2011). I provided the participants with the contact information for my
Dissertation Chair, whom they had the option to contact at any time if they had questions or
concerns about the study. As this study included human subjects, I also completed the Mandatory
Certification of the Researcher and submitted it to the IRB for approval. All participants were
over the age of 18, removing the requirement for parental consent.
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This study intended to inform the improvement of classroom experiences for both
students and teachers. This research aimed to offer empirical evidence of the value of social
justice and implicit bias training for teachers and administrators on the experiences of BIPOC
students. Results were collected and analyzed toward that end and used to determine the
overarching systems that influence these phenomena. The teachers’ responses helped this
outcome but were not used to determine whether the teachers exacerbated this social challenge.
Instead, Chapter 4 will illustrate that I used the data to demonstrate that the lack of diversity,
equity, and inclusion training and professional development in the education system is a social
challenge that may be positively affected by specialized in-service learning opportunities.
Limitations
This study had several potential limitations. First, the COVID crisis and scheduling
challenges limited the study to a single form of qualitative research. While multiple factors led to
this calculated decision, classroom observations and long-term analysis of students and teachers
could have proved fruitful in validating the conceptual framework. Second, this study also relied
on self-reported qualitative responses. This could create a risk because self-reported information
does not demonstrate actual experiences but respondents’ perceived experiences (Gibbs, 2018).
Therefore, the study’s outcomes reflect the respondent’s perception, a limitation that classroom
observations could alleviate.
Moreover, the interview prompts focused on topics I understood as issues vacant from
teacher learning programs based on the literature review and potentially impacted by my
positionality. Therefore, both the respondents’ and researcher’s perceptions and biases were
potential indicators of misinterpretation. Classroom observations, which could not be conducted,
could, again, counteract such factors. Also, this empirical study focused on qualitative responses
50

from a single school district in North Carolina. To increase the knowledge gained from this
study, more data collected over an entire state or region as opposed to a single community could
impact outcomes, offering a wider breadth of knowledge.
Finally, as discussed in this dissertation, while not by design, all teachers were White was
an unexpected outcome. This limited responses to a single demographic. Also, I could not
confirm the expansiveness of the teachers’ antibias or anti-racist training and experience with
any certainty. Respondents frequently described such training as intermittent, voluntary, and
time-consuming. Conducting this research as a comparative study that looked at multiple
districts and intentionally selecting those with strong anti-racist pedagogical training and
expectations could lead to a richer data subset. Also, teachers all taught in Kindergarten through
second-grade classrooms, limiting the study’s ability to understand these conditions when
students are older, have more lived experience, and maybe better describe their traumatic
experiences. This could impact how teachers respond to racial-socialization trauma and the
potential for developing compassion fatigue.
I attempted to counteract these limitations using several methods. First, the interview
included self-reported demographics such as years of service, classroom-type, and student
population descriptions. The video-on Zoom Meeting expectation allowed me to recognize
respondents’ race, ethnicity, and gender. This intentional design provided context that were
controlled for in the analysis and reporting processes. Also, I strategically selected the district
because it self-identified the outcomes of colorblind ideology, such as poor performance among
BIPOC students as compared to White students.
I also selected it because it enrolled a diverse population and represented the
demographics of typical public schools across the region. This allowed me to understand race
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disparities among teachers and students and control for these factors in the analysis process. I
also incorporated member checking and third-party analysis to help understand and interpret
aspects of the results that my positionality and bias may prohibit. The intentional engagement of
respondents in affirming the reliability of the transcripts and a third party in the analysis
increased perspective and supported informed recommendations.

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Chapter Four: Findings
This qualitative research study intended to understand the impact of students’ race trauma
on teachers’ compassion fatigue. The research, methodology, and analysis were grounded in the
Social Cognitive Theory, suggesting that social experiences within the lived environment define
individual and group perspectives (Bandura, 2005). The study explored how teachers’ personal
and professional experiences developed a colorblind ideology that shaped their assessment and
understanding of race trauma. The study intended to understand how teachers’ individual and
group perspectives limited their ability to assess racial socialization trauma, potentially resulting
in compassion fatigue.
These collective and intersecting experiences describe the study’s conceptual framework
contending racially minoritized students’ racial-socialization trauma and teachers’ colorblind
ideology continuously intersect. The conceptual framework anticipated that teachers’ colorblind
ideology limits their ability to identify, name, and address racial socialization trauma. These
unchecked and unmanaged social experiences could lead to teacher compassion fatigue, reducing
their motivation and potentially impacting student performance. The research questions guiding
this study were
1. How is colorblind ideology evident in teachers’ assessments of BIPOC students’
challenging behaviors?
2. What indicators of compassion fatigue do teachers express when teaching racially
minoritized students?
3. What do teachers describe as the mechanisms available to them to address compassion
fatigue?
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Bandura’s (2005) Social Cognitive theoretical framework provided a basis for
understanding teachers’ responses to the interview prompts and guided the researchers’ probing
questions and analysis. The theoretical framework asserts that teachers’ long and short-term
socially learned experiences influence their life and workplace behaviors. The conceptual
framework illustrated that if these learned experiences did not provide a basis for identifying or
acknowledging BIPOC students’ race trauma, teachers might not recognize their behaviors as
evidence of trauma. In such an occurrence, students may not perceive the classroom as a safe
learning space, reducing developmental and social-emotional growth opportunities. If teachers
learned experiences and administrative protocols uphold colorblindness, the behavioral
expressions of students’ race trauma will go unnoticed and, therefore, unaddressed in the
learning environment (Byrd & Carter-Andrews, 2016). Compassion fatigue emerges when
teachers experience persistent secondary trauma resulting from students’ unresolved primary
trauma (Koenig et al., 2018).
Participating Stakeholders
This qualitative research study focused on understanding how five teachers expressed
their life experiences, their impact on their work with racially diverse students, and the
emergence of compassion fatigue (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Koenig et al., 2018). The study
implemented a semi-structured interview-based approach to collect data and analyze these
experiences from the teachers’ perspectives (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). A gatekeeper working in
the selected school district distributed recruitment information and informed consent
documentation to interested participants (Gibbs, 2018).
All five participants were current teachers in the Southeastern Regional School District
and willingly expressed participation interest. The voluntary participants were all White, not by
54

design; however, district demographics indicated approximately 80% of its teachers were White,
making this participant outcome likely. The participants included a mixed-gender group, but the
exact breakdown per participant is not included in this dissertation for anonymity. The teachers
stated they served students between five and eight years of age in kindergarten through second-
grade classrooms. All five teachers led classrooms with predominately BIPOC students and
worked in the same general capacity for the school district for at least 12 years and 25 years. For
this dissertation and to protect the gender and identity of respondents, all five teachers were
assigned an androgynous pseudonym in the coded analysis (Appendix C).
Framing the Results and Findings
The researcher developed a qualitative codebook defining a priori and open codes to
support the discussed results and findings (Gibbs, 2018). The codebook (Appendix B) establishes
definitions for the following a priori coded terms referenced herein: colorblind ideology, social-
emotional assessments, race trauma assessments, race trauma, race-based classroom equity,
compassion fatigue, compassion fatigue mechanisms, and self-care. A priori codes reflect the
literature review and the conceptual framework, which evidenced the factors.
Appendix B defines open codes developed from interview responses and includes grade
level, classroom dynamics, trauma, multicultural education, time, social-emotional learning
program, leadership, parent involvement, and COVID crisis. These codes emerged from the
interviews and helped align responses with specifically defined concepts (Gibbs, 2018). Using
expected and open codes to sort responses helped maintain the study’s fidelity with the
theoretical and conceptual frameworks while honoring unexpected outcomes. This dissertation’s
results and findings section reference these codes and the analyses’ emerged themes. I captured
55

the themes in the coded analysis found in Appendix C. The three themes discovered and
discussed are as follows:
1. Resources and Support Systems - The tools and materials available to teachers that help
them assess race trauma, address trauma with social-emotional support plans, improve
classroom race relations, and manage their compassion fatigue through self-care.
2. Individual Teacher Capacity – Teachers’ world view about trauma, social-emotional
development, and race-related experiences. Individual teacher capacity is directly
connected to the social cognitive theoretical framework suggesting that people behave
within the boundaries of their learned experiences.
3. Fatigue Culture -Nomenclature developed by the researcher during analysis to
characterize the complacency teachers expressed regarding emotional exhaustion.
Teachers seemed to accept fatigue as a regular part of their work-life experience.
The following results and findings discuss these themes and their interconnected impact on
teachers’ compassion fatigue.
Results and Findings
The following section highlights specific teacher responses related to the three emergent
themes in this study: Resources and Support Systems, Individual Teacher Capacity, and Fatigue
Culture. Interview responses are organized and associated with their relative theme and
subthemes.
Resources and Support Systems
The first research question examined and discussed herein is: What do teachers describe
as the mechanisms available to them to address compassion fatigue?
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Teachers responded to 12 interview questions for this study, leading to descriptions of
teachers’ resources and support systems. Interview responses that described either available
resources or support systems were coded and associated with the Resources and Support Systems
theme. I included resources and support systems herein even if the teacher did not capitalize on
them. However, the study found that resources and support were not readily available to address
trauma, regardless of race. Moreover, the research will demonstrate that when teachers described
resources and support systems, they did not consistently leverage them, limiting their ability to
address the needs of racially traumatized students.
Social-Emotional Assessment Tools
During interview discussions, I asked teachers to describe the social-emotional
assessment tools used for all students and share any tools specifically designed to assess race-
related trauma. Teachers unanimously stated they did not use a formalized social-emotional
assessment tool to assess any enrolled students. Specifically, when asked how they assessed
mental health, teachers made statements such as the following:
It’s not a requirement necessarily. I practice what I can. [If a child shares something going
on at home] it kind of gives the teacher an opportunity to see like a different side that maybe
[the teacher] wouldn’t have seen.
While one of the five teachers made this statement, the other four teachers made similar
statements confirming this idea throughout the interviews. A second teacher revealed: “There is
no system in place [to assess social-emotional needs]. It’s almost like the instinct of the teacher.
Just knowing the kids and having a relationship with them.” Additional teacher statements
confirmed this sentiment: “We do use a lot of anecdotal notes to support whether students
understand something but as far as formally, no formal assessment that I’m aware of, as far as
57

assessing students for trauma.” The other two teachers corroborated these statements creating a
united message that teachers did not have access to a standardized tool to understand if their
students required any special learning experiences to address trauma.
Race-Trauma Assessment Tool
The researcher asked teachers to describe their classroom demographic and how they
formally or informally addressed race-related trauma. Teachers all shared the make-up of their
classroom as predominantly racially minoritized students, with some describing a student
demographic that was likely to have elements of race trauma. These students included recent
immigrants from Latin American nations, refugee families from Middle Eastern nations, and
African and Latin American students (Appendix C). Given the current climate of the United
States and the world, this study assumed that at least some of these students endured negatively
impactful race-related experiences. Despite this classroom demographic, teachers indicated that
there were no tools or resources available to assess the impact of these experiences on students’
emotional well-being. Teachers all made statements aligned with the following comment: “We
do not have a special method for assessing students from different races. It is the same for
everyone.” Another teacher in the interview pool confirmed this when they stated: “for
assessment purposes [it] is just the same for everyone.” An additional statement confirming the
lack of a formalized tool to help teachers understand race-related trauma was “no formal
difference [for BIPOC students] that I’m aware of, as far as assessing students for trauma.”
The interview prompts attempted to probe deeper into potentially available mechanisms
to address race trauma without a formalized assessment tool. Three of the five teachers described
a social-emotional learning program in response to this question. Teachers expressed using the
program to help students self-regulate and process feelings. For instance, one teacher stated: “We
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have a social-emotional curriculum that we’re supposed to use in the morning meeting… It’s like
teaching the kids how to like handle their feelings.” Two other teachers corroborated the use of
this curriculum when they shared similar sentiments: “There’s a program about, you know,
responsibility, being respectful, caring for each other, being able to talk or just say how you
feel.” While teachers articulated a tool available to help students describe and regulate their
feelings, which are components of classroom management, this tool did not include a mechanism
to assess the root cause of the child’s emotions or behaviors.
Moreover, this resource was generalized and did not consider how students of different
races, ethnicities, or life experiences may communicate or express emotions. Without a tool to
unearth racial-socialization trauma, teachers may not create response plans to mitigate it,
generating an environment likely to give rise to teachers’ compassion fatigue. The individual
teacher capacity theme emergent in these previous responses validates the conceptual
framework’s assertion that racial socialization is unidentified in the classroom.
Parents as a Resource
Although teachers did not have access to or formally assess students’ racial socialization
trauma, all five teachers described the value of parents as a resource. In the absence of evaluation
and measurement systems, teachers leaned into their relationships with parents to understand
students’ behaviors whenever possible. One teacher stated, “[To understand trauma, you] have
that relationship with the parents because the parents will tell you things the kids never will. And
they will let you know, they’ll share, like maybe, maybe not.” Other interview respondents
confirmed the value of these relationships: “I also have good communication with my parents
and so if somebody all of a sudden stop communicating or stops returning text then I start to dig
deeper.” Another teacher shared,
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We really pressed the parents and just expressed concern and tried to make sure they
understood that we love love love love your child. [They] will always be a part of my
family, but they are not behaving like the other students in the class, and it’s problematic.
Teachers’ statements suggested that they leveraged relationships with parents whenever possible
in the absence of formal tools. At least one teacher stated this relationship helped them identify
racial-socialization trauma:
[When speaking with the parent I said] I’m sure you’re tired of coming to pick them up
early. Then the parents finally shared the absolutely horrific sights and sounds they saw
in a Middle Eastern refugee camp before they came to the United States.
The teacher shared that while this was important information, there was no formal social-
emotional response plan for this child. This teacher description suggests that when teachers
become aware of racial-socialization trauma, they do not name it or address it. Moreover, they
described routinely asking the parent to pick the child up from school early, suggesting that race-
trauma-related behaviors were not recognized or addressed. Such responses to racial-
socialization trauma validate the study’s assumption that teachers’ perceptions inform their
definitions of students’ behaviors.
Race-Based Classroom Equity
Although teachers did not describe a formalized mechanism to assess race trauma, they
did share the highly diverse classroom make-up and, in at least one instance, confirmed the
existence of race trauma. Using this information as a platform for discussion, the interview
prompts offered teachers an opportunity to describe how they address race trauma in the
classroom and promote racial equity. Three of the five teachers described using a unit from the
curriculum taught during Black History Month. One teacher shared, “[We have] a big
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multicultural celebration usually like for a whole month for Black History month. It talks about
how slavery was wrong and how all these important people that made changes in life.” Teachers
also described using multicultural colors in art centers that allowed students to depict people “in
all the different ways we see them.” Another teacher described a unit focused on the Native
American groups living in the area. Teachers’ responses evidenced that when asked to describe
racial equity, they leaned into an isolated curriculum unit or classroom materials rather than an
ongoing awareness of the difference between racially minoritized and racially dominant student
experiences. These responses suggested that teachers relied on formal tools to help them address
race-related incidents. When they used these tools, they were isolated events relegated to times
of the year or specific activities and did not appear to establish a shared, safe, inclusive, or
equitable learning space. Teachers’ descriptions of isolated multicultural lessons promoted
seasonally evidenced that the school promotes a colorblind ideology isolating discussions of race
and ethnicity to certain times of year, limiting opportunities to address race trauma (Uta et al.,
2016).
Time as a Resource
As teachers indicated, their perception of race-based equity was a multicultural unit in the
district-distributed curriculum. The interview used these descriptions to probe deeper to
understand the resources or support systems teachers accessed to build their capacity to move
beyond multiculturalism and into anti-racism or anti-bias practices. In particular, the study
intended to understand if teachers were exposed to unconscious bias training or opportunities to
reflect on classroom dynamics for response planning. Teachers confirmed if such opportunities
existed, they would not take advantage of them because time was their most precious and
unavailable resource. For instance, one teacher stated,
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The last thing I want to do right now is go to a training or staff events. There’s no time. I
don’t get a lunch break. I get zero breaks. The only break I got was planning. Check [and
respond] to email [10 minutes]. Another 15 minutes to plan what’s going to happen in an
hour. I barely have time to plan for the next day, let alone the next week.
The four other teacher respondents made similar comments regarding time available to address
daily activities, much less the complex challenges associated with race trauma. Another teacher
shared, “[The school day] doesn’t really allow for me to [work on individual child needs]…
There’s not really [time]. I don’t have time to like pull kids into small groups and stuff like that
because it’s mostly direct instruction.” A third teacher confirmed this sentiment stating, “So the
hardest part is trying to find time to work with those small groups to get them where they need to
be just to be [at grade level].” Teachers lacked access to social-emotional assessment tools for all
students. Likewise, they did not have tools designed to assess race trauma. Moreover, if such
tools were present, teachers expressed they would not have adequate time to use them. As such,
mechanisms used to address racial inequity and students experiencing race trauma behaviors
were limited to a supplemental social-emotional learning program designed to address feelings
rather than trauma. This was coupled with a formal curriculum with isolated multicultural
lessons. Therefore, the tools and techniques used in the classroom did not consider the emotional
needs of historically minoritized students, although teachers stated these students made up most
of their classroom enrollment.
Teachers described leaning into formalized tools to promote multiculturalism but lacked
formalized systems to determine social-emotional needs for their BIPOC students or any student,
for that matter. Research indicates that racially minoritized students’ unrecognized racial-
socialization trauma may predetermine teachers’ compassion fatigue (Zhang & Sapp, 2013;
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Arens & Morin, 2016; Koenig et al., 2018). Therefore, teachers’ responses validated the
coexistence of racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology. Recognizing the close and
reciprocal relationship between student performance and teachers’ professional and emotional
workplace satisfaction, the research probed teachers to share access to internally or externally
directed self-care (Jennings & Greenberg, 2011). The conceptual framework indicated that if, in
fact, racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology intersected, teachers’ compassion
fatigue was an expected outcome. Tools such as self-care mechanisms were explored to
determine it opportunities to alleviate such feelings were present.
Self-Care Mechanisms
Teachers consistently indicated that they and their administrators understood self-care at
an intellectual level; however, there were no reinforced mechanisms to promote self-care
successfully. The respondents evidenced this in statements:
We’re constantly reminded about self-care, but it’s kind of like in the midst of a meeting
where it’s like, here are all the things that we need you to do and also self-care. So, it
kind of feels like it’s being said so they can be like we said it, we covered our butts on
that. But it’s not always practical.
This statement was corroborated by another teacher who shared,
Self-care is, is informal, and not using some kind of formal system the district has in
place for you. Maybe [the district offers mechanisms]. I don’t even open the emails [from
the district] because whatever it is, I probably won’t do it. It’s going to take more of my
time I don’t have.
Finally, a third teacher recognized emotional exhaustion at a systemic level by saying,
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We have new admin this year. I mean, they’ve been a principal moved up from AP
[assistant principal], so we’ve worked with them before, and we have one of our assistant
principals, and then we have a new one, so it’s kind of a new team to us, and so we’re
also learning how to do things differently and figure things out, but they are all
completely overwhelmed just as much as we are.
The literature described emotional exhaustion as a factor in compassion fatigue (Koenig
et al., 2018). Compassion fatigue identified and addressed in other helping industries such as
mental health practitioners, social workers, and emergency responders was described as
exhaustion, indifference, and feelings of inadequacy (Cieslak et al., 2014; LaFauci et al., 2011).
One teacher exemplified this when they stated,
I’m sitting there, and I’m like well this is the lesson, and they can’t do it and I’m about to
teach these lessons they don’t understand. I am at that point I was like I don’t even know
what to do.
A second teacher shared fatigue levels that made them consider leaving the profession: “When I
see things that are unfair. I get emotional… I used to love [teaching]. Right now, I’m actually
very much contemplating early retirement.” A third teacher expressed a similar sentiment about
student performance and their feelings about their work:
I’m not used to having as many [students] that are [two grade levels behind]. I think it
does like get in your head a little bit of like, Oh my gosh, like, I’m a good teacher. Why
isn’t this like reflecting that?
Teachers’ expression of exhaustion and the absence of formal self-care mechanisms
inhibited their ability to mitigate these feelings and strengthen their performance. Literature
indicated self-care was a primary professional development component for staff members in
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other helping industries (Wallbank, 2010; Williams et al., 2015). While the teachers interviewed
described emotional exhaustion, indifference, and feelings of inadequacy, they were not armed
with similar professional development opportunities to resolve or even manage these
experiences. This is problematic because these teachers described working directly with a
BIPOC population potentially experiencing race trauma. Teachers did not describe having the
tools to assess, name, and address the expression of this trauma in the classroom or their own
emotions around these students’ successes or challenges.
When trying to understand the mechanisms available to teachers to address compassion
fatigue, the research found that formal tools such as social-emotional assessments, race-based
assessments, time to reflect on students’ needs, and self-care mechanisms were not described.
Moreover, the tools available to teachers, such as supplemental and formal curricula, only
addressed racism and discrimination at cursory and inconsistent levels. Teachers did not have
access to sustained resources to address race trauma. Teachers also worked within a system that
lacked time to implement the self-care techniques to build their emotional capacity to address
their students’ mental health needs creating an emotionally exhausted teacher workforce.
Teachers were also not fortified with techniques to understand and mitigate their own
exhaustion and fatigue. As such, there was a risk that a vulnerable teaching population supported
a vulnerable student population. Therefore, teachers were left to their own devices to address
these challenges in isolation, making individual teacher capacity a key indicator of classroom
experiences.
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Individual Teacher Capacity
Teachers ’ Colorblind Ideology
As described in this chapter, evidence of colorblind ideology was present in both the
selected district and teacher responses. This was demonstrated by teachers’ descriptions of a
workplace environment that did not provide resources and support systems to help them address
the needs of BIPOC students’ race trauma. Respondents also indicated their workplace did not
help them address compassion fatigue, leaving teachers to mitigate these effects on their own.
This is important to discuss because teachers cannot dismantle the impact of race trauma in
isolation of a larger support system (Garmon, 2004; Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2011). However,
teachers’ descriptions of resources and support systems indicated they understood and responded
to students’ social-emotional needs at an individual level. The study explored the second
research question to further understand this: How is colorblind ideology evident in teachers’
assessments of racially minoritized students’ challenging behaviors?
The study found that teachers assessed students on a case-by-case basis without
formalized research-based social-emotional assessment tools and techniques, using their
perceptions. Teachers’ perception statements about racially diverse students’ social-emotional
assessment indicated colorblind ideology was evident. Teachers were asked a series of seven
interview questions directly associated with this research question (Appendix A). Interview
responses were coded and linked with the Individual Teacher Capacity theme. The analysis
demonstrated teachers’ socially rooted worldview of colorblind ideology impacted how they
understand race and its influence on child development. Responses ranged from recognizing
microaggression against students to not believing there are race-related experiences. This
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response range indicated that individual teacher capacity influenced their race-trauma
interpretation.
The researcher asked teachers to describe how they tailor their teaching style to address a
students’ traumatic experiences, if at all. Teachers’ range of responses included statements such
as
I have a colleague who is displaying racist language and racist tendencies, and especially
when their behavior is so sickeningly drastic based on the race of students in the
classroom. When administrators are around that, you know, they don’t see it.
This response indicates the teacher appeared to have a general understanding of how to identify
racism and that it was rooted deeply enough in the school system to go unnoticed. On the
contrary, a second teacher said,
I can’t think of how race would impact [students’ experiences.] The experience is what it
is regardless of the race of the student. I don’t think that the race has anything to do with
how that would impact me or change anything I would do.
These juxtaposed perspectives of race and prejudice indicate that teachers do not have a
uniform understanding of racism, discrimination, or intolerance and their impact on trauma.
Moreover, these responses highlight that colorblind ideology is present in the teaching
community. It appears that if teachers are going to dismantle colorblind ideology to assess
students’ challenging behaviors, it will happen at the individual teacher level. Teacher responses
indicated they would use their own assumptions to understand how BIPOC students’ behaviors
may be influenced by their race-related experiences.
Teachers did not appear to recognize social factors such as racism or discrimination and
their potential to create trauma. If racism is named, it is done at the individual teacher level: only
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one of the five teachers interviewed mentioned racism and racial inequity as impacting student
experiences. In this instance, the teacher recognized past generational experiences rather than the
current social climate. In this case, the teacher stated,
Mom probably has really negative records playing in her head of her school experience.
And so I’m very cognizant of it. You know, it’s not necessarily racism, but I know that
racism, of past generations and the racial inequity, definitely play a role… and
recognizing that because [school] was never important [to her], there’s never importance
placed on [her child] going into school or even finishing school.
While this teacher referenced racism as a factor in shaping life experiences and creating a lack of
trust in social systems, such as school, the teacher’s responses were rooted in colorblindness. The
statements reflected assumptions about the mother’s experience and projected those assumptions
onto the child’s classroom performance. The teacher never described a shift in teaching style to
accommodate this perception that generational racism impacts the student.
Colorblind Classroom Practice
Teachers also spoke of consistency, referenced social stereotypes when discussing how
they understood students’ behaviors and seemed to understand the tools available to them did not
contain anti-biased or anti-racist practices. For instance, one teacher stated,
I just try to be as consistent as possible with all student, [but] I get very aggravated when
I have some, I would say middle-class White kids that brag about a lot of things, you
know, and you have these Hispanic kids, or some Black kids don’t have, you know, and
they don’t have fathers and White kids do.
This teacher described a personal perception of race in their comments. The teacher appears to
believe consistency or treating all students the same, was an effective practice in meeting the
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needs of all students. Consistency is a primary component of colorblind ideology, suggesting that
it creates fairness without considering individual student experiences or needs (Milner, 2006;
Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2010). The teacher’s statements also reflected a typical family unit
stereotype associating race and ethnicity with the father’s place in the home. The teacher’s
statement showed a belief that the father’s placement in the home was race-related, indicating a
colorblind belief system.
Teacher responses suggested that when teachers discussed race-based empathy, their
statements reverted to colorblindness. For example, another teacher began to express efforts to
address the challenging behaviors of historically minoritized students, but messaging shifted: “If
someone looks differently than me [or if they do look like me] right away, I can be like oh we
have different experiences.” The teachers’ immediate shift away from difference and into
consistency showed their natural inclination was to maintain a similar approach to students’
social-emotionally related behaviors. These varied responses regarding race and assessing
students’ emotional needs applicable to race were significant to consider because the classroom
demographics were described as highly diverse.
In this dissertation chapter's Resources and Support Systems section, responses
demonstrated that teachers did not have access to research-based social-emotional assessment
tools. Their assessments of students’ behaviors were rooted in their capacity to evaluate their
social-emotional need indicators. When asked how they considered students’ race-based social-
emotional needs, it appeared they based evaluations on their interpretation of trauma indicators.
One teacher stated, “It’s almost like the instinct of the teacher. Just yeah, knowing the kids and
having a relationship with them. They [the students] haven’t like they haven’t shared a lot in
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class.” The teacher’s statement suggested that if the child did not overtly display social-
emotional needs, the teacher might not recognize the need. Another teacher shared the following:
I think just finding out, I mean I think with the kids in the hallway they come in early,
sitting in the hallway. And you can tell it they’ve had a bad day, or even like a bad night
or bad morning by just the way they come [to school.]
A third teacher had a similar response:
I think a lot of it is intuitive, truly like experience and intuition and knowing what’s
typical and not typical, just listening. I have some kids that will just start opening up, and
you got to know when to listen instead of telling them to be quiet all the time.
Therefore, each teacher’s individual capacity and socially developed trauma perspectives
formed their opinions on students’ trauma indicators. If students did not explicitly display
behaviors indicating a mood shift, teachers appeared to assume the child’s social-emotional
needs were met. Moreover, resources and support systems were not available to identify and
name racial socialization trauma, and teachers’ demonstrated evidence of colorblind practices.
These outcomes validate the conceptual framework’s suggestion that colorblind ideology clashes
with racial-socialization trauma in the classroom. However, the research further identified
teachers’ challenges in identifying and responding to other forms of trauma as well.
Generalized Trauma and Socioeconomic Status
When interview prompts attempted to determine if teachers developed strategies, plans,
or approaches to assess and respond to racially minoritized students’ emotional needs, they did
not appear to recognize social factors such as racism or discrimination and their potential to
create trauma. This was evidenced in responses to questions designed to understand if teachers’
social-emotional student evaluations associated trauma indicators with race. One teacher’s
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statements suggested any intuitive assessment of behavior recognized general trauma but not
race-related trauma:
Man, there’s all kinds of trauma. I can’t think of how race would impact [social-
emotional challenges]. I have two homeless students right now. One is mixed race, the
other was African American, but I don’t think that the race has anything to do with how
that would impact me or change anything I would do.
The teacher considered a commonly understood trauma factor of homelessness but did not
consider the students’ race as a potential second trauma indicator. This suggested that the teacher
did not see race as impactful in child development and did not address social-emotional
challenges that may be associated with such trauma.
Teachers’ inclination to lean into generalized trauma such as poverty can be further
identified in the following statement:
The curriculum we use does not address race particularly well. . . . If they [the students]
bring something up or I notice something for like a child in the backpack program [a low
socioeconomic response program], I try to maybe read a book they might relate to or to
help them not feel so different. And then when things come up from the other students,
like they do not understand about poverty, or the way someone else looks or dresses then
we can kind of talk about it right there.
The teacher’s statement showed an effort to address differences, but they were more
closely related to socioeconomic status than race. When answering interview prompts exploring
classroom responses to race trauma, the teacher may have leaned into socioeconomic status
because its effects are more readily accessible to a White teacher (Cross & Hong, 2012).
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Colorblindness as an Intervention Inhibitor
Teachers also addressed race-related classroom interactions on a case-by-case basis,
describing approaches to mitigate incidents as they emerged rather than establishing systems to
dismantle racism through ongoing practices. One teacher stated,
Our morning meeting time of just like really building those relationships and celebrating
things, and, and, like, allowing voices to be heard and to come in and to bring things
[from home]. And like nipping things in the bud, like when somebody says something
inappropriate like letting them know right away like, hey, that’s not okay. Here’s why.
Another teacher discussed a traumatic incident between a disabled White female student and a
Latin American female student, also managed at the individual experience level:
So, I mean it’s interesting a disabled child drew a picture for a mixed child and [the
mixed child] had this reaction it’s pretty fascinating. The disabled child, she was White.
So [the other girl] was upset because she drew her with Brown skin. She said [she didn’t
like being Brown] because life is hard for brown people, and we need to talk about that.
Just kind of pointing out that we’re all different, and it’s okay.
This described incident suggested that at least one child in the classroom, despite their young
age, was aware that people are treated differently based on the color of their skin. The teacher
responded within their capacity, using the incident to engage in a single conversation rather than
addressing the child’s response as a potential indicator of race trauma. Moreover, the teachers’
response was meant to normalize differences demonstrated in the statement, “we’re all different,
and it’s okay.” This incident suggests the child was expressing indicators of race trauma, and the
teachers’ response leaned into fairness (we’re all different, and it’s okay).
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Teachers’ descriptions of their evaluations and assessments of students were limited to
their perspectives. It appeared that because teachers’ lacked resources and support systems
designed to identify and address trauma or race-trauma indicators, they did not have the tools to
name and respond to students’ needs. Teachers’ statements suggested they intended to
understand and support all students’ social-emotional challenges; however, their interview
responses indicated they leaned into personal perception. Responses also demonstrated teachers
lacked time, anti-bias or anti-racist curriculum, and systematic support to help them identify and
mitigate race-related trauma. As evaluators and responders to such trauma, teachers’ classroom
practices implied they managed these experiences alone and without formalized assistance or
support. Therefore, the school environment did not provide teachers opportunities to formally
evaluate race trauma or any social-emotional trauma and did not address name and suspend
colorblind ideology. The conceptual framework suggests that such conditions would allow for an
outcome like compassion fatigue to arise.
Limited Racial-Socialization Trauma Indicators
It is important to note that teachers described their classroom demographic as
predominately BIPOC, including Black Americans, Latino Americans from Mexico and Central
America, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Immigrants from African and Latin
American Nations. The literature review demonstrated at least 50% of historically minoritized
students enter preschool having already experienced racism and discrimination and potential
racial-socialization trauma (A. T. Anderson et al., 2014). Three of the five teachers interviewed
for this study described behavioral indicators commensurate with racial socialization trauma. The
limited trauma descriptors reflect the information collected in the literature review. Specifically,
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while racism and discrimination are potentially traumatizing, they do not impact every racially
minoritized individual the same way nor do they inevitably lead to racial socialization trauma.
Fatigue Culture
Fatigue Factors
Although teachers’ responses indicated limited racial socialization trauma indicators, they
implied the school setting limited access to tools and resources to help them assess racial-
socialization trauma or any other trauma. Furthermore, as these systems were not in place to
provide teacher support systems for addressing potential race-related trauma, teachers were left
to mitigate these challenges independently, using their perceptions of trauma and responding
based on their capacity. These collective factors position teachers to manage the typical
expectations of state-mandated learning frameworks and regulations while also addressing
social-emotional factors independently. Teachers’ collective responses help answer the final
question for this research study: What indicators of compassion fatigue do teachers express when
teaching racially-minoritized students?
While the district's curriculum provided to the teachers outlined state-mandated learning
expectations, teachers’ responses indicated social-emotional response planning was not.
Supporting students’ learning experiences and helping them become well-rounded high,
functioning students requires developmental, physical, and social-emotional learning
opportunities (Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006). An all-encompassing learning environment
assists students in progressing through learning milestones; however, teachers’ lack of access to
formal social-emotional assessments and response planning created a gap in students’
development. This gap may be a factor in teachers’ fatigue expressions.
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Teachers described experiences such as emotional exhaustion, feelings of inadequacy,
and indifference to personal and professional growth opportunities. For instance, one teacher
stated, “I’m not allowed to take my computer home. My [partner] has a hard time with me
bringing work home.” This statement suggested that the teacher’s work-life balance was difficult
to achieve under typical circumstances and that it expanded into their home life. Another teacher
shared, “And it’s [the stress], you know, making or breaking people as we speak, right, or just
leaving saying I’m not doing it and I can’t blame them.” This teacher’s comments indicated that
the workplace environment was overwhelming and potentially created staff exodus.
A third teacher shared experiences about workplace stress describing, “I’m always ranked
lower at the beginning of the year than I am at the end of the year. And whatever I was at the end
of last year. I never start there again. I’m always demoted.” This teacher’s statements suggest
feelings of inadequacy and a belief that the workplace environment did not create opportunities
to thrive professionally. These statements are important to highlight because they suggest the
teachers in this study did not feel valued in the workplace. This was significant to consider as
they also described themselves as students’ sole social-emotional evaluator and responder.
However, in response to questions intended to uncover compassion fatigue, teachers’
descriptions reflected general fatigue rather than compassion fatigue resulting from secondary
trauma.
The Absence of Compassion Fatigue Descriptors
The Conceptual Framework suggested colorblind ideology limited racial socialization
trauma identification. The dissertation asserted such limitations subjected teachers to secondary
trauma, a precursor to compassion fatigue. However, interview questions designed to identify
compassion fatigue led to teachers’ describing generalized fatigue.
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One teacher shared feeling overwhelmed by the workload, motivating them to consider
resigning their position:
I mean, I definitely think about it [resigning] from time to time. It’s never the kids or
situations like that make me want to leave, it’s the paperwork, it’s admin, having a boss
that I don’t agree with or the time constraints.
The teacher’s statements reflect work-related exhaustion as opposed to typical compassion
fatigue indicators, suggesting workplace expectations are fatigue sources rather than exposure to
unresolved student trauma.
Another teacher stated a similar sentiment when they shared observations about their
administrators’ performance assessments:
I feel like I have to fight for on where I should be on my evaluation. You know, like,
okay, do I really need to show you all this kind of data and materials to get where I am,
and you know where that’s where I feel like that’s sort of a waste of time. When I see
things [like this] that are unfair [to the teacher] I get emotional, I get upset, and I get
angry. I used to love [teaching] Right now, I’m actually very much contemplating early
retirement.
The teacher’s comments reflect workplace fatigue motivating resignation; however, this
comment lacks compassion fatigue descriptors. While further evidencing a fatigue culture, this
statement does not reflect the dissertation’s initial compassion fatigue expectations.
A third teacher expressed similar sentiments reflecting a fatigue culture generated from
workplace experiences:
I think it’s just overwhelming when I did my reading assessments at the beginning of the
year, most of them are reading at, like, [one to two levels behind]. I’ve got probably six
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[out of 16] that were where they needed to be or close to where they needed to be. I have
taught [this grade] for so long and I’m used to having kids that aren’t on grade level, but
I’m not used to having as many that are [this low]. I think it does like getting your head a
little bit of like, Oh my gosh, like, I’m a good teacher. Why isn’t this like reflecting that?
The teacher’s work-life descriptions express feelings of inadequate performance and generalized
fatigue stemming from student performance expectations. However, these statements do not
reflect secondary trauma exposure or compassion fatigue.
All three teacher comments indicate they work in a fatigued state, feeling overwhelmed
by workplace expectations. While these experiences may impact teacher performance, they
cannot be directly associated with compassion fatigue related to students’ racial socialization
trauma. Instead, teachers were more likely to associate their exhaustion with the COVID
pandemic.
COVID as a Fatigue Factor
The COVID crisis impacted teachers’ responses to interview prompts designed to
understand compassion fatigue in their work-life. I interviewed teachers 3 months after returning
to in-person classroom activities. This return to the workplace followed 17 months of online
service delivery. As a result, the researcher could not isolate COVID fatigue from compassion
fatigue. Emotional exhaustion, indifference, and feelings of inadequacy appeared as a theme for
all respondents in either self-descriptions or observations of coworkers. Teachers associated this
with returning to work after the online classroom experience, which led to students’ apparent
learning regression challenges. Teachers described teaching students with cognitive assessment
results as much as two grade levels behind.
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Respondents shared their experience acclimating back to in-person services. For instance,
one teacher stated,
I assign this activity. It’s supposed to be a second-grade math task right and math
standard, and even my kids [who] were really high in math failed it the first time they
took it. Eighty percent of them just failed this obviously I did something wrong when I
was trying to teach it to them because they’re not learning it.
Another teacher shared,
I’ve got probably six [of 16] that were where they needed to be or close to where they
needed to be—I have taught for so long, and I’m used to having kids that aren’t on grade
level, but I’m not used to having as many that are [two grade levels behind].
Another teacher shared a similar sentiment: “[Because of COVID] Six of my [18] students are
[two grade levels behind]. I probably have three students that are on grade level. It’s impossible
to get them [ready for the next learning environment].” At least one teacher recognized the
COVID crisis as having a systemic effect on teacher and student performance: “I mean, the
whole school is below grade level [because of COVID.] Everybody’s in crisis mode,
everybody’s scrambling so like it’s pretty much the same across the board.” The COVID crisis’
impact on student learning impacted teachers’ experiences, exacerbating an already challenging
work environment. These statements confounded the study’s intention to associate the
intersection of racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology with compassion fatigue. The
COVID crisis also created fatigue, making it difficult to unravel its effects with other
compassion fatigue indicators. However, all five interview respondents continuously referenced
emotional exhaustion as a workplace norm.
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Fatigue and Imbalance
When teachers described district-led efforts to improve this and other fatigue factors, they
displayed indifference to the opportunity. This was evidenced by statements such as, “Honestly,
the last thing I want to do right now is go to a training or self-care event. There’s no time.”
Another demonstrated their own efforts to manage their fatigue experience when they shared:
“I’ve tried really hard not to work at all on Sundays and kind of just decompress before
Monday.” Another teacher shared a similar experience:
I mean, like, a few days this week I’ve been like, forget the make-up, like I need 5 extra
minutes of sleep. I can’t do this. I’m throwing my hair back and no make-up and just
survive. I’ve even canceled my own counseling sessions that I was going to every 2
weeks to kind of help because I literally don’t have the time.
Teachers’ descriptions of their work-life experiences suggested an imbalance. The
respondents demonstrated they do not have time or interest in attending teacher engagement
experiences, struggle to manage their personal lives, and forego attending to their self-care to
address workplace challenges. Teachers referenced these experiences when describing
themselves and others suggesting compassion fatigue presence in the workplace. The research
study outcomes indicated teachers did not have access to an ongoing or meaningful mechanisms
to manage their workplace fatigue.
Teachers ’ Descriptions of Fatigue Culture
Teachers described a work-life that included working on weekends, only taking a single
weekend day off, and working into the evenings. Teachers did not have regularly scheduled
breaks, brought work home, and described falling behind in their workload if they tried to
address self-care. It is important to note that the interviewed teachers’ tone when explaining
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these fatigue factors was indifferent; they appeared to accept that an inability to address self-care
was a part of their workplace experience. As they referenced bringing work home, peer exodus
from the industry, and feelings of failure, they did so with minimal expressions of frustration.
Teachers also did not attempt to suggest an alternative practice that would modify the
experience. Rather, they made these statements as though fatigue were an everyday occurrence,
the typical life of a teacher.
I contend that these expressions of fatigue as typical are evidence of fatigue culture.
During analysis, I developed the term “Fatigue Culture” to characterize teachers' complacency
regarding emotional exhaustion. This term helped me define the collective challenges identified
in this research study. Teachers’ lack of formalized resources and support systems and the
exacerbating COVID-related factors appeared to impact the teachers’ work lives. Teachers’
responses indicated they experienced the impact of high levels of workplace stress, including
indifference. This indifference, characterized herein as fatigue culture, indicated teachers
accepted these experiences as unsolvable. Their fatigue levels could be a potential barrier to their
success and that of their students.
Summary
This chapter discussed the teacher responses to interview questions designed to
understand the intersection of students' race trauma and teachers’ colorblind ideology on
compassion fatigue. Volunteer and unpaid respondents worked as kindergarten through second-
grade teachers in the Southeastern Regional School District, a district noted for its high diversity
and recently announced efforts to mitigate racial disparities in student outcomes. The district’s
most recent assessment indicated that while 80% of White students met or exceeded grade-level
proficiency, less than 40% of racially minoritized students performed at these same proficiency
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levels (Southeastern Regional School District Budget and Data Visualizations, 2021). The
interview and probing questions intended to understand how teachers assess the social-emotional
needs and racism, and discriminatory experiences, thereby addressing potential race trauma.
Literature indicated unaddressed racial socialization trauma may create the outcomes described
by Southeastern Regional School District, such as the disparities it is working to balance
(Frankenberg, 2013).
Teacher responses demonstrated that formalized race-based social-emotional assessment
tools were not readily available to understand the needs of its diverse student demographics.
Moreover, interview responses indicated formalized social-emotional assessment tools were not
available for any enrolled student, regardless of race and ethnicity. In addition, the district did
not actively provide resources to address race trauma, leaving teachers to assess trauma
indicators and develop response plans based on their individual capacity.
Teachers did not describe access to resources such as time, anti-racist curriculum, and
anti-bias training, relegating them to identify and manage incidents of race trauma on their own.
As such, colorblind ideology was left unchecked and unmitigated, positioning racial-
socialization trauma to go unnoticed and unaddressed. While all teachers described practices
commensurate with colorblind ideology, descriptions of racial socialization trauma were less
consistent. The literature demonstrates individuals practicing colorblindness do not recognize
race trauma which may explain its absence in this study (Dotterer et al., 2009). It is also plausible
that racial socialization trauma is not as prevalent as colorblind ideology in the study simply
because racism and discrimination do not necessarily result in racial socialization trauma
(Irizarry, 2009). While literature suggests these collective practices could result in compassion
fatigue, the study’s results suggested a more generalized fatigue culture.
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The study acknowledges that the COVID crisis was an unexpected fatigue confounder,
adding to teachers’ work-life experience. Teachers described managing their students’ emotional
challenges in the aftermath of a 17-month virtual learning environment that led to students’
performance dropping below typical levels. The pandemic’s outcome on student performance
exacerbated the phenomenon this study sought to understand and impacted teachers in
unprecedented ways. Moreover, the study did not address teachers’ experiences regarding the
pandemic, including personal trauma or loss. If teachers experienced COVID-related trauma or
loss, this might influence their interactions with students, perceptions of students’ emotional
needs, or their ability to actively engage with their peers and students.
Literature suggests that teachers’ emotional stability influences the classroom
environment and students’ performance (Jernigan & Henderson, 2001). The conceptual
framework establishes that teachers and students arrive in the classroom with preconceived
values, beliefs, and attitudes derived from life experiences. The framework also contends that
these experiences lead to racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology, which clash in the
classroom, leading to compassion fatigue and its negative consequences.
The collective influence of the factors described by teachers herein compounded by the
COVID crisis appeared to impact fatigue and teacher motivation. The reciprocal nature of
teacher-student performance suggests that all students are impacted, limiting their ability to
progress toward widely held cognitive and social-emotional academic advancement. Chapter five
describes recommendations to address the limited formalized resources and support systems,
individual teacher capacity, and fatigue culture themes.

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Chapter Five: Discussion
This study aimed to address the impact of diverse students’ racial socialization trauma on
teachers’ compassion fatigue. The research was grounded by the lens of Bandura’s Social
Cognitive Theory which asserts that environmental and social experiences form individual and
group beliefs. This study attempted to understand if teacher perspective coupled with practiced
colorblind ideology limited or supported teachers’ assessment of and response to their BIPOC
students’ social-emotional needs. This chapter will recommend improvements to the findings
from Chapter 4, linking them to the literature, the Conceptual Framework, the theoretical
framework, and the findings.
The Conceptual Framework (see Figure 2) suggested the interactions of racial-
socialization trauma and colorblind ideology positively correlated to teachers’ compassion
fatigue. The Framework implied that these contrasting experiences negatively impacted teacher
motivation and limited student performance. The findings validated teachers do not assess,
evaluate, or name racial socialization trauma despite teachers describing evidence of students’
race trauma experiences. However, the findings also substantiated teachers do not formally
assess any trauma, race-related or otherwise, suggesting a gap in targeted social-emotional
classroom lesson planning, a primary student learning component (Jennings & Greenberg, 2010).
The results further indicated teachers exhibited colorblind ideology and expressed
emotional fatigue; however, fatigue factors included unrealistic performance expectations,
insufficient time to complete responsibilities, and limited administrator support. While these
factors are significant to teacher performance and essential to acknowledge, they did not
evidence compassion fatigue. Therefore, of the Framework’s three components of racial
socialization trauma, colorblind ideology, and teacher compassion fatigue, the study validated
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colorblind ideology and racial socialization trauma. Although the study did not substantiate
compassion fatigue, it did find teachers’ expressed fatigue, and workplace exhaustion reduced
their motivation.
The analysis resulted in three thematic elements from the study: limited resources and
support systems, individual teacher capacity, and fatigue culture. However, the findings suggest
fatigue could not be directly related to racial socialization trauma and colorblind ideology. The
study did associate fatigue with teachers feeling unsupported and the confounding fatigue effects
of the continued COVID crisis. Therefore, the recommendations to address each theme outlined
in Chapter five intend to collectively address colorblind ideology, racial-socialization trauma,
and teachers’ fatigue.
Discussion of Findings
Chapter One of this dissertation described the sociocultural influences that impact the
unique mental health crises experienced in minority communities. This chapter further explained
the historical and institutionalized limitations within social structures such as school systems and
teacher preparation programs that prevent addressing these crises. The chapter further detailed
how Bandura’s (2005) Social Cognitive Theory helps understand these classroom and school
dynamics within the larger social context.
Chapter Two provided a comprehensive review of the juxtaposed classroom dynamics of
diverse students’ race trauma, school systems’ colorblind ideological practices, and their
potential impact on teachers’ compassion fatigue. The chapter detailed the historical rise of racial
socialization trauma and its current manifestations in the classroom. The outline of the chapter
went on to describe colorblind ideological practices and interventions intending to create school
fairness and social justice. Chapter Two used empirical data to demonstrate that practicing
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colorblind ideology results in the opposite of social justice, limiting success for BIPOC students.
This chapter helped the study establish the framework that suggested that the juxtaposition of
race trauma and colorblind ideology prevents teachers from recognizing racial-socialization
trauma indicators. This limitation positions teachers to experience secondary trauma. The
empirical research grounding this study further asserted that secondary trauma, a shared
experience in helping industries, is not addressed in teacher preservice and in-service, leading to
teachers’ compassion fatigue. The literature further demonstrated that teachers’ secondary
trauma and compassion fatigue are relatively unstudied in the United States but validated in
studies conducted in other nations. This gap in U.S. research shaped the current study’s focus,
protocols, and methodology.
Chapter Three highlighted this study’s Conceptual Framework and defined the qualitative
protocols utilized to gather, code, and analyze interview data. The study’s setting was a school
located in the Southeastern United States, a region with diverse populations. The teachers
volunteering for the study all served BIPOC students predominately in K-2 classrooms.
Southeastern Regional School District, where all respondents worked, self-identified racial
disparities in student success, suggesting the district teachers practiced colorblind ideology and
potentially misunderstood racial socialization trauma indicators.
Chapter Four detailed the analysis and described proposed themes that underscore the
findings. The research outcomes demonstrated that a lack of formalized social-emotional
assessment tools limited teachers’ ability to identify, name, and address racial socialization
trauma. Teachers used their individual and socially rooted understanding of trauma to develop
social-emotional response plans. The scarcity of formal support systems and teacher isolation led
to respondents describing a perceived insurmountable culture of fatigue.
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Five of the five teachers described colorblind ideological practices, and three of the five
teachers specifically described student experiences indicating race trauma. All five described
experiencing overarching fatigue. The five teachers were more likely to associate this fatigue
with feeling unsupported. Teachers also associated their fatigue with the COVID crisis more than
any other factors, rendering COVID a confounder of this research study.
Chapter Five proposes solutions and application strategies for addressing these findings.
In particular, this dissertation recommends implementing a formalized social-emotional tool,
improving teacher capacity using formally assessed data. Teachers and administrators analyze
data together in a Community of Practice using outcomes to name and dismantle colorblind
ideological practices upholding institutional racism. Finally, the Community of Practice will
incorporate aspects of self-care to promote school staff members’ emotional well-being. These
recommendations intend to establish the groundwork for long-term solutions to this study’s
findings and may potentially improve the K-12 education system when studied and validated
further.
Recommendations
The following recommendations align with the three themes found in this study. The
Social-Cognitive Theoretical Framework helps ground these recommendations in the school’s
social setting, supporting the theory’s assertion that individuals and groups adopt the behaviors
and attitudes within the environment (Bandura, 2005). Therefore, addressing these findings is
served by recommendations rooted in the school’s social learning environment (see Table 2).

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Table 2
Recommendations Summary
Theme Recommendation Recommendation in Practice
Limited
Resources
and
Support
Systems
Adopt a
Research and
Evidence-Based
Social-Emotional
Assessment Tool
1. Identify a tool that assesses home, classroom, school, and
community environmental impact on social-emotional
development.
2. Train staff on the tool’s foundational approach and
measurement systems.
3. Assess children at the start, mid-point, and end of the year
to establish baseline and progressed social-emotional
growth.
Individual
Teacher
Capacity
Establish
Biweekly
Community of
Practice Sessions
1. Teachers will meet in Biweekly Communities of Practice
to plan individualized and group instructional and
environmental supports for enrolled children.
2. Communities of Practice will include progress toward
improved outcomes using the tool’s measurement systems
as indicators of students’ strengths and needs.
3. Teachers’ will collectively review and discuss trauma
indicators associated with racism and discrimination to
determine opportunities for continuous classroom
improvement enhancing student performance.
4. The community will build teacher capacity in a safe and
nurturing learning space that helps them self-identify
biases and colorblind practices, breaking down these
practices through reflective dialogue.
5. At least 4 times a year, parents will participate in the
community learning sessions, promoting teacher
awareness of the real-life experiences of their students.
6. Teachers will incorporate their improved capacity to
understand the impact of colorblind practices and racial
socialization trauma on student performance,
incorporating this understanding into social-emotional
assessment practices.
7. Teachers and administrators will incorporate anti-racist
learning materials into these discussions using Podcasts,
guest trainers, and books to dismantle colorblind
ideological practices.
Teacher
Fatigue
Incorporate Self-
Care into
Communities of
Practice
1. Every other Community of Practice Session will
incorporate Reflective Supervision techniques.
2. Teachers and supervisors will use organically identified
teacher needs to address fatigue.
3. Teachers and administrators will incorporate proven self-
care techniques adopted from other helping industries to
alleviate compassion fatigue symptoms.
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4. Teachers in the Community of Practice will learn and
develop self-care techniques in a fear-free professional
environment.

Limited Resources and Support Systems
Adopt a Research and Evidence-Based Social-Emotional Assessment Tool
The initial recommendation to address the study’s findings focuses on teachers’ limited
access to resources and support systems theme. This research study found that five of the five
interview participants did not have access to a social-emotional assessment tool for any student
enrolled in their classroom. Bryant-Davis and Ocampo (2006) determined that approximately
50% of historically minoritized youth arrive in classrooms with concerns for safety, grief, shame,
blame, anger, and resistance. Research indicates school staff must prepare for and respond to
these concerns using social-emotional and academic improvement plans. This is important to
consider in the current study because all participating teachers indicated they predominately
served diverse populations but did not assess for race-trauma indicators.
Jennings and Greenburg (2011) demonstrated that teachers who understand and respond
to students’ mental health needs improve the classroom community’s social, emotional, and
learning outcomes. However, teachers may not recognize students’ behaviors as indicators of
their mental health challenges without a formalized tool to determine, address, and measure
improved social-emotional well-being. Literature also demonstrated that schools measuring
trauma-related experiences did not consider race discrimination a social-emotional challenge
indicator, limiting their ability to identify and respond to these needs (de Arellano & Danielson,
2008). Therefore, I recommend teachers adopt and learn to use a research and evidence-based
social-emotional assessment tool that measures the impact of home, classroom, school, and
community environmental factors.
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Expressly, teachers will incorporate K-12 research and evidenced-based social-emotional
assessment such as the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) © issued through
Aperture Education (n.d.) The evaluation, conducted three times per year, establishes baseline
social-emotional student considerations and measures improved growth over time. Teachers will
use the baseline and ongoing assessment results to establish milestone interventions
individualized for each student’s unique social-emotional expressions. While this dissertation
does not explicitly recommend the DESSA, I selected this assessment because of its direct
connection to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Framework
(CASEL, n.d.), which incorporates all social considerations, including the classroom, school,
community, family, and home. Therefore, the tool reflects all aspects of the students’ life when
assessing social-emotional needs making it a likely indicator of trauma, including trauma
emerging from racism and discrimination.
Figure 7 illustrates the collaborative relationship between classrooms, schools, the home,
and communities on students’ social-emotional well-being. The figure highlights the importance
of understanding the interrelationship of these social factors and the associated tools and support
systems that are likely to result in students’ social-emotional learning.
By adopting a social-emotional assessment tool that measures racism and discrimination
effects, educators have a method for understanding the interactive nature of the home, the
community, the school, and the classroom on each students’ social-emotional well-being.
Teachers will use this foundational understanding of students’ social-emotional achievements
and challenges to help them promote learning experiences linked to motivation and performance.
The CASEL assessment tool highlights those successful emotional behaviors including self-
awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship
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skills. Tools, such as the DESSA, offer baseline and progress evaluation in these social-
emotional growth areas help teachers develop plans to promote resiliency skills necessary for
students to succeed in school and life (Lavy & Eshet, 2018).

Figure 7
Social Emotional Learning Framework

Note. Adopted From Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Framework- https://casel.org/

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Moreover, formal baselines and progressive evaluation measures empower teachers to
develop individualized and group classroom experiences targeting the identified needs of all
students regardless of racial or ethnic background. Understanding students’ potential mental
health challenges, race-related or otherwise, arms educators with the information to directly
name and respond to such difficulties, promoting an emotionally conscious learning environment
(Cowie, 2010).
The research outcomes indicated teachers practice colorblind ideology, a sociocultural
practice proven to suppress diversity (Fergus, 2017). Adopting a social-emotional assessment
tool designed to reveal racism in the community, school policies, and classroom practices allow
school staff to reflect on how they uphold structural racism. Specifically, teachers' and
administrators' ongoing student emotional growth analysis holds a mirror up to the institution
itself. This is particularly relevant in the wake of the District’s self-assessment results identifying
classroom practices leading to disparate student performance outcomes. The integrated social-
emotional tool helps teachers and administrators consider multiple sociological factors on
student performance. Therefore, school staff are more likely to recognize and respond to
discriminatory systems present in school policies, classroom practices, and community
dynamics.
Individual Teacher Capacity
Establish and Sustain Communities of Practice
The second recommendation to address the study’s findings focuses on the individual
teacher capacity theme. This study determined the five interview respondents did not access
professional resources to address students’ social-emotional challenges. Respondents indicated
that unless the student or family overtly demonstrated trauma such as homelessness, domestic
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violence, or food insecurity, there were no other methods to identify traumatic experiences.
When trauma was referred to, teachers did not consistently describe leaning into resources and
support systems to address these traumata but rather their individual capacity. Therefore,
respondents’ unique understanding of trauma and how to manage it were the most often
described trauma response plans. These findings demonstrate an absence of coordinated support
for students experiencing social-emotional and mental health challenges. Without this support,
teachers are left to identify and manage these challenges in isolation.
The first recommendation will provide a broader knowledge about enrolled students’
social-emotional well-being offering teachers and administrators opportunities to identify racism
in the community and on school campuses. This dissertation’s second recommendation is to
establish and sustain a Social-Emotional Learning Community of Practice to promote analyzing
and using assessment data points. The Community of Practice aligns with the study’s Social
Cognitive Theoretical Framework, suggesting learning occurs within social structures. By
adopting a socially interactive learning community, teachers and administrators have an
opportunity to dismantle colorblind ideology and address racial socialization trauma as a united
group.
Young (2010) found communities of practice are most successful when clearly defined
and facilitated by their primary learners. Therefore, teachers will be encouraged to work
collectively in monthly workgroups led by teacher volunteers. Discussion points will be organic
and developed at least one week in advance by the attendees using assessment tool outcomes as
indicators of imminent student learning and teacher practice needs. Teachers will work as a
group to review trending assessment outcomes, share classroom interventions, and develop
community-wide practices proven to increase teacher capacity and student outcomes.
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Educators who worked together to break down siloed classroom responses and
understand race and culture in the context of student experiences developed effective classroom
plans that promote student success (Liu & Milman, 2013). These researchers determined that
teachers are more likely to use and respond to students’ lived experiences, assessment outcomes,
and recognize behaviors resulting from racism when they do this work collectively. Moreover,
Garmon (2004) found that openness, self-awareness, self-reflection, and a commitment to social
justice were key predictors of teachers’ awareness of historically marginalized students’ social-
emotional challenges. Research further suggests that teachers and administrators are more likely
to name and break down unconscious bias and colorblind ideology when they work in groups.
Therefore, teachers working in Communities of Practice that consider their life values, beliefs,
and attitudes about their racially minoritized students’ emotional well-being are more likely to
recognize colorblind practices and racial socialization trauma. These internal support structures
help teachers and administrators mitigate colorblindness to create successful classroom
experiences for all students.
As interview respondents described a siloed approach to social-emotional response
planning, the Community of Practice recommendation positions them to discuss and reflect on
their individual capacity and plan and prepare for new and unique classroom experiences. These
opportunities establish continuous improvement pathways and opportunities to identify, name,
and address students’ social-emotional challenges, race-related or otherwise, in safe learning
environments. Jennings and Greenburg (2011) found that teachers social-emotional capacity
directly impacted the growth and development of their students. As research shows, teachers are
more likely to develop social-emotional ability in shared learning groups. Garmon (2004) found
teachers working in support groups named and diminished colorblindness, expanding their
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capacity to address racially minoritized students’ experiences. Therefore, this recommendation
promotes the action necessary to address racially minoritized students’ unique social-emotional
needs (Richmond & Manokore, 2010).
Practical and viable Communities of Practice are most successful when they are
systematic, collaborative, ongoing, and include assessment data (Popp & Goldman, 2016). These
researchers found teachers were most likely to invest in the community and build their capacity
to address student needs when using outcomes data as a discussion platform. Figure 8 illustrates
the recommended community structure.

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Figure 8
Community of Practice: Teacher Fatigue and Diverse Classroom Populations

Figure 8 exemplifies the community’s cyclical systems and the importance of its
permanence throughout the school year. Sustained communities of practice, rooted in outcomes
data and improved routines, are most likely to impact change, motivate teachers, and nurture
student performance (Richmond & Manokore, 2010). The Community will use trends and
outliers to determine improved classroom experiences and name classroom practices and school
policies that uphold racism and discrimination. This enables to the community to mitigate
colorblind practices perpetuating racism in the school and the classroom.
Parents as Community of Practice Partners
This study’s teacher respondents all concurred that their ability to understand and respond
to students’ emotional needs is directly connected to their relationship with parents. Parents'
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formal place in the Community of Practice creates a greater likelihood that classroom and school
policies upholding microaggression and institutional racism will be lessened.
Teachers and administrators will include parent volunteers in the community of practice
learning sessions. At least four times per year, parents will participate in discussions to offer
insight into data outcomes. Research demonstrates teachers break down colorblindness, call out
discriminatory practices, and assuage institutional racism when they have a personal
understanding of these experiences (Irizarry, 2009).
Parent inclusion, particularly racially minoritized parent inclusion, creates a personal
connection to student and family experiences in the community of practice. Parent involvement
expands the assessment outcomes to understand students’ social-emotional well-being from an
intimate perspective. Teacher and parent interactions that expose colorblindness will promote
empathy, shared vision, and collaboration between school and home.
Finally, teachers and administrators will integrate anti-racist learning materials and
discussions into ongoing community discussions. Learning materials may include dialogue about
Podcasts addressing colorblindness, structural and institutional racism, and anti-racist instruction.
Recommendations include but are not limited to Teaching Philosophy of Anti Racist Pedagogy
or The Anti-Racist Educator, both current and active podcasts addressing this study’s findings.
This recommended element may also incorporate book reviews such as How To Be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi or Colorblind Racism by Meghan Burke. Administrators may consider
inviting the podcast and book authors or other Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion experts into these
discussions. Guest speakers help link parent input and data analysis outcomes to research-based
considerations. Assimilating these topics into the Community of Practice will promote continued
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dialogue designed to identify and restructure school policies and classroom practices that
promote colorblind practices.
Fatigue Culture
Incorporate Self-Care into Communities of Practice
The final recommendation to address the study’s findings focuses on the identified
fatigue culture. This research study specified that all five interview respondents did not
participate in regularly scheduled or systematic self-care practices. This is important to address
because interview respondents described imbalanced work-life experiences that suggested they
did not have time to manage their personal emotional needs. Koenig, Rodger, and Specht (2018)
determined that teachers’ access to ongoing and meaningful support systems to address fatigue
was necessary for alleviating it. While this study did not directly associate teachers’ described
fatigue with racial-socialization trauma, fatigue culture indicators were consistent.
Although respondents expressed emotional fatigue and exhaustion, they did not describe
accessing on-staff counselors or supervisors to help them mitigate their challenges addressing
students’ trauma. Moreover, they did not describe working with professionals or teams to
alleviate emotional exhaustion identifiers. Jennings and Greenberg (2011) found that teachers
who participated in learning experiences designed to build their social and emotional competence
through self-care and reflection directly improved students’ social-emotional capacity and
outcomes. As interview respondents did not describe accessing support from leadership or other
administrative systems, the final recommendation of this study is to integrate self-care into a
regular and ongoing practice. Therefore, the recommendation is to incorporate reflective
supervision into the biweekly Community of Practice. Self-care sessions will leverage
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relationships and the knowledge of on-staff professional counselors, thereby systematically
addressing self-care to reduce teacher exhaustion.
Self-care, improved emotional capacity, and decreased fatigue are most likely to occur
when team members regularly access and capitalize on support systems targeting stress and its
adverse physical and emotional outcomes (Koenig et al., 2018). These support systems are most
effective when reflective supervision is incorporated (Cross & Hong, 2012). Characterized
by active listening and thoughtful questioning, the district will position on-staff school
counselors in the lead role for this practice, supporting reflective supervision. Counselors will
use teachers’ expressions of exhaustion to create real-time and long-term fatigue mitigation
plans. Self-care may include breathing techniques, emotional reflection, journaling, meditation,
and others generally accessed by professionals in other helping industries (Williams, 2015).
Cross and Hong (2012) found that teachers who engaged in reflective supervision within
communities of practice were more likely to overcome emotional exhaustion when they
incorporated empathy for their students’ experiences. Therefore, recommendations one and two
are foundational for this suggestion to succeed. Teachers will use students’ social-emotional
indicators, outcomes from their adopted formalized assessment tool, and anecdotal information
to practice improved classroom experiences. The successes and challenges associated with these
experiences may serve as opportunities to reflect on gaps in student performance and its impact
on teachers’ fatigue.
While previous literature has not specifically addressed the current study’s fatigue culture
identification, studies have indicated that Communities of Practice improved fatigue experiences.
Wallbank (2010) found that using reflective supervision, including access to professional
counselors, supportive dialogue, emotional reflection, self-care, and stress management
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techniques, increased satisfaction and reduced burnout. This recommendation is essential to the
success of this change plan because teachers are more likely to improve the emotional
experiences of students when their emotional needs are met (Cowie, 2010).
Figure 9 represents the change model within this recommendation and exemplifies the
action steps needed for successful implementation. The model captures the intended outcome to
alleviate fatigue culture, recognizing that this requires organizational participation to achieve
positive results for teachers.

Figure 9
Self-Care and Community of Practice: Teacher Fatigue and Diverse Student Populations

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It is important to note that the current study identified time as an unavailable resource.
Specifically, interview respondents described working long days, evenings, and weekends and
expressed self-care as a luxury, not a necessity. While the recommendations herein cannot offer
time, it is recognized that these proposals require time to be successful. The intention is to
incorporate these action steps to address students’ race-related and non-race-related trauma by
using two to four coordinated and purposeful hours per month. This does not consider the time to
complete social-emotional assessments as this may be different for each student and teacher.
However, the tool can be completed over time, making it relatively manageable. The three
recommendations are intended to work in conjunction, supporting and reinforcing the other.
Implementation and Evaluation
This dissertation recommends three integrated approaches to address colorblind practices,
racial disparities in student performance, and teachers’ fatigue. This study looked at a relatively
small subset of a much larger organization. However, the recommendations assume interview
respondents from a larger educator subset would yield similar outcomes. Given this assumption,
the recommendations could be applied to the respondents’ district or any other. All three
recommendations can be evaluated for effectiveness and improvement planning.
Social-Emotional Assessment Tool
This study found that all five interview respondents expressed commitment to their
students’ social-emotional development but did not access a formal social-emotional assessment
tool to measure baseline and improved outcomes. Teachers will implement a research-based
assessment tool that measures community, home, school, and classroom environmental impact
on students’ mental health to address this finding. The first assessment will be completed within
45 days of the student’s first day of enrollment and will serve as a baseline for individual and
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group classroom planning. This assessment will be repeated at mid and end-of-year checkpoints
to measure progress and establish platforms for continuous improvement planning. Students’
continued growth within the assessment tools’ indicators will serve as markers of success and
gaps in teacher planning and inform the topics for communities of practice and reflective
supervision discussions. This integrated approach intends to improve teachers’ emotional
capacity, alleviate fatigue culture, mitigate colorblind ideology, and balance BIPOC student
performance with White student performance.
Figure 10 demonstrates the intended evaluation and measurement calendar to illustrate
the implementation of the social-emotional assessment tool. By Checkpoint Three, all students
will display age-appropriate self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and responsible
decision making.

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Figure 10
Social-Emotional Assessment Checkpoints and Outcome Expectations

Community of Practice
The recommendation to incorporate a regularly monitored and analyzed social-emotional
assessment tool will be supported by a community of practice with two intentionally selected
focus areas. The first recommended focus area is to establish one monthly analysis-driven
community meeting that strives to understand historically minoritized students’ emotional needs,
creating lesson and response plans to address these needs. The second recommended focus area
is establishing one reflective supervision community meeting per month that strives to
understand and respond to teachers’ emotional needs, creating a self-care culture. The successful
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implementation of these recommendations is beyond the classroom and requires administrative
involvement.
Figure 11 represents the recommendation framework for the community’s success. The
illustration depicts a 2-month cycle of the 10-month school year. The cycle in Figure 11 will be
continuously repeated from Month one to Month ten. Teachers and administrators will meet
twice per month, with the first meeting used to consider assessment and anecdotal data to
understand students’ emotional needs. The second community meeting will focus on self-care,
dismantling colorblind ideology, and improving teachers’ emotional capacity. The community’s
bifurcated structure’s intended outcome is to consider students’ and teachers’ mental health as
necessary classroom success components. Successful implementation may be evaluated through
anecdotal feedback, enhanced teacher engagement, students’ increased assessment scores, and
balanced student outcomes.

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Figure 11
Community of Practice 2-Month Implementation Cycle

Summary
The successful implementation and evaluation of the three recommendations require a
collective approach. Each recommended component informs the other creating a systematic
methodological plan. The interconnectedness of these recommendations exemplifies the
interrelationship of the study’s outcomes. The study’s Conceptual Framework suggested that
students’ racial socialization trauma juxtaposed with teachers’ colorblind ideology could result in
teachers’ compassion fatigue giving rise to demotivated teachers and under-performing students.
The study’s outcomes confirmed teachers described working within a fatigue culture. The study
also found students’ social-emotional needs were not formally assessed regardless of race. While
the study also found evidence of teachers’ colorblind ideology; the outcomes could not
definitively assign teachers’ fatigue to racial socialization trauma. As the study took place amid
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the Coronacirus pandemic crisis, COVID was more frequently associated with teachers’
expressed fatigue than any other identifier.
This dissertation study’s outcomes confirmed teachers experienced challenges accessing
resources and support systems that build the professional and personal capacity to address their
diverse students’ mental health. Teachers also expressed colorblind ideological practices while
serving predominantly diverse populations and described working in a fatigue culture. The
study’s outcomes suggest these collective experiences impact teacher motivation and may be
partially responsible for racially minoritized students’ under-performance. To reverse the effects
of fatigue culture and generate a culture of awareness and self-care, administrators can adopt a
social-emotional assessment tool and regularly use the tool to determine baseline and ongoing
evaluative discussions and plans. The recommendations herein suggest that by using these
social-emotional assessment outcomes in communities of practice, teachers can create response
plans to their students’ experiences. Moreover, on-staff counselors can use reflective supervision
to establish a community of self-awareness and self-care to address unconscious bias and balance
teachers’ experiences within the fatigue culture.
Limitations
This study had several limitations that impacted its intent. First, the COVID crisis and
scheduling challenges limited the study to virtual interviews rather than other forms of
qualitative research. Due to health and safety regulations enforced on school campuses, in-person
interviews and classroom observations were not possible. This impacted the ability to assess and
reflect on nonverbal cues and share in personal interactions. As such, respondents shared self-
reported beliefs and perceptions which do not necessarily reflect actual experiences.
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Moreover, while the study’s interview questions came from historically reliable surveys
to understand unconscious bias, I developed the interview prompts based on my interpretations.
These prompts asked respondents to discuss formalized systems for addressing race trauma,
social-emotional needs, and overcoming colorblind ideology, all topics known to be unaddressed
in teacher preservice and in-service. However, I cannot remove my interpretation of the literature
or the reviewed tools except within the limits of the dissertation process. Moreover, teachers
responded within their capacity, based on their worldview, a view of which I know very little.
These collective limitations may be indicators of both my and the respondents’ interpretations
and restricted awareness of the topics discussed herein. Therefore, both the respondents’ and
researcher’s perceptions and biases are potential indicators of misinterpretation. Classroom
observations, which could not be conducted, could counteract such factors.
This empirical study focused on interview responses of five teachers’ perceptions of these
concepts. To increase the understanding of this study’s topic, more data collected from a broader
group of teachers over the entire state, or an entire region as opposed to a handful of respondents
could offer a wider breadth of knowledge. The research questions attempted to understand if the
respondents’ assessed racial-socialization trauma while serving students through a colorblind
lens. Although this study established the existence of racial-socialization trauma and colorblind
ideology, it was limited by a small group of teachers from kindergarten through second-grade
classrooms. This concentrated group serving very young students may have limited the ability to
understand these phenomena more generally.
The study also reviewed the responses from White teachers asked by a White facilitator.
It is possible responses would be different if respondents were from various racial groups and if
the facilitator was BIPOC. A facilitator identifying with a racially minoritized population may
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solicit varied responses, possess a different perspective, or bring varied social capital to the
discussion. While the study wanted to understand how colorblind ideology, racial-socialization
trauma, and compassion fatigue experiences direct impact BIPOC students, none of the study’s
human capital represented diverse populations.
As a White woman, it is impossible to comprehend the limitations of this, as my
positionality is part of the limitation. To remedy this, the study can broaden to a more diverse
group of facilitators and respondents. The COVID crisis made these limitations challenging to
overcome. Classroom observations, onsite and in-person experiences, and continued ongoing
discussions were impossible. In addition, respondents’ compassion fatigue levels were
exacerbated by COVID fatigue, isolation fatigue, and related confounders not anticipated at this
study’s initiation. Future studies may address these limitations, particularly in states with less
stringent social-distancing regulations that may allow mixing interviews, focus groups, and
observations.
The current study accounted for these challenges by making the transcript visible during
interviews and asking respondents to correct any misrepresentations of their intentions. The
transcripts and coded analysis were also peer-reviewed by a neutral third party to help
understand and interpret the results my biases may have prohibited. The intentional engagement
of respondents in transcript review and a neutral third party expanded data analysis, promoting
recommendations more likely to address the problem.
In reflection, the interview questions may have also been a limitation. The study
outcomes found evidence of both colorblind ideological practices and racial socialization trauma
but did not unearth compassion fatigue. It is possible compassion fatigue did not overwhelmingly
exist among respondents. It is also possible that the questions did not ask teachers to reflect on
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their reduced compassion over time. If I conducted this study again, I would ask teachers to
describe their compassion for their students at the start of their careers as compared to the
present. Questions examining teachers’ long-term descriptions of compassion may have more
readily determined compassion fatigue indications.
Future Research
After completing this research study, I want to repeat it, adding the COVID restricted
components and enhanced interview questions. Health and safety restrictions prohibited in-
person interviews and classroom observations, which may have led to varied outcomes.
Classroom observations may have revealed students’ emotional reactions to teachers’ classroom
management style. Observations may also identify student actions that trigger teachers’ behavior
management efforts. In addition, the study could be repeated by targeting diverse teachers and
using a facilitator identifying with a diverse population. Such individuals’ perspectives and life
experiences could change the study’s outcome. These changes, coupled with the enhanced
interview questions, could yield alternate results.
A source document review of nonconfidential information such as assessment outcomes
that remove personally identifiable student details except for race and ethnicity may explain how
teachers assess and use assessments. These additional data could offer more definitive identifiers
of colorblind ideology and racial socialization trauma allowing the research to associate teachers’
fatigue more directly with racial-socialization trauma. Repeating this study with these
methodologies could help validate the Conceptual Framework and improve recommendations.
Future research exploring racial socialization trauma and colorblind ideology’s collective
impact on teachers’ compassion fatigue would also benefit from a larger respondent pool.
Interviewing 10% of a district’s employed teachers may result in saturation in informing district,
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state, and federal level decision-making about teacher in-service and preservice training and
professional development planning. Suppose the intersection of racial socialization trauma and
colorblind ideology was firmly associated with teachers’ compassion fatigue. In that case,
recommendations could transform structural racism embedded in the education system to the
benefit of teachers and students.
Moreover, if the study were broadened beyond the early education years and well into
high school or even university levels, it may reveal the long-term impact of these phenomena.
Specifically, reduced teacher motivation and negatively impacted student performance were
expected outcomes in the Conceptual Framework. Interviews and observations of students in
advanced grade levels, more capable of describing their experiences, could validate the
framework’s effects on both students and teachers. As colorblind ideology is a form of racism
potentially exacerbating racial-socialization trauma, secondary trauma in teachers directly
associated with racial-socialization trauma may enhance certainty.
A longitudinal study could have more defined outcomes to firmly root the opposing
forces of racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology on teachers’ compassion fatigue.
Such a study could follow the experiences of a group of teachers serving predominantly BIPOC
students over multiple years. The study’s methodology may yield long-term effects of
colorblindness and its limitations on teacher assessments and their impact on diverse students’
social-emotional growth. In such a study, it could be hypothesized that teachers’ compassion
fatigue may grow through the study, indicating that teaching, like other helping industries,
requires strategic resources and support. A longitudinal study could also allow the researcher to
understand the impact of the teachers’ personal life on their fatigue levels. For instance, the
current study did not consider teachers’ trauma as an influential factor in their ability to manage
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their emotions in the classroom. A full understanding of teachers’ life experiences could present
a more significant opportunity to understand teachers’ needs and better plan for their preservice
and in-service training, resource provision, and support systems.
Finally, a study designed to identify teacher compassion fatigue not strictly connected to
specific trauma could yield varied results. For instance, open-ended questions exploring
teachers’ compassion fatigue in schools serving historically minoritized students may produce
more definitive compassion fatigue examples if teachers spoke explicitly about their changed
passion over time. Rather than grouped questions discussing three unique experiences, a study
focused intently on compassion fatigue may indicate its existence.
Conclusion
Southeastern Regional School District was strategically selected for this study because its
self-identified disproportionate student outcomes favoring White student success. These
performance outcomes indicate colorblind ideology and institutional racism limiting the
advancement of racially minoritized students. The district’s reported demographics demonstrated
that historically minoritized students dominate the student population yet perform at lower rates,
an institutional racism indicator.
This dissertation considered these dynamics and aimed to determine if the presence of
both racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology may result in compassion fatigue. The
Conceptual Framework suggested that these experiences would lead to teacher de-motivation
and underperforming students. The study determined that teachers worked in a fatigue culture
lacking systematic resources and tools to build their capacity to address race trauma and
deactivate colorblind ideology. Although the study could not definitively associate teacher
fatigue with racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology, it confirmed racial-socialization
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trauma in the classroom and colorblind ideology in teachers. It is reasonable to assume these
factors had at least some impact on teachers’ fatigue despite the confounding fatigue effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using the Bandura (2005) Social Cognitive Theoretical Framework, the study sought to
determine how teachers’ beliefs and experiences helped or hindered their ability to assess and
respond to students’ life experiences and their impact on behavior. Interview responses and
teachers’ general attitude toward the discussion topics demonstrated the importance of
understanding teachers’ emotional needs while serving potentially traumatized student groups.
Teachers’ emotional health is essential to promote productive student experiences resulting in a
lifelong commitment to learning. Offering targeted resources and supports, building individual
teacher capacity, and limiting fatigue culture could help meet this objective.
It is also important to acknowledge that each teacher and child enter the classroom with a
set of life experiences that serve to normalize their behaviors and perspectives. Encouraging
teachers to reflect on these personal truths, philosophies, and biases strengthen their ability to
transform themselves for the better. In such instances of personal transformation, teachers are
more likely to transform the lives of their students in meaningful ways.
While the study could not assign teachers’ fatigue to racial socialization trauma and
colorblind ideology, it confirmed fatigue in the study’s respondents. It is also important to note
that despite expressions of fatigue, teachers also expressed passion for their work and a
commitment to progressing their students’ cognitive and emotional abilities for their next
learning environment. Teacher preservice and in-service professional growth opportunities such
as implementing a social-emotional assessment tool and teacher learning communities have the
potential to bring about long-lasting change. This is possible when school administrators
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galvanize teachers’ commitment and passion, using it for the greater good. The recommendations
herein strive to do just that.
In his I Have a Dream speech on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stated:
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of
racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a
reality. I believe that unarmed truth and conditional love will have the final word (King,
1963).
There can be little doubt that the teachers interviewed for this study demonstrated a commitment
to their work and a love for their students. Moreover, they expressed genuine care and concern for
the children they serve despite the challenges identified herein. I think it is reasonable to assume a
truth of this research is that these teachers want to reduce the effects of racism on their students. I
think it is also true that they may stop at nothing to make this a reality in their classroom. When
we capitalize on these “unarmed truths” and teachers’ “conditional love” for their students,
equitable learning experiences are a conceivable natural outcome.

112

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Appendix A: The Interview Questions
Interview Questions Potential Probes RQ
Addressed
Key
Concept
Addressed
Q Type
(Patton)
1. How does your students’
performance impact the
way you feel about your
work?
R3 Compassion
Fatigue
Feelings
2. Describe a time when you
felt emotionally
overwhelmed in the
execution of your work?
In these moments, do you
ever feel like leaving your
profession?
R3 Compassion
Fatigue
Feelings
3. How do you plan for your
self-care in managing the
emotional exhaustion
experienced at work?
R3 Compassion
Fatigue
Behaviors
4. What support systems that
exist for managing your
emotional challenges, if
any?
How does your
administration create
support systems for
managing your emotional
challenges at work?
R3 Compassion
Fatigue
Opinions
5. Describe the guidance you
would give a new teacher
entering the field about
self-care in the
workplace?
R3 Compassion
Fatigue
Opinions
6. How do you create plans
to determine students’
exposure to trauma?
Do you consider the race
or ethnicity of the student
when making these
determinations?
R1 Racial
Socialization
Trauma
Behaviors
7. Describe how you tailor
your teaching style to
address a students’
traumatic experiences, if at
all?
R1 Racial
Socialization
Trauma
Behaviors
8. How does a student’s
individual traumatic
experiences manifest in
behavioral challenges in the
classroom?
Does this differ based on
students’ race and
ethnicity?
R1 Racial
Socialization
Trauma
Knowledge
9. Describe behavioral
issues you had in the
classroom.
Describe the support you
have received from your
administration that has
helped you manage
behavioral challenges in
your classroom?
R1 Racial
Socialization
Trauma
Sensory
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10. What role does a
student’s race and ethnicity
play in your teaching style?
R1 and
R2
Race
Trauma and
Colorblind
Ideology
Opinion
11. What is your approach
to assessing students from
different racial
backgrounds?
R1 and
R2
Race
Trauma and
Colorblind
Ideology
Knowledge
12. Describe how you create
equity in the classroom for
children from differing
racial and ethnic
backgrounds?
R1 and
R2
Race
Trauma and
Colorblind
Ideology
Behaviors

125

Appendix B: The Code Book
Teacher Compassion Fatigue in Predominately Underrepresented Classrooms
Research Code Book
Research Questions
1. How is colorblind ideology evident in teachers’ assessments of BIPOC students’
challenging behaviors?
2. What indicators of compassion fatigue do teachers express when teaching racially
minoritized students?
3. What do teachers describe as the mechanisms available to them to address compassion
fatigue?
A Priori Codes Definitions
Colorblind Ideology A sociological ideal that limits the influence of race and
ethnicity on personal experience.
Social-Emotional Assessments Formal tools used to assess children’s progress toward
widely held age-appropriate social-emotional
development.
Race Trauma Assessments Formal tools used to assess students’ race-related trauma
such as exposure to racism, discrimination, or other
factors creating fear or shame
Race Trauma Trauma indicators that suggest behaviors are associated
with experiencing or witnessing racism and
discrimination.
Race Based Classroom Equity Using the classroom racial make up to create inclusive
learning opportunities that considers the lived experiences
of enrolled children.
Compassion Fatigue The emotional stress and exhaustion associated with
exposure to a traumatized individual rather than trauma
itself. It may lead to emotional suffering, preoccupation,
physical pain, ambivalence, indifference, and
depersonalization.
Compassion Fatigue Mechanisms Administrative or district-wide approaches to addressing
teacher’s compassion fatigue.
Self-Care Actions take to preserve and protect one’s own well-
being, particularly during periods of stress

Open Codes Definitions
Grade Level Grade Level taught
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Classroom Dynamics Classroom racial demographics
Trauma Experiences that threaten the basic needs of an
individual (such as exposure to homelessness or
domestic violence).
Multicultural education Classroom learning materials focused on cultural
experiences that limit the discussion of race and
racism.
Resources

Subcode: Time

Subcode: Social-Emotional Curriculum
The tools available to teachers helping them do
their work more successfully such as time and
social emotional curriculum
The hours available to teachers before, during, and
after the school day to address personal and
professional needs
A curriculum designed to help children name and
sort through their feelings and emotions.
Leadership The availability of empathetic and compassionate
supervisors who develop effective support
workplace support systems
Parent involvement The role of parents in understanding and
responding to student’s race trauma or other forms
of trauma
COVID Crisis The school-wide effects of the COVID crisis on
student and teacher experiences.

127

Appendix C: Personal Beliefs About Diversity Scale
The following scale is adopted from Pohan and Agular (2001).
The survey is based on a 5-point Likert-type format ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree)
1. There is nothing wrong with people from different racial backgrounds having/raising
children.
2. America’s immigrant and refugee policy has led to the deterioration of America.
3. Making all public facilities accessible to the disabled is simply too costly.
4. Accepting many different ways of life in America will strengthen us as a nation.
5. It is not a good idea for same-sex couples to raise children.
6. The reason people live in poverty is that they lack motivation to get themselves out of
poverty.
7. People should develop meaningful friendships with others from different racial/ethnic
groups.
8. People with physical limitations are less effective as leaders than people without physical
limitations.
9. In general, White people place a higher value on education than do people of color.
10. Many women in our society continue to live in poverty because males still dominate most
of the major social systems in America.
11. Since men are frequently the heads of households, they deserve higher wages than
females.
12. It is a good idea for people to develop meaningful friendships with others having a
different sexual orientation.
13. Society should not become more accepting of gay/lesbian lifestyles.
14. It is more important for immigrants to learn English than to maintain their first language.
15. In general, men make better leaders than women.
Professional Beliefs About Diversity Scale
1. Teachers should not be expected to adjust their preferred mode of instruction to
accommodate the needs of all students.
2. The traditional classroom has been set up to support the middle-class lifestyle.
3. Gays and lesbians should not be allowed to teach in public schools.
4. Students and teachers would benefit from having a basic understanding of different
(diverse) religions.
5. Money spent to educate the severely disabled would be better spent on programs for
gifted students.
6. All students should be encouraged to become fluent in a second language.
7. Only schools serving students of color need a racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse
staff and faculty.
8. The attention girls receive in school is comparable to the attention boys receive.
9. Tests, particularly standardized tests, have frequently been used as a basis for segregating
students.
10. People of color are adequately represented in most textbooks today.
128

11. Students with physical limitations should be placed in the regular classroom whenever
possible.
12. Males are given more opportunities in math and science than females.
13. Generally, teachers should group students by ability levels.
14. Students living in racially isolated neighborhoods can benefit socially from participating
in racially integrated classrooms.
15. Historically, education has been monocultural, reflecting only one reality and has been
biased toward the dominant (European) group.
16. Whenever possible, second language learners should receive instruction in their first
language until they are proficient enough to learn via English instruction.
17. Teachers often expect less from students from the lower socio-economic class.
18. Multicultural education is most beneficial for students of color.
19. More women are needed in administrative positions in schools.
20. Large numbers of students of color are improperly placed in special education classes by
school personnel.
21. In order to be effective with all students, teachers should have experience working with
students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.
22. Students from lower socio-economic backgrounds typically have fewer educational
opportunities than their middle-class peers.
23. Students should not be allowed to speak a language other than English while in school.
24. It is important to consider religious diversity in setting public school policy.
25. Multicultural education is less important than reading, writing, arithmetic, and computer
literacy.

129

Appendix D: Coded Analysis
A Priori Code: Colorblind Ideology
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon If someone is looks differently than me [or if they do look like me] right away, I can
be like oh we have different experiences.
I obviously don’t want to assume or judge but at the same time, instead of just
jumping to conclusions and being short like maybe give them more grace, like, take a
moment to talk to them about what’s been going on like take some more time. It’s like
do you make assumptions, or do you use that information to be a better teacher.
Madison The curriculum we use does not address race particularly well. If they [the students]
bring something up or I notice something for like a child in the backpack program [a
low socio-economic response program], I try to maybe read a book they might relate
to or to help them not feel so different. And then whey things come up from the other
students, like they do not understand about poverty or the way someone else looks or
dresses then we can kind of talk about it right there.
Jamie I read books to the children we talk about challenges and how everyone has their own
challenge. And what she [a character in the book] did to change what her challenge or
how someone made a difference in their life. So, you know I try to give them hope
that if they’re having difficulty.

I get very aggravated when I have some, I would say middle class white kids that brag
about a lot of things
you know, and you have these Hispanic kids, or some black kids don’t have, you
know, and they don’t have fathers and white kids do.

But I just try to be as consistent as possible with all students.
Julian I have a colleague who is displaying racist language and racist tendencies, and
especially when their behavior is so sickeningly drastic based on the race of children
in the classroom. When administrators around that, you know, they don’t see it.

Sometimes I stick my neck out and talk to an administrator and just say, I mean
you’re, you’re, allowing that person to subconsciously alter the thinking of all of the
students in that class who are going to think, well, that behavior means that he [black
boy] goes to the office but not him [white boy]. I just, I do not do that. I try to be fair
in how I respond to children’s behavior and consistent.
Kelly I can’t think of how race would impact [students’ experiences.] The experience is
what it is regardless of the race of the student.

I don’t think that the race has anything to do with how that would impact me or
change anything I would do.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers understand race and its impact on an individual level ranging from
recognizing micro aggression in students and other teachers to not believing there are
race related experiences.

Socio-economic challenges are more often labeled than race-related challenges

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Participant Quote(s)
The curriculum and other district wide tools do not appear readily available to
dismantle colorblindness. Teachers who attempt to address it, do so individually and
using their intuition.

Teachers lean into consistency as an effort to be fair and refrain from judgement
limiting their ability to address race related challenges that may be affecting students’
ability to learn and other classroom experiences
Theme Individual Teacher Capacity

Dismantling colorblind classroom practices are based on teacher specific knowledge

A Priori Code: Social-Emotional Assessments
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon It’s not a requirement, necessarily. I practice what I can.
Another thing too is we do, kids will share some things with their life history or home
that you might not otherwise ever know about. So, it kind of gives the teacher an
opportunity to see like a different side that maybe they [the teacher] wouldn’t have
[seen].
Madison There isn’t a system in place, it’s almost like the instinct of the teacher. Just yeah
knowing the kids and having a relationship with them.

They [the students] haven’t like they haven’t shared a lot in class.
Jamie I think just finding out, I mean I think with the kids in the hallway they come in early,
sitting in the hallway. And you can tell it they’ve had a bad day, or even like a bad
night or bad morning by just the way they come [to school].
Julian I will say that’s very specifically about [this age group]. We do use a lot of anecdotal
notes for to support, whether students understand something

but as far as formally, no formal assessment that I’m aware of, as far as assessing
students of trauma
Kelly I think a lot of it is intuitive, truly like experience and intuition and knowing what’s
typical and not typical, just listening. I have some kids that will just start opening up
and you got to know when to listen instead of telling them to be quiet all the time
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Social-Emotional assessments and an effort to understand student’s trauma is an
informal practice.

Teachers describe using their instincts to listen to and assess if students are
experiencing trauma.

Teachers appear to lean into their own unique understanding of trauma to recognize if
students are experiencing something they need to respond to
Theme Individual Teacher Capacity

Teachers assess children’s social emotional needs based on their interpretation of
trauma indicators.

131

Teachers do not have access to a formalized tool designed to measure social-
emotional challenges that may be indicators of trauma

A Priori Code: Race Trauma Assessments
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon For assessment purposes [it] is just the same for everyone.

Just being mindful that literally everyone does not have the same experiences. I’ve
had to try to keep that in mind.
Madison Our morning meeting time of just like really building those relationships and
celebrating things, and, and, like, allowing voices to be heard and to come in and to
bring things [from home]. And like nipping things in the bud, like when somebody
says something inappropriate like letting them know right away like hey, that’s not
okay, here’s why.
Jamie We do not have a special method for assessing students from different races. It is the
same for everyone.
Julian No formal difference that I’m aware of, as far as assessing students of trauma.

I do not necessarily [see] racism, but I know that racism, of past generations [impacts
my students]. Like mom didn’t finish school or doesn’t value education and that is
playing out in the child’s life. Definitely, and the racial inequity definitely play a role
in that. We see a greater inequity as far as with our African American students who
don’t have the resources to deal with the trauma and overcome the trauma.
Kelly Man, there’s all kinds of trauma.

I can’t think of how race would impact that. I have two homeless students right now,
one is mixed race the other was African American, but I don’t think that the race has
anything to do with how that would impact me or change anything I would do.

I would only assess differently if the child had a special need or like an IEP.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers do not describe a tool or resource available to them that helps them assess
race-based trauma.

Teachers are left to make determinations about the potential impact of racism on a
child’s growth and development.

Four of the five teachers acknowledged different experiences related to race with one
teacher not seeing the impact of race on children’s performance or life experience.
Theme Individual Teacher Capacity

Teachers do not appear to recognize social factors such as racism or discrimination
and their potential to create trauma.

If racism is named, it is done so at the individual teacher level: only one of the five
teachers interviewed mentioned racism and racial inequity as impacting student
experiences. In this instance, the teacher recognized past generational experiences
rather than current social climate.

132

A Priori Code: Race Trauma
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon I obviously don’t want to assume or judge but at the same time, instead of just
jumping to conclusions and being short like maybe give them more grace, like, take a
moment to talk to them about what’s been going on like take some more time. It’s like
do you make assumptions [about their behavior], or do you use that information to be
a better teacher that make sense.
Madison I think some of the things that I see that I jump on like right away are like
assumptions that kids will make and like verbalize and not realize like that they’re
disrespectful I think like the first one that comes to mind is like when kids say like all
of the Spanish people. And like, actually, like, they’re born in the United States, or
their family is from Guatemala and their families from Mexico. And we did like a
whole month for Hispanic Heritage Month. And that was really helpful for a lot of
[my students] to realize like, oh, like Spanish is spoken like all over the world,
including the United States. It’s not like one of our national languages but it is very
much like spoken here.
Jamie I approach behavior challenges with the whole group or with the children having the
challenging experiences, but I am not focused on race.
Julian I know I am white privileged, so I try to just be open minded with my students and
recognize that we have inequity in the community and in the district.
Kelly So, I mean it’s interesting a disabled child drew a picture for a mixed child and had
this reaction it’s pretty fascinating, the disabled child, her she was white.

So [the other girl was upset because she drew her with brown skin]. she said [she
didn’t like being brown] because life is hard for brown people, and we need to talk
about that.

Just kind of pointing out that we’re all different and it’s okay
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers describe indicators of race trauma such as discrimination in the classroom,
social inequity, and fears based on skin color or hue,; however, they do not name
these experiences as racism or indicators of race trauma.

Teachers recognize the need to respond and create single event opportunities such as
reminding children that we are all the same or reading a book that highlights
differences but do not seem to connect these experiences to race-related trauma.
Theme Individual Teacher Capacity

Children display behaviors associated with race trauma such as shame and fear.
Teachers address these challenges as single occurrences.

133

A Priori Code: Race Based Classroom Equity
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon Well – we really don’t. We have computers on campus, and many do not know how
to use them. We assign electronic homework but [some] children do not have
computers or chargers at home.

If I were to be like nope put away right now just like I do everyone else, like, that’s
when like yelling, throwing stuff tantrums like that comes out, and it’s just not that’s
not what that child needs. But I am not looking at it from like the perspective of what
race is this child. I am just looking at the behavior
Madison Our morning meeting time of just like really building those relationships and
celebrating things, and, and, like, allowing voices to be heard and to come in and to
bring things. And like nipping things in the bud, like when somebody says something
inappropriate like letting them know right away like hey, that’s not okay, here’s why.

Like let’s talk about it. Let’s learn from it so that this doesn’t happen again. And, and
like having them like asking them questions like, Hey, can you think about like how
you would feel if so and so said that to you, or like putting it sometimes phrased in a
different way like reversing it or whatever, to help them to like to empathize.
Jamie We have our annual units that discuss things like slavery and books about life in other
countries. That is maybe a month long. When children bring up topics or ask
questions then we use that to maybe talk through how other people live or their
experiences.

I have difficulty with some of the behavior situations [and will say] let’s talk about
this, why you were doing this, why were you doing that. I try to teach them. This is
the way that we need to be. This is how we try to write, you know, use the word been
[not be], use

the things that you know go back in your journal and use those things.
Julian Um, the bottom line is, I love children. I had a professor, our principal who used to
say all the time, you know, children only learned from those who love them. And
that’s not 100% true because you can learn a lot of nonexamples of behavior, but
you’re going to learn the things that you want to learn, and you need to learn the
positive lessons that will stick with you when you know you’re loved, and you know
you’re safe. And so, I think that’s the big difference is that, and I can see [that].

So, like they’re [young]. So, I am going to pay attention as much as I can to behavior
that is not necessarily age appropriate and work on that for that child as best I can. I
consider the family and try to engage them. And sometimes race may be a factor, like
if I know the mother has these records playing in her head or if she doesn’t value
education because she didn’t finish school. I try to consider all of that.
Kelly We do a lot of work in our school around the spring which is kind of silly to say it’s a
specific time. Well, we have a whole class on it for like a month on like African
American History and maybe some other topics.

Now we have our little girl with physical challenges. Well, we have few steps tools
around the room for her to be able to reach or she uses the fat pencils instead of the
134

Participant Quote(s)
other ones and she has cups with crayons and markers on her desk rather than inside
[the desk]. She can’t reach all the way to the back of her desk.

We have one kiddo, who is on the spectrum, and he is our calendar manager. And so,
our schedule manager so he moves a magnet with each subject that we do for the
entire class that’s his job to tell everybody what we’re moving into because it just
kind of helps him

I am just looking at like the resources they [White students] have available to them,
it’s like this should not be this difficult… I mean, I would you have different
expectations, if the parent did not have those resources available to them.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers create equitable and inclusive experiences for all children that reflect their
individual teacher style and understanding of the concept of equity.

Some teachers referenced a school wide multicultural month as one of their efforts to
create equity however do not describe a year long or system wide approach to
establishing race-based equity in the classroom.

Teachers describe using opportunities presented in real time with disabilities, socio-
economic access to address equity.

Teachers describe using children’s interactions and isolating those the teacher
believes are inappropriate to create single event learning opportunities.
Theme Individual Teacher Capacity

Teachers define equity in varied ways and use their understanding of appropriate and
inappropriate to establish equity and inclusivity.

Teachers described annual, month long multicultural experiences and associate this
with equity and inclusivity.

A Priori Code: Compassion Fatigue
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon Sometimes I’m in class and I’m just like, I mean this is the lesson. And I, I don’t say
that, but you know I mean like, I’m sitting there and I’m like well this is the lesson,
and they can’t do it and I’m about to like to teach these lessons, they don’t
understand.

We’re trying to teach you know I’m in like 250 like 300 like using those big numbers
and my kids can’t do eight minus one like it just was just like, I am at that point I was
like I don’t even know what to do.
Madison I think it’s just overwhelming when I did my reading assessments at the beginning of
the year, most of them are reading at, like, a kindergarten or first grade level.

I’ve got probably six [out of 16] that were where they needed to be or close to where
they needed to be. I have taught [this grade] for so long and I’m used to having kids
that aren’t on grade level, but I’m not used to having as many that are at a
135

Participant Quote(s)
kindergarten level. I think it does like getting your head a little bit of like, Oh my
gosh, like, I’m a good teacher. Why isn’t this like reflecting that?
Jamie I can get emotionally upset when I feel like I have to fight for on where I should be on
my evaluation. You know, like, Okay, do I really need to show you all this kind of
data and materials to get where I am, and you know where that’s where I feel like
that’s sort of a waste of time.

When I see things [like this] that are unfair. I get emotional I get upset and I get
angry.

I used to love [teaching] Right now, I’m actually very much contemplating early
retirement
Julian So, I think two things number one, I got my national board certification back in 2005
for the first time. And that really helped me as a teacher, be more reflective of what I
do.

And so, I don’t beat myself up like I used to. And… in the first 10 years of teaching, I
was my own worst critic but what it made me do was realized okay what have I done.
What is the reason they’re not making growth, what can I try something different to
help them get it. Um, you know.

I try and just work smarter and look at Is there something that I need to do differently.
Kelly Um, I mean I definitely think about it [resigning] from time to time. It’s never the
kids or situations like that make me want to leave, it’s the paperwork, it’s admin is
having a boss that I don’t agree with or the time constraints, it never has to do with
the kids, or behavior.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers are displaying general fatigue and although their classrooms are
predominantly Underrepresented students, they do not reference the students as the
cause of their fatigue.

It appears fatigue is more openly related to the system within which they work.
Students’ performance leads teacher to emotional challenges, uncertainty about their
performance and preoccupation with supervisors and evaluations.

Teachers do not reference the impact the system has on Underrepresented students or
that their struggles learning may be associated with race-based trauma.

One teacher references the importance of self-reflection and mindfulness about
student performance. This teacher has a national board certification and learned these
techniques earning the certification.
Theme Fatigue Culture

Teachers reference emotional exhaustion, frustration, and doubt with a primary focus
on themselves. Teachers recognize students’ are not performing but appear indifferent
to the effect their under-performance may have on the child’s ability to become a life-
long learner.

A Priori Code: Compassion Fatigue Mechanisms
136

Participant Quote(s)
Shannon Self-care is, is an informal, and not using some kind of formal system the district has
in place for you.

Maybe [the district offers mechanisms]. I don’t even open the emails because
whatever it is I probably won’t do it. It’s going to take more of my time I don’t have.
And I apparently get a stipend at the end of the year if I do the training and I’m a
mentor, but I don’t even know if I’ll ever do that.
Madison We’re reminded frequently by our school social worker that we have access to I think
like six free mental health sessions with a therapist if we need one. They gave us
though… we originally supposed to have school the Friday after Veterans Day and
they made that a mental health day. We’re constantly reminded about self-care but it’s
kind of like also like in the midst of a meeting where it’s like, here are all the things
that we need you to do and also self-care. So, it kind of feels like it’s being said so
they can be like we said it we covered our butts on that. But… it’s not always
practical.
Jamie You know, the one that the support systems school they gave us this little sheet that
cell system [that has self-care words on it] … but it’s just a piece of paper. You know
I look at it, And I look at another poster I have about, you know, looking at the light.
Julian They basically told us on the day after Veteran’s Day that there is nothing you need to
do during this workday but take care of yourself. [They said] I can’t put that in an
email, because I don’t want a paper trail. But please, take the day to take care of
yourselves, do whatever it is that you need to do to make yourself happy and recharge
your batteries, and they’re in, and I feel like that was the first time in the last decade,
that it wasn’t lip service. Because there’s been self-care but our former principal, he
had never been a teacher. So, he did not understand, you know the stress the pressure,
the, everything that went with it. And he would say, you know, I get up early in the
morning and go swim or I get up in the early morning take my dog for a long walk,
you should do that too. But it was not always realistic.
Kelly Now, so we have new admin this year, I mean they’ve been a principal moved up
from AP [assistant principal] so we’ve worked with her before, and we have one of
our assistant principals and then we have a new one so it’s kind of a new team to us
and so we’re also learning how to do things differently and figure things out but they
are all completely overwhelmed just as much as we are.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Mechanisms to address compassion fatigue or emotional exhaustion in general are not
consistently available.

Teachers are ambivalent to the support they do receive because the appear to see it as
unrealistic, impractical, not valuable.
Theme Fatigue Culture

Teachers appeared indifferent to the mechanisms administrators established such as
days off, mentoring programs, or written reminders.

Teachers appear to have accepted the emotional exhaustion of their work and in at
least one case recognized that administrators experience the same exhaustion

137

A Priori Code: Self-Care
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon We have off the 11th, which is a Thursday for Veterans Day. We also have off Friday
to acknowledge what they call it like personal self-care, self-care awareness, or you
know, so it’s going to be remote work from home day. But honestly - the last thing I
want to do right now let’s go to a training or self-care event. There’s no time.

I don’t get a lunch break. I got zero breaks the only break I got was planning. [During
that time you can] check your email, respond to your email. Another 10 minutes, and
then you have like 15 minutes to plan which what you’re just doing is you’re planning
for what’s going to happen in an hour. I barely have time to plan for the next day, let
alone the next week.
Madison Um, by just like drawing some different boundary lines. I don’t respond over the
weekend, because I just feel like that’s like a better like a healthier thing, I’ve tried
really hard not to work at all on Sundays and kind of just decompress before Monday. I
usually like go for walks. But, I think like this year I’ve done better at like drawing a
line on when I like stop working on stuff at night like I do have quite a few papers that
I’m backlogged on grading.
Jamie You kind of laugh. Watching a hallmark movie. I’ll just go to the mall and walk. We
like to travel husband lifestyle. So if I can go home and plan a weekend trip
somewhere. We probably go somewhere every other week in. And when I do that, I’m
not allowed to take my computer.

My husband has a hard time with me bringing work home.
Julian I have a core group. Because of the turnover in the last decade and the six or eight of
us would stay together and spend time doing something on a Friday or with our
families on the weekend.
Kelly I am horrible at this, I don’t. I mean it’s just the craziest that’s ever been as I’m sure
you know right now with everything going on.

For me, I mean like this self-care that a few days this week I’ve been like forget the
makeup like I need 5 extra minutes of sleep, and like that’s not me to be like that but
I’m like, I can’t do this I’m throwing my hair back and no makeup and just survive
hanging on by.

I’ve even canceled my own counseling sessions that I was going to every 2 weeks to
kind of help because I literally don’t have the time.
Trending
Data /
Analysis
Teachers’ self-care techniques are individualized and vary dependent on the teacher
and their personal history.

Teachers describe not having time for self-care or leaning into friends or families in the
absence of formal and effective self-care mechanisms
Theme Fatigue Culture

Teachers describe working on weekends or taking a single weekend day off and
working into the evenings.

Teachers do not have regularly scheduled breaks, bring work home, and fall behind in
their work load if they do try to address self-care.
138

Teachers’ tone when describing these efforts was indifferent; they appeared to accept
that an inability to address self-care was a part of the expected work performance.

Open Code: Grade Level
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon Grade k-2
Madison Grade k-2
Jamie Grade k-2
Julian Grade k-2
Kelly Grade k-2
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Grades K-2
Theme Students are between 5 and 7 years of age

Open Code: Classroom Dynamics
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon 17 Students Described as a variety of backgrounds, majority are Underrepresented
students: four white students and the others Middle Eastern, Hispanic, Black, and
Asian
Madison 16 Students
Described as a variety of backgrounds, majority are Underrepresented students with
some African and Latin American refugees
Jamie 18 students
Described as diverse.
7 are ESL Spanish speaking children immigrated from Mexico and Central America
Julian 16 students
Described as an even mix of Black and White students. Some black students
described as Syrian refugees escaping was torn nations
Kelly 16 students
4 White
5 Hispanic
2 Mixed Race
3 Black
1 Asian
1 Indian
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Classroom dynamics are highly diverse with a mixture of ESL and refugee children.

Only one teacher described Underrepresented students as refugees although all
labeled some of their students as immigrants or children of immigrants.
Theme Only one teacher recognized the potential impact of refugee status as traumatic

139

Open Code: Trauma
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon I have a student who has trauma in her background.
And that mom will tell me like triggers and what they’re doing, and I’ll share what
you know so it’s definitely like without that relationship with the parents, you’re not
going to have the same outcomes
Madison I think my biggest concern is like the, I have a child that I think has some food
concerns, and of course some like winter coat kind of concerns.
It was really interesting to me that like, oh the Monday morning data, made me think
about the fact that like yeah they’re coming in from the weekend and who knows,
like, what, what they’re carrying and like how they’re feeling.
And like what kinds of things happen to them over the weekend or if they like had
food and how they’re dealing with things like I know my, my first year teaching her
like she has a student in her class but it feels like there’s something else going on his
behavior, and he’s had a really hard time like reoccurring meeting this week.
Jamie And I can tell if they’ve got a bad morning and I know I’ve got a little Spanish kid
that’s very quiet got in trouble one day somebody said that he brought a knife, and he
had not bought the knife and now he’s just very like walking on ice.
I can just tell that he probably got in big trouble at home. And he’s just scared that
that’s going to happen, and I’ve told the kids before, when they’ve made mistakes and
said, You know, I don’t need to call mommy and daddy.
Julian [I have students that are] refugees who or who you know came from a Central
American or Latin American country that have never been on school I’ve never had a
pen and a pencil that are working to acquire language and vocabulary and you know I
have students who come in that wear winter coats and August because they’ve never
been an air conditioning, they’re freezing.
Kelly I have two homeless students right now, what is mixed race was, African American,
but I don’t think that the race has anything to do with how that would impact me or
change anything I would do.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers appeared more apt to recognize obvious trauma such as hunger, poverty, or
homelessness.

Teachers did not readily identify race trauma although every teacher described
serving mostly Underrepresented students in their classes.

Teachers understood trauma on a general level such as having a bad day or when
parents brought something to their attention.
Theme Resources and Support Systems

Teachers do not appear to have access to systems, training, or other opportunities to
identify, name, and address trauma unless it is obvious and brought to their attention.

140

Open Code: Multicultural Education
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon N/A
Madison Just like learning about other cultures and having a posture curiosity and like
modeling that like with the kids. We have like a big multicultural celebration usually
like for like the whole month of February or March now we started to kind of move it
into March, which I liked a lot because then it doesn’t like February can still be Black
History Month in March, can be multicultural. Native American groups because that
had been in like the fourth-grade curriculum. And I think that’s been really
empowering because there’s lots of Native American tribes here in North Carolina.
Jamie When we teach, we teach a unit called long journey to freedom, which is probably my
very favorite unit that we teach, and it talks about how slavery was wrong, and how
all these important people that made changes in life.
Julian N/A
Kelly We do a lot of work in our school around the spring
Well, we have a whole class on it for like a month.

Make sure kids know like our art center that has much multicultural colors and
crayons like you’re able to use those guys those aren’t just the art center like we can
use those or it doesn’t you know we see people different way and that doesn’t change
who we are inside and just kind of reading more books about it.
So sometimes things will just come up that it’s like yeah, we need to address that as a
class in front of everybody.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Three of the five teachers referenced a 1-month annual multicultural learning module.

Teachers referenced multicultural education modules when asked to describe equity
and responsiveness to Underrepresented student experiences.
Theme Resources and Support Systems

Teachers limited access to anti-racist curriculum and training limits their knowledge
of race responsive teacher, equity, and inclusivity to the learning modules in the
district selected curriculum.

141

Open Code: Resources
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon Time:
The last thing I want to do right now let’s go to a training or staff event.
there’s no time.
There’s I don’t get a lunch break.
I got zero breaks the only break I got was planning
Check your email, respond to your email. Another 10 minutes, and then you have like
15 minutes to plan which what you’re just doing is you’re planning for what’s going
to happen in an hour.
I barely have time to plan for the next day, let alone the next week.

Social-Emotional Curriculum
It’s not a requirement, necessarily, I mean they’ll say it is but no one’s checking
I practice what I can. A Conscious Discipline.
The school practices something called Responsive Classroom which is similar in a
way.
activities to build like community between you and the students like you know there’s
like fun things, another thing too is we do,
kids will share some things with their life history or home that you might not
otherwise ever know about.
So, it kind of gives the teacher an opportunity to see like a different side that maybe
they wouldn’t have.
Madison Time:
[The school day] doesn’t really allow for me to like there’s not really. Other than that,
like 10-minute time. I don’t have time to like pull kids into small groups and stuff like
that because I’m it’s mostly direct instruction for me ask you this.

I feel like if we did have that a lot of [self-care activities planned] people would prefer
to rather have that time back then to have that time like pulled for a meeting like in
my building and I think I would lean that way.

Social-Emotional Curriculum:
We have a social emotional curriculum, called second step, that we’re supposed to use
in morning meeting and then they also made second step a special this year. But it’s
just like teaching the kids how to like to handle their feelings then like assessing
them.
Jamie Time:
So, the hardest part is trying to find time to work with those small groups to get them
where they need to be just to be in first grade. So, that impacts how I feel when I go
home it’s like, oh, I was not kind to them, I was like a little too hard on them. I’ve
always been known as having very high expectations.

Social-Emotional Curriculum:
There’s a program that I’ve used for several years that they’re actually teaching now,
it’s called second step, and about, you know, responsibility being respectful, caring
for each other, being able to talk or just say how you feel.
Julian Certification:
142

Participant Quote(s)
I got my national board certification back in 2005 for the first time. And that really
helped me as a teacher, be more reflective of what I do.
And so, I don’t beat myself up like I used to.
I try and just work smarter and look at Is there something that I need to do differently.

Anecdotal assessment:
We do use a lot of anecdotal notes for to support, whether students understand
something, like if they if I’m teaching math or writing or whatever, in class, and as
I’m walking through the room and this student is answering questions and
participating in class and getting the right answers, and I see that they’re doing that
independently without a lot of help from a student or from me. That’s something I’ll
jot down, that’s something that goes in the memory bank and then when it comes
time, even if they don’t show because again it’s developmentally appropriate to have
a student.
Kelly Time:
It’s the worst it’s ever been in 20 years. And with my own children I’m often not
getting home from games and events and things until almost eight o’clock at night,
and then I’m scrambling to throw dinner together
I mean even like something as silly as our schedule. This year, we are supposed to
teach math for I’m sorry. La for me at this number right 150 minutes a day, our
schedule is only 75 minutes, so we still have to cover the same amount of material,
and that and keep up, and not only get on grade level but like make catch up.
Well that’s not possible and that 75 minutes of LA is broken up into three chunks,
which is not very effective. So, part of that is the pandemic. Part of it is we have to
new curriculum this year on top of all these new people and all these trainings and
new admin and it’s like just as firestorm of like everything happening at the same
time.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Two resources described were time and the lack thereof and social emotional
curriculum.

Teachers described time as elusive and not available to address the individual
physical, development, and social-emotional needs of children.

Teachers referenced the school’s social-emotional curriculum as a tool to address
children’s trauma. Curriculum was described as a tool for helping children name and
manage emotions toward self-regulation.

The social emotional curriculum was not described as a tool to address trauma or
behavior associated with race based trauma
Theme Resources and Support Systems

The two main resources described by four of the five teachers interviewed were time
and a social-emotional curriculum.

Both resources limited their ability to address race-based trauma or any significant
social-emotional challenges in the classroom

143

Open Code: Leadership
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon The new principal has tried to give like personal care days and like plans group
activities. They acknowledge what they call it like personal self-care, self-care
awareness, or you know, so it’s going to be remote work from home day.
Madison I feel like my administrators, particularly like the new principal. And one of my
assistant principals, have a lot of like interest in like teacher morale, and that they are
like making efforts to try to listen to and address it. It’s also complicated for them
though because you have like all these different parties involved.
Jamie What I’m seeing this year, new admin is great she’s open-door policy she’s very
human. Little bit more human than our last principle which I really liked her newest a
friend, I met used to do things with the couple was fun, but not a shame, shame. She
makes a mistake she says I made a mistake. She says I’m tired. She will tell us, you
know, Grace, Grace, take care of yourself.
Then 2 days later, this is what you need to do. This is what you need to do this is what
needs to be done. So that’s stressful.
Julian They basically told there is nothing you need to do during this work day, but take care
of yourself.
And I feel like that was the first time in the last decade, that it wasn’t lip service.
We, we have a climate committee this year that plans, you know, first Friday of every
month is a staff outing and went to an arcade and, you know, they have go karts and
game room. So, I don’t [participate], but I have not in the last 10 years.
Kelly They know very little about very few kids just because of the amount of things that
they’re dealing with right now. So, it if it would have to be something extremely
substantial, are you to receive administrative support like you haven’t even heard
anything about my homeless child and the parents, asking me to come get them that
wasn’t even the kind of thing I would ever talk to them about what would you talk to
them about
I mean they’re just running all over and like I said I mean they’re truly like, hoping
with cafeteria they’re helping cover classes, it’s not like they’re just not doing
anything.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers consistently recognized their new principal as an ally in addressing
emotional exhaustion and fatigue in the workplace.

Teachers appeared to appreciate the new leadership team’s philosophy and approach
to self-care however did not consistently describe buy-in or a collective belief in their
effectiveness to address their individual needs
Theme Resources and Support Systems

Teachers described a difference in the current and past administration’s practices
regarding self-care and addressing workplace exhaustion.

At the time of the interviews, the new administration had been in place for 3 months.
Teachers indicated general confidence in their ability to effect change but in the short
term, leaderships’ actual impact was minimal.

The potential to support teachers was described indicating leadership can have a
direct impact on building individual teacher capacity and minimizing fatigue culture

144

Open Code: Parent Involvement
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon [To understand trauma, you] have that relationship with the parents because the
parents will tell you things the kids will never will.
And they will let you know they’ll share the like maybe, maybe not
Always, right.
Madison N/A
Jamie N/A
Julian And it until we really pressed the parents and just expressed concern and tried to
make sure they understood that love love love love your child will always be a part of
my family, but they are not behaving like the other students in the class, and it’s
problematic, and I’m sure you’re tired of coming to pick them up early, then the
parents finally shared well that absolutely horrific sights and sounds they saw in a
Syrian refugee camp before they came to the United States.
Kelly Um, I also have good communication with my parents and so if somebody all of a
sudden stop communicating or stops returning text then I start to dig deeper and see
what’s going on. I also will ask my kids a lot of times you know which had for dinner
last night Oh that sounds good.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Three of the five teachers interviewed indicated they could not identify or address
children’s trauma without the parents’ cooperation
Theme Resources and Support Systems

Teachers described their relationship with parents as a resource in understanding their
students’ history and experiences.

Relationships with parents appeared essential in addressing trauma.

Open Code: COVID Crisis
Participant Quote(s)
Shannon I assign this online activity. It’s supposed to be a second-grade math task right and
mass standard, and even my kids were really high, and math failed it the first time
they took it.

well, if my kids were on grade level are failing this….

80% of them just failed this obviously did something wrong when I was trying to
teach it to them because they’re not learning it.

I feel like it’s impossible because a lot of times they’re like oh, we’ll just teach both
of these lessons in the same day, and it’s like I’m sorry excuse me. This year it’s so
much harder because everyone is behind [because of Corona Virus).
Madison When I did my reading assessments at the beginning of the year, most of them are
reading at, like, a kindergarten or first grade level.
I’ve got probably six that were where they needed to be or close to where they needed
to be.
affected a lot of like how I teach to just in terms of like what they can and can’t do,
within safety measures in the building.
145

I have taught second grade for so long and I’m used to having kids that aren’t on
grade level, but I’m not used to having as many that are at a kindergarten level.
Jamie [Because of COVID] Six of my [18] students are kindergarten level. I probably have
three students that are on grade level, and the others or first – it’s impossible to get
them from kindergarten level to be ready for third grade.
Julian N/A
Kelly I mean, the whole school is below grade level [because of COVID] everybody’s in
crisis mode everybody’s scrambling so like it’s pretty much the same across the
board.
Trending Data
/ Analysis
Teachers expressed compassion fatigue associated with the COVID crisis.

Teachers implied the time away from school and online learning resulted in the
majority of children performing below grade level.

Teachers appeared indifferent about children’s performance and consistently
described feeling helpless to bring children up to grade level.
Theme Fatigue Culture

The COVID crisis outcomes exacerbated teachers’ existing feelings of fatigue.

The COVID crisis was a confounder of this study and its impact of teacher fatigue
could not be disregarded.

Teachers’ expressions of compassion fatigue may be directly associated with their
students’ performance.

The researcher acknowledges an unstudied aspect of this project is the COVID crisis
impact on the teachers’ personal lives which may add to fatigue culture

146

Appendix E: Interview transcripts
Shannon – Interview Responses
How does your students ’ performance impact the way you feel about your work?
I feel that it’s directly impacts it.
I feel that if they’re not grasping at concept, it, I need to change what I’m doing.
I also feel that because there are so many things outside of my. Like, my hands are tied, I should
say. As an they have to do this assessment, and that assessment. This one’s for the state. This
one’s for the district This one’s for the school. This one’s for the nation
That we do those and across the board, they’re all not doing well. I just feel like they’re… the
assessments are not proper.
For example, I assign this online activity. It’s supposed to be a second-grade math task right and
mass standard, and even my kids were really high and math failed it the first time they took it.
well, if my kids were on grade level are failing this. I don’t feel like it’s there, because of them. I
feel like it’s more I’m not delivering it in the right way. Does that make sense. Yeah. Does that
answer your question, like I do feel like their achievement and success is coming from me. 80%
of them just failed this obviously did something wrong when I was trying to teach it to them
because they’re not learning it. I feel like it’s impossible because a lot of times they’re like oh,
we’ll just teach both of these lessons in the same day, and it’s like I’m sorry excuse me. This
year it’s so much harder because everyone is behind [because of Corona Virus).
Describe a time when you felt emotionally overwhelmed in the execution of your work?
the whole system that was in place before is not really supporting where our kids are.
it just adds to it you know what I mean it just adds to the stress of it all
the whole system that was in place before is not really supporting where our kids are.
I think people are worried that if we lower the standards like, you know, kids are capable and of
course they’re capable and of course we’re going to level them up, if they are ready for it.
But I also feel like we’re stressing our kids right by, I mean, literally the kids are like I don’t
know what to do.
And I’m sometimes I’m in class and I’m just like, I mean this is the lesson. And I, I don’t say
that but you know they mean like, I’m sitting there and I’m like well this is the lesson and they
can’t do it and I’m about to like teach us lessons, they
don’t understand, which isn’t helping their confidence, which isn’t teaching them anything.
, I feel bad because you’re eight years old you should not be stressing out about school.
147

literally, physically stressed out. Like there are kids who sit there their heads back their heads
down.
We’re doing this math, and it’s tough.
we’re talking we’re using numbers like 250, and you know like big numbers right.
no one was answering anything no one was.
And so I was like okay well what about this, eight minus one.
Definitely first grade.
And no one’s answering. So then I started cold calling on kids.
we’re trying to teach you know I’m in like 250 like 300 like using those big numbers and my
kids can’t do eight minus one like it just was just like, I at that point I was like I don’t even know
what to do.
How do you plan for your self-care in managing the emotional exhaustion experienced at
work?
Sometimes people have ideas.
self care is, is an informal, and not using some kind of formal system the district has in place for
you.
we have off the 11th, which is a Thursday for Veterans Day.
also have off Friday to acknowledge what they call it like personal self care self care awareness,
or you know, so it’s going to be remote work from home day.
but honestly
The last thing I want to do right now let’s go to a training or staff event.
there’s no time.
There’s I don’t get a lunch break.
I got zero breaks the only break I got was planning
Check your email, respond to your email. Another 10 minutes, and then you have like 15
minutes to plan which what you’re just doing is you’re planning for what’s going to happen in an
hour.
I barely have time to plan for the next day, let alone the next week.
they’re pulling assistance from kindergarten kindergarten needs those assistance.
So like I still feel guilty that I’m getting time, but the only way to do it.

148

What support systems that exist for managing your emotional challenges, if any?
Maybe they do,
don’t even open the emails.
because whatever it is I probably won’t. It’s going to take more of my time I don’t have, like, I
don’t.
And I apparently don’t get a stipend at the end of the year if I do the training and I’m a mentor,
but I don’t even know if I’ll ever do that.
Describe the guidance you would give a new teacher entering the field about self-care in the
workplace?
not come in on Saturday.
And, like, even though it’s hard because you want to do what you need to do, just like let go and
be happy to like, I mean it takes time, right to be okay with like not doing your best like I know I
could do better.
but then that comes at the expense of not spending time with my family and my kids.
so, like
just need to prioritize that, whereas like I see a lot of new teachers, and at the rare times I do stay
till like five o’clock. I swear I walk past their classrooms and they’re still in there.
just need to have a line somewhere.
How do you create plans to determine students ’ exposure to trauma?
I focused on social emotional
It’s not a requirement, necessarily, I mean they’ll say it is but no one’s checking
I practice what I can. A Conscious Discipline.
The school practices something called Responsive Classroom which is similar in a way.
activities to build like community between you and the students like you know there’s like fun
things, another thing too is we do,
kids will share some things with their life history or home that you might not otherwise ever
know about.
So it kind of gives the teacher an opportunity to see like a different side that maybe they
wouldn’t have.
The last thing too is like having that relationship with the parents because the parents will tell
you things the kids will never will.
And they will let you know they’ll share the like maybe, maybe not
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always right.
I have one student who has trauma in her background.
And that mom will tell me like triggers and what they’re doing and I’ll share what you know so
it’s definitely like without that relationship with the parents, you’re not gonna have the same
outcomes
Describe how you tailor your teaching style to address a students ’ traumatic experiences, if
at all?
The most effective way that you tailor your teaching style to address that, that, that students
experiences is to really develop a relationship with the parents so you understand the trauma and
can be responsive.
not having the exact same expectation that expectations that’s the wrong word. I’m not having
the exact same.
Because if that starts off something it’s just not going to be beneficial for that child or the rest of
the class, if that makes sense. Yeah, and at this stage the kids don’t ever say like, oh, what about
that person, they’re still doing it.
Do you consider the race or ethnicity of the student when making these determinations?
Yes, if someone is looks differently than me like right away I can be like oh we have different
experiences, but also even if they do look like me.
just being mindful that literally everyone in anyone does not have not had the same experiences
that I’ve had to try to keep that in mind.
I obviously don’t want to assume or judge but at the same time.
, instead of just jumping to conclusions and being short like maybe give them more grace, like,
take a moment to
talk to them about what’s been going on like take some more time, so it’s like ghosts. It’s like do
you make assumptions or do you use that information to be a better teacher that make sense.
How does a student ’s individual traumatic experiences manifest in behavioral challenges in
the classroom?
If I were to be like nope put away right now just like I do everyone else, like, that’s when like
yelling, throwing stuff tantrums like that comes out, and it’s just not that’s not what that child
needs.
Describe the support you have received from your administration that has helped you
manage behavioral challenges in your classroom?
What is your approach to assessing students from different racial backgrounds?
for assessment purposes.
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is just the same for everyone. The one thing I do have to say as homework.
Like I recognize that not all families can help with homework. Not all families have the time to
help with homework. And so, I don’t, great homework, like it’s not and I tell families all the time
like this is for just like help practice, understanding,
if you don’t turn it in is not going against them
but in all other areas I don’t even know if we have with a work. We have to say the same thing to
all the kids
Describe how you create equity in the classroom for children from differing racial and
ethnic backgrounds?
Well – we really don’t. We have computers on campus and many do not know how to use them.
Offer electronic homework but children do not have computers or chargers at home.

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Madison – Interview Responses
I’ve been teaching for 16 years, and I’ve taught second grade the entire time.
I have 16 students this year
They are variety of different backgrounds, think my largest population right now is let next. Um,
and we’ve got kids from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador.
some of them did emigrate, and also have a couple of students that are like from different
African backgrounds but most of them have been in the United States like and have older
siblings and they did not qualify for ESL.
a huge like economic spread within my room like I have kids that I’m nominating just to get a
winter coat. But I also have kids that, you know, are traveling to Germany over break to see
grandparents and stuff like that, like, oh, and I have a student who’s his dad his German. but we
also like are close to a lot of apartment buildings were like refugees resettled and were like,
there’s a lot of low-income apartments or like the government.
We definitely have refugees. we have a couple that have arrived this year that are in second
grade but I don’t have any that are in my class right now this year I have in the past
Have a Spanish-English speaking speech pathologist

How does your students ’ performance impact the way you feel about your work?
I think it’s just overwhelming when I did my reading assessments at the beginning of the year,
most of them are reading at, like, a kindergarten or first grade level.
I’ve got probably six that were where they needed to be or close to where they needed to be.
affected a lot of like how I teach to just in terms of like what they can and can’t do, within safety
measures in the building.
I have taught second grade for so long and I’m used to having kids that aren’t on grade level, but
I’m not used to having as many that are at a kindergarten level.
I think it does like getting your head a little bit of like, Oh my gosh, like, Am I behind like am I,
I’m a good teacher Why isn’t this like reflecting that.
And it’s totally just based on like their test score and not like on how we made kids feel. And
like the the growth that we see, even if they didn’t like totally meet the standard yet but like they
were so far and they got even closer.
Describe a time when you felt emotionally overwhelmed in the execution of your work?
we got a new math curriculum and the, you know, I’ve been teaching at that point for 13 years,
and I’ve always taught second grade.
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And I do feel like that’s an area of expertise for me that like I know a lot about like the
developmental like appropriateness and like just the the way to like work with seven and eight
year olds because I’ve spent so much time with them and yeah I don’t
have like a master’s degree or a PhD, but like I have a lot of experience and just exposure.
to administration and like you’re going to be held accountable for that.
And a lot of just like working on a whiteboard, there’s not really opportunities for math centers
and things like that. And, and the way that it was organized pacing wise, we started the year with
some addition subtraction work
And then I got in trouble with my principal.
And I explained like and I ended up bursting into tears like talking to him like we had a big
argument about it because I was like, but the test is this, like, I can’t like in good conscience,
give them this, and I like the textbook people were very polite
I didn’t feel like I was treated like I knew anything and that like the only thing that mattered was
like what the pacing guide said, and like what this curriculum said and that this curriculum knew
more than me. but it’s the point of showing growth to like to make it like manipulated in a way
like with my teacher evaluation. I’m always ranked lower at the beginning of the year than I am
at the end of the year. And whatever I was at the end of last year I never start there again, I’m
always demoted.
You ’re serving children that are maybe speaking another language, and are more
comfortable in that language does that curriculum, take language into consideration?
Oh, no, not particularly well, like I know some curriculums really do like I’ve seen little like
notes before they do have parent letters that are available online in Spanish. So like that at least
for the homework is taken into consideration and but you have to go and print them they’re not
already translated in their homework workbook.
It doesn’t really allow for me to like there’s not really. Other than that, like 10 minute time. I
don’t have time to like pull kids into small groups and stuff like that because I’m it’s mostly
direct instruction for me ask you this.
Have you ever considered leaving your profession?
Yeah, I mean, like, I think not like leaving in their respective like totally leaving teaching but
like I have no desire to be an administrator, like, no desire to be an administrator, like I don’t
want to deal with just like, like the complaints from parents and dealing with like, like all of that,
like, I think if I.
The only admin job I would consider is, you know, there’s so many things that are at play like in
a school building like I would love some kind of assistant role where I would be able to help like,
Hey, what about this, or like be the one to kind of make things happen for teachers. And so, like,
in my like dream world like the things that I really love are pouring into new teachers, and like
creating curriculum and making things so like that’s the other thing that rubs is like, I can’t like
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Be creative. I would like to be a full time mentor. Or, I really liked working with language
learners so it would be great to get like licensure to do that, I think.
How do you manage your own self care?
Yeah, I think it ebbs and flows like it’s a little bit better this year. Um, but just like drawing some
different boundary lines. I don’t respond over the weekend, because I just feel like that’s like a
better like a healthier thing I’ve tried really hard not to work at all and Sundays and kind of just
decompress before Monday. I usually like go for walks like it’s been getting darker later and I
don’t always were in parent conference season so I’m not getting home until like 530 or so. But,
I think like this year I’ve done better at like drawing a line on when I like stop working on stuff
at night like I do have quite a few papers that I’m backlogged on grading.
What support systems that exist for managing your emotional challenges, if any?
We’re reminded frequently by our school social worker who is awesome that we have access to I
think like six free mental health sessions with a therapist if we need one. They gave us though
we originally supposed to have school the Friday after Veterans Day and they made that a mental
health day. We’re constantly reminded about self care but it’s kind of like also like in the midst
of a meeting where it’s like, here are all the things that we need you to do also self care. So it
kind of feels like it’s being said so they can be like we said it we covered our butts on that. But it
does, it’s not always practical.
How does your administration create support systems for managing your emotional
challenges at work?
I feel like if we did have that a lot of people would prefer to rather have that time back then to
have that time like pulled for a meeting like in my building and I think I would lean that way. I
know when we were remote last year we had a principal intern that did like a meditation morning
before zoom started or whatever and you could go join her zoom, and I was like, I think that I’d
rather just like sit in peace like and have some tea.
But I do think that like I feel like my administrators, particularly like the new principal. And one
of my assistant principals, have a lot of like interest and like teacher morale, and that they are
like making efforts to try to listen to and address. It’s also complicated for them though because
you have like all these different parties involved.
Because like we’re supposed to have duty free lunch in North Carolina, but hasn’t happened,
like, in order to do that they have to pull teaching assistance to do it and so like each grade level
kind of got to provide some feedback, and then they had to kind of work out a schedule, and I
know like, Rachel and to have her team to have her team members, they have they have their
duty free lunch, instead of duty free lunch they have recess covered, because they couldn’t pull
like teaching assistance during lunch. And then, and they are only doing 2 days to reassess 40
minutes, so they’re doing that like 2 days a week.
So like they’re trying different things to make us make it work but also like in doing that for us,
it does put weight on the instructional assistance so they’re trying to like, find balances
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Describe the guidance you would give a new teacher entering the field about self-care in the
workplace?
I think Saturday is her day off.
But like when the buildings open on the weekend like she does try to come in and like get things
done. Good for her to like decompress in the car that she has like a podcast to listen to or she’ll
listen to like NPR something like that. And the drive like has been good for her and a lot of ways
but like heading in, and like coming out. Not like staying up late, like she’s going to bed so I
think she is like doing some self care that way and that like I was terrible about this when I was a
new teacher like just like working too late and then trying to get up early and just not
Eat outside sometimes during our planning time like we’ve been trying to eat lunch, then, since
we’re supervising the kids during lunch, most of the time unless we’re like, it’s one of our
covered lunch days.
Yeah it’s hard like drawing that line, just because the building is open doesn’t mean you have to
go in

How do you create plans to determine students ’ exposure to trauma?
we’ve been like trained about like trauma we’ve had over the years like especially more recently,
and some different trainings about recognizing trauma, but we don’t have like a specific form
school wide nor do I have like a specific form.
I think my biggest concern is like the, I have a child that I think has some food concerns, and of
course some like winter coat kind of concerns.
And like that like I have a great relationship with the like social worker like I was able to talk to
this school counselor that works with like the kids.
So like I think, at the beginning of the year I like touched base with both the social worker, and
with, with the school counselor just to be like hey do you know anything else that I’m not
already getting from like talking to the kid one on one, and just observing. Like, do I need like to
know anything else.
They’re pretty good to you about like ahead of time, contacting you to let you know like, hey,
like this child is in the backpack buddies program or these are some things you should know like,
even before the school year begins.
It was really interesting to me that like, oh the Monday morning data, made me think about the
fact that like yeah they’re coming in from the weekend and who knows, like, what, what they’re
carrying and like how they’re feeling.
And like what kinds of things happen to them over the weekend or if they like had food and how
they’re dealing with things like I know my, my first year teaching her like she has a student in
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her class but it feels like there’s something else going on his behavior, and he’s had a really hard
time like reoccurring meeting this week.
I think, like, the other thing that like comes out is just like sometimes in behavior like when a
behavior happens like that’s where you’re going to be like, I don’t always assume that it’s
because of something that actually happened right there in the classroom like that, there may be
some other things going.
There isn’t a system in place, it’s almost like the instinct of the teacher. Just yeah knowing the
kids an having a relationship with them. We have a social emotional curriculum, called second
step, that we’re supposed to use in morning meeting and then they also made second step a
special this year. But it’s just like teaching the kids how to like handle their feelings then like
assessing them.

Do you consider the race or ethnicity of the student when making these determinations?
You mean like incidents where they’ve experienced like racism and discrimination like within
the classroom or within their community. I think that we’re still like learning a lot about like the
race trauma that kids would experience like outside of the classroom. I think some of the things
that I see that I jump on like right away are like assumptions that kids will make and like
verbalize and not realize like that they’re disrespectful I think like the first one that comes to
mind is like when kids say like all of the Spanish people.
And like, actually, like, they’re born in the United States, or their family is from Guatemala and
their families from Mexico like we did like a whole, and we did a whole month for Hispanic
Heritage Month from September 15, the 15th of October. And that was really helpful for a lot of
mine to realize like, oh, like Spanish is spoken like all over the world, including the United
States.
It’s not like one of our national languages but it is very much like spoken here. And that was like
helpful. And I definitely have like kids that have been coming with like, I haven’t seen like
Black Lives Matter, sure, but I do like see kids that will come in here remember one of my little
girls had a really great shirt on the other week but like I told her that is, I love it, where it was
like empowering like her as a strong like black female.
But they haven’t like they haven’t shared a lot in class I think it mainly comes out through read
aloud, and we haven’t gotten to our unit on the long journey to freedom that we usually do where
we look at like African kingdoms, and then we look at like slavery and we look at the civil rights
movement and we look at like the Jazz Age and all of these achievements and like African
American history and our social studies curriculum and.
And so I think a lot more of it comes out like when we start that unit, and both in like people
saying things that like, or misconceptions that they have about black people or people like kids
sharing like things that have happened to them.
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I had a white mom get really mad at me when you’re when we did that unit, and like, instead of
sending me an email - You need to stop this. Like, what, because like she was really upset by I
think it was the book Henry’s freedom box, like her son was really like bothered by like him
getting separated from his family. And like she thought it was inappropriate for like a second
grader.
18:00:40 And, like I invited her in for a conference and welcome her to go talk to the principal
she wanted to let her look at the book. I was like, it’s in our school library, like, this is my
personal copy but it is available like in the library and it’s on like recommended list for second
graders like I don’t think that it was developmentally inappropriate.
And, like, I’m not doing any favors like hiding what happened
The only other like one that I remember was we went to an art museum. And the kids got
bookmarks, when they were leaving. And one of the bookmarks had an image on it, that looks
like Che Guevara. And I had a kid’s dad get really mad at me about it he was very offended by it
because of his background his cultural background. And he sent like a really angry email and CC
my principal at the time.
But I wrote back I’m like I apologize, but it was also like literally the docent is handing like
bookmarks to the kids, I didn’t hand them out to the kids like we didn’t look at that work of art
like it was just like what the museum had printed.
Describe how you create equity in the classroom for children from differing racial and
ethnic backgrounds?
Our morning meeting time of just like really building those relationships and celebrating things,
and, and, like, allowing voices to be heard and to come in and to bring things. And like nipping
things in the bud, like when somebody says something inappropriate like letting them know right
away like hey, that’s not okay, here’s why.
Like let’s talk about it. Let’s learn from it so that this doesn’t happen again. And, and like having
them like asking them questions like, Hey, can you think about like how would you feel if so and
so said that to you, or like putting it sometimes phrased in a different way like reversing it or
whatever, to help them to like empathize. Because they’re kind of in that sweet spot
developmentally where they’re starting to like think more not just about themselves but like
about others and like develop that ability more to like take on someone else’s perspective.
And I think like stories again come back into that of like, Oh, we can connect this really well like
there’s them. There’s a chapter book I usually read to them called the hundred dresses and where
there’s like a poor student who like keeps talking with like the kind of popular girls and they’re
like laughing at her about like the hundred dresses she has like all lined up in her closet, but she
always wears the same dress to school and they’re like this is ridiculous and it’s okay to make
fun of her because she’s lying, and eventually they have like this art contest and the girl moves
away, but before she moves away she’s able to turn in her 100 drawings these amazing drawings
of dresses.
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And like the little girls that were making fun of her like one of them particular feels very awful.
And just like, that’s really powerful for then having conversations for the rest of the year of
connecting back to like that story. And like, how did that character feel because there is that like
that gray area of like, it kind of was like, but it wasn’t like that she had 100 dresses and like she
was trying to fit in and there’s like so many things that are coming in.
So I think like, in terms of like economic disparity like that’s that’s been like really helpful for
like recognizing that and helping them to empathize with it, but I think it’s also been helpful for
like conversations that we’re having with in the classroom. Like when they come over to me at
recess with problems they usually have that whoa, hold on. Let’s take some deep breaths. We’re
not shouting like we’re gonna, I’m gonna listen to you both.
We’re going to take turns, and we’re not going to talk over the other person like when they’re
talking you’re just going to listen and I’m just going to listen and like redirect them like when
that isn’t happening like Hey, No, no, you can’t interrupt.
Um, so I feel like we’ve had a lot of training, and we’ve had a lot of experience just with like,
like the our slogan is like where the world lives learns together.
Just like learning about other cultures and having a posture curiosity and like modeling that like
with the kids. We have like a big multicultural celebration usually like for like the whole month
of February or March now we started to kind of move it into March, which I liked a lot because
then it doesn’t like February can still be Black History Month in March, can be multicultural.
Native American groups because that had been in like the fourth-grade curriculum. And I think
that’s been really empowering because there’s lots of Native American tribes here in North
Carolina.
And so like we like focused on one tribe a day and morning meeting, like, and then got to go dig
into like the social studies standards cover kind of all the United States, but it was good to like
start and we started kind of with the, you know, here.

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Jamie Interview Responses
I’ve been teaching for the last 17 years.
I have 18 students; Seven are those are ESL students, which I love. They’re very like they’re
wonderful and they’re very hard working, but you, you find out that several of those students
were not online.
Six of my students are kindergarten level. I probably have three students that are on grade level,
and the others or first – it’s impossible to get them from kindergarten level to be ready for third
grade.
We have a new transition with new principal.
What I’m seeing this year, new admin is great she’s open-door policy she’s very human. Little
bit more human than our last principle which I really liked her newest a friend, I met used to do
things with the couple was fun, but not a shame, shame. She makes a mistake she says I made a
mistake. She says I’m tired. She will tell us, you know, Grace, Grace, take care of yourself.
Then 2 days later, this is what you need to do. This is what you need to do this is what needs to
be done. So that’s stressful.
How does your students ’ performance impact the way you feel about your work?
I had some kids we always write on Monday morning about our weekend, and I had kids three
kids that just did nothing. And they’re capable of doing least I like my family. So that was sort of
stressful because I know where I need to get them, and they’re not there at all.
So, the hardest part is trying to find time to work with those small groups to get them where they
need to be just to be in first grade. So, that impacts how I feel when I go home it’s like, oh, I was
not kind to them, I was like a little too hard on them. I’ve always been known as having very
high expectations.
I have difficulty with some of the behavior situations with, let’s talk about this, why you were
doing this while you’re doing that said I try to teach them.
This is the way that we need to be. This is how we try to write, you know, use the word been, use
the things that you know go back in your journal and use those things so, um, I feel like I’m a
little different and my teaching philosophy then the younger teachers.
Describe a time when you felt emotionally overwhelmed in the execution of your work?
I can get emotionally upset when I feel like I have to fight for on where I should be on my
evaluation.
You know, like, Okay, do I really need to show you all this kind of data and materials to get
where I am, and you know where that’s where I feel like that’s sort of a waste of time.
And I listened to some other teachers that were evaluated by our new vice principal and teacher
that that I’ve worked with the 15 years that is an excellent she’s worked over 20. Her evaluation
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was really low and she had to gather all this material to, to show the data to get where she should
have been and so the emotionally I get upset when I feel like things are inferior
When I see things [like this] that are unfair. I get emotional I get upset and I get angry. And then
when I get angry I cry which you don’t know much but that’s, that’s how sometimes it does, but
with me know sometimes I’ll go home and I go, Oh, I should have done this little different.
And sometimes I can get to sleep at night.
In these moments, do you ever feel like leaving your profession?
I used to love it. Right now, I’m actually very much contemplating early retirement I will be 65
March 2023. That’s when I can get full retirement.
It was extremely difficult with online. I learned a lot of technology, and I had a great team. And
after I got into routine was okay, but it was working from 8am to 10 o’clock (PM).
You know, putting slides on because of because of the diversity in classroom. And so when you
do slides for everything. So, we would have maybe 100 to 120 slides for each day.
How do you plan for your self-care in managing the emotional exhaustion experienced at
work?
You kind of laugh. Watching a hallmark movie. I’ll just go to the mall and walk.
We like to travel husband lifestyle. So if I can go home and plan a weekend trip somewhere. We
probably go somewhere every other week in. And when I do that, I’m not allowed to take my
computer.
My husband has a hard time with me bringing work home.
And so, actually, one day after we listened to the superintendent talk about our valuations were
going to be lower this year was very angry. I’m just listening to and listen to her reasoning,
number one, you know, I don’t I’m not at this level and in the summer I get worse. You know I
am a good teacher [so how did I get worse over the summer] And that day I was just so angry he
just he told me quit. Quit tomorrow. And, you know, I said I’m not going to I’m not going to
these kids. And so, my kids and I wouldn’t do it to my teammates.
What support systems that exist for managing your emotional challenges, if any?
Um, you know, the one that the support systems school they gave us this little sheet that cell
system here can be, but it’s just a piece of paper. You know I look at it, look at.
And I look at another poster I have about, you know, looking at the light and the light. Um, I
have two really good friends that have already retired. But one really good friend that worked
with us she’s a good support system.
There is veteran teacher that is very very smart. She’s my support system, you know she’ll come
in when she’s angry, and they’ll go in and sometimes I’ll leave my kids in the classroom doing
work when they’re doing, go across and she’s a very big support.
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Describe the guidance you would give a new teacher entering the field about self-care in
the workplace?
Um, the young lady across the hall she was she worked with one of our team members last year
as a student, teacher.
She needs to work on classroom management, so she has some really tough kids and she’s one of
those that tries to talk and call some friends and, you know, at times not self-care but at times
I’ve said this is what you really need to do with this child, we’ve all tried to tell them that. I’m so
here.
When one time she’s you know she’s here every Saturday message you know you need to check
the morning off let’s try not to stress yourself, you know, if you don’t know the lesson from page
one to page four that’s okay. Use your book.
I don’t take it home and try to memorize that I’ll skim it in the morning to see what I’m supposed
to teach, but worth experiences easier, because she, you can teach you know you’re doing main it
in detail, you can grab a book, you can teach.
I just went out and bought her a little blanket and puffy socks and a bubble bath. And I said, you
know, kind of need to do this, take it away from yourself on the books away. And because that
works always going to be there.
How do you create plans to determine students ’ exposure to trauma?
There’s a program that I’ve used for several years that they’re actually teaching now, it’s called
second step, and about, you know, responsibility being respectful, caring for each other, being
able to talk band or just say how you feel.
And just finding out, I mean I think with the kids in the hallway they come in early on, sitting in
the hallway. And you can tell a fillip expanse you can tell it they’ve had a bad day, or even like a
bad night or bad morning by just the way they come.
I have one student that’s new. He’s a black male. I don’t think he was in school at all for the first
quarter. He was very very quiet, really worried about getting in trouble. And so I’ve had
conversations morning meetings with kids about, you know, some days you are in a bad mood.
And I’ll tell them someone is not in the best mood today and I’ll tell them that it’s okay to be
angry.
And we talked about how to handle being angry handle being sad on who they can talk to. You
know, we’re going to counselors.
I will spend my time talking about what I saw that they did well.
I’m like one little fella got hit by somebody at recess. And he came to tell me and I think he was
worried that he was going to get in trouble. I’ve told him that when they make mistakes that
normally this is how kind of Come on kids that you know if you, if you’re honest about it lots of
times you’re not gonna get in trouble.
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And I can tell if they’ve got a bad morning and I know I’ve got a little Spanish kid that’s very
quiet got in trouble one day somebody said that he brought a knife, and he had not bought the
knife and now he’s just very like walking on ice.
I can just tell that he probably got in big trouble at home. And he’s just scared that that’s going to
happen and I’ve told the kids before, when they’ve made mistakes and said, You know, I don’t
need to call mommy and daddy.
Do you consider the race or ethnicity of the student when making these determinations?
I try to do our best to have a little fellow little black fella that his grandmother lives with them.
And I know when he comes back it’s going to be very difficult for him. So I look, I think about
what’s going on home for him. I mean there’s been days if he’s fallen asleep.
I’ve had over the years of Hispanic families that will not even come into the classroom, the
classroom and I know they need to be invited in so I make sure that I do those kind of things.
When we teach we teach a unit called long journey to freedom, which is probably my very
favorite unit that we teach, and it talks about how slavery was wrong, and how all these
important people that made changes in life.
I read those books to the children we talk about challenges and how everyone has their own
challenge. And what she did to change what her challenge was and how teachers and someone in
your life, made a difference.
So you know I try to give them hope that if they’re having difficulty.
I get very aggravated when I have some, I would say middle class white kids that brag about a lot
of things
you know, and you have these Hispanic kids or some black kids don’t have, you know, and white
kids do they don’t have fathers. But um, so I make sure, remember one Christmas or white fella
went to Disney World and data, and we were talking about what you did over the holiday. He
was very bragging and [I said] if you continue to be this way your going to lose friends.
One little boy sitting went to McDonalds, and he had a double cheeseburger. [And I said] oh my
gosh, I love double cheeseburgers. Did you have the onions on, or do you take the onions off,
you know to make that his experience as important as the other kids experience.
But I just try to be as consistent as possible. I’ve found that if you were positive should positive
reinforcement.
Describe how you tailor your teaching style to address a students ’ traumatic experiences, if
at all?
I try to be as calm as possible. The very Matter of fact is I feel like a lot of the kids that have a
very issues there, they’re doing those actions to get a reaction from you. So if I, if I don’t give
them the reaction they want, they’re going to end up eventually getting tired of doing that.
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Some of the middle class white boys that like they’re entitled, and sometimes feel like they’re
better than others. So we have discussions about when I do the [black history lesson] we have
discussions about, you know how difficult this was and how brave, Harriet Tubman was brave, a
lot of these people were and what they did, peacefully. Not with fighting, they were using the
words. And we also talked about when we can sit well used to be to sit on the circle, you know,
to look at each other, you know, look at each other.
I don’t feel like kids see color. You know they you know they might see that your stands a little
dark. And I’ll notice it on the playground, they’re all playing together, which I love.
I feel like a lot of the hate that kids have come from home. So I try my best to teach them, you
know, and not one of the things I say a lot is Abraham Lincoln that is saying that if you dislike
somebody will, I don’t say hey to not let my kids say hey, I wasn’t allowed to say hey growing
up, but like rightly so if you dislike someone greatly that you haven’t gotten to know them well
enough that you can always find something that you’d like for them.

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Julian Transcript
This is I’m currently in my 28th year of teaching, and it is my 27th year of teaching kindergarten.
an even mix of African American and white. And then over the next five years after I came to
forest you. We saw a just an explosion we had a 400% increase in our Hispanic population.
We serve a population that is lower socio economic and financial located, many of them are
undocumented, which causes a good bit of fear on their part, which is not a good thing
We have a lot of a lot of students who are refugees, or students who are their parents are here as
postdocs, or, you know, they’re studying at one of the universities nearby but yeah it’s.
So children who are refugees and you know who are experiencing major transition?
Absolutely, yes.
Well, I am I am really different from most of my colleagues because I have 12 years of
experience over the next most experienced teacher in kindergarten or first grade.
So, I, I honestly don’t look at their performance at least their standardized performance with the
same way, or levity that I do their growth. So for me, I’ve always been the person the mindset
that we should see a year’s growth in a year’s time for each. So I don’t put a lot of credence
[standardized scores].
So I really look at the vast range of abilities that my students come in, going back to our students
who are refugees who or who you know came from a Central American or Latin American
country that have never been on school I’ve never had a pen and a pencil that are working to
acquire language and vocabulary and you know I have students who come in that wear winter
coats and August because they’ve never been an air conditioning, they’re freezing.
I like to, you know, push them and challenge them and meet them where they are, but that’s true
of everyone. So I really focus on the growth model of students, as opposed to putting a lot of
weight on their standardized, you know, testing the scores that
Part of the reason I don’t worry about it too is because those students who just came in that have
never been in school, never held a pencil, don’t know their letters and their names, they are going
to make significant growth from August to December.
If you have students that despite your efforts are not in improving or have the potential to
maybe not move forward or advanced, does that have an impact on the way that you feel
about the work or the way you feel about your performance anything like that?
So, I think two things number one, I got my national board certification back in 2005 for the first
time. And that really helped me as a teacher, be more reflective of what I do.
And so, I don’t beat myself up like I used to. And as I said in the first 10 years of teaching. I was
my own worst critic but what it made me do was realized okay what have I done. What is the
reason they’re not making growth, what can I try something different to help them get it. Um,
you know there there’s.
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I try and just work smarter and look at Is there something that I need to do differently.
It’s rarely that there’s something wrong with them, or man they’re not getting it there’s
something wrong with me. We have to look at the whole picture and go through this process of
trying to figure out what exactly is it that they’re not getting and why is it?

In these moments, do you ever feel like leaving your profession?
Well first of all, being a male kindergarten teacher, I think I it advanced me a lot and being able
to have a voice because I felt like I’m, you know, that’s a bit of stick for me that people don’t
want to get rid of the male kindergarten teacher.
But, so it’s afforded me to be able to say you know this is not developmentally appropriate I
mean expecting children to sit down at the end of the year and write two full sentences
independently, about a subject, without help.
I’m, I’m probably an anomaly because I’ve heard every single one of the teachers on our staff,
this year in kindergarten, say that, you know, they might be looking for something else. And
that’s just, that’s unfortunate. It stinks.

What support systems that exist for managing your emotional challenges, if any or is that
something, if you want to do you have to pursue it on your own.
They basically told there is nothing you need to do during this work day, but take care of
yourself. I can’t put that in an email, because I don’t want a paper trail But please, take this
Wednesday and take care of yourselves, do whatever it is that you need to do to make yourself
happy and recharge your batteries, and they’re in, and I feel like that was the first time so we
haven’t been pressed for this year.
And I feel like that was the first time in the last decade, that it wasn’t lip service. Because there’s
been self care but our former principal, he had never been a teacher. So he did not understand,
you know the stress the pressure, the, everything that went with it. And he would say, you know,
I get up early in the morning and go swim or I get up in the early morning take my dog for a long
walk, you should do that too.
We, we have a climate committee this year that plans, you know, first Friday of every month is a
staff outing and went to Frankie’s, you know, arcade and, you know, they have go karts and
game room. So, I don’t [participate], but I have not in the last 10 years.
I’ve always been a family man, it’s really funny because I have a core group. Because of the
turnover in the last decade, I have a core group of friends and so if we own these first Friday
activities. I would be just as likely to go with these people to do whatever we, the whole staff is
doing. And the six or eight of us would stay together and do that so it’s not like I’m going and
meeting, and mingling.
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So it’s not that I’m being anti social or that I don’t want to partake in the, you know, the fun that
people are having, but I just haven’t done that in the last almost two full years.
How do you create plans to determine students ’ exposure to trauma?
So we have a tilt team at school, the trauma informed learning team. And we have had some
professional development on recognizing trauma. We also, when those students come in as
refugees, or as students coming from directly from a, you know, a foreign country or third world
country. We typically we don’t flag them per se, like, you know, make a big deal about the
different but we do make every effort we can to make sure that this teacher that’s receiving those
students is aware that, hey, this, this child is literally coming back then in the United States for 4
days or for a month, and so we do, we do look at that and a lot of times
I had a student, two years ago for two years. And it until we really pressed the parents and just
expressed concern and tried to make sure they understood that love love love love your child will
always be a part of my family, but they are not behaving like the other students in the class, and
it’s problematic, and I’m sure you’re tired of coming to pick them up early, then the parents
finally shared well that absolutely horrific sights and sounds they saw in a Syrian refugee camp
before they came to the United States. So it’s not always for lack of trying to help assimilate.
But the big thing is just, again that team of people that helped to, you know, welcome students
are coming into a precarious situation and trying very hard to wrap as much support around them
as possible, and it’s usually it’s usually really really successful
Unfortunately, we have a transient population at bars few, and a lot of our students. We see too
much, too much trauma that’s not just refugee or immigrant-based trauma and, Yeah, it sucks.
I think it is, l sitting from a white privileged position. There are times that I have to again be
reflective and say, okay, is that I have a student right now who was repeating kindergarten this
year.
Mom, probably has really negative records playing in her head of her school experience. And so
I’m very cognizant of, you know, when I call her to ask, Is she sick and she come into school,
and always try to ask, Can I help, how can I help.
So it’s not necessarily racism, but I know that racism, of last generations. Definitely, and the
racial inequity definitely play a role in that, and recognizing that she because it was never an
important, there’s ever importance placed on go into school for her, or even finishing school for
mom. And now to be in her early 30s, and have five children is, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s tough.
And then to deal with the trauma that she’s dealing with the moms dealing with, again I try and
urge her to bring her child to school so that she knows she’s getting two meals and an education
and socialization to play with.
We see a greater inequity as far as with our African American students who don’t have the who
don’t have the resources to deal with the trauma, and overcome the trauma. And again, that’s
why we recognize it and trying to address it so much at school because our we have two
counselors and our two counselors and our counselor intern are able to address those, you know
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the traumatic experiences that these children have and even the parents have. And, you know,
work hard to assimilate them back into the classroom and keep them functioning.
Describe how you tailor your teaching style to address a students ’ traumatic experiences, if
at all?
Again, they’re uncomfortable conversations, very uncomfortable conversations when you’re
dealing with something that is an equity is based solely on race or when you’re dealing with
someone who, a colleague who is displaying racist language and racist tendencies, and especially
when they first colleague changes their behavior so sickeningly drastically. When administrators
around that, you know, they don’t see it.
And, but to, you know, for instance, I have students, or three years ago, this teacher was in the
classroom. And she only had three African American students, and she had several white
students who were problematic, but on any given day you could walk into the office and one of
those three black children was going to be in the office and she never sends white children [even
though] were multiple instances where a white child should have been sent and wasn’t.
And, but that black child was sent for, you know, the smallest things. And so, things like that,
when in as a colleague stick my neck out and talk to an administrator and just say, I mean you’re,
you’re, allowing that person to to subconsciously alter the thinking of all of the students in that
class who are going to think, well, that behavior means that he goes to the office but not him.
What is your approach to assessing students from different racial backgrounds?
I will say that’s very specifically about kindergarten. We do use a lot of anecdotal notes for to
support, whether students understand something, like if they if I’m teaching math or writing or
whatever, in class, and as I’m walking through the room and this student is answering questions
and participating in class and getting the right answers, and I see that they’re doing that
independently without a lot of help from a student or from me. That’s something I’ll jot down,
that’s something that goes in the memory bank and then when it comes time, even if they don’t
show because again it’s developmentally appropriate to have a student.
So, but as far as formally No, no formal difference that I’m aware of, as far as assessing students
of trauma.
Describe how you create equity in the classroom for children from differing racial and
ethnic backgrounds?
Um, the bottom line is, I love children, and she [the teacher expressing microaggression in the
classroom] does not. You can even, even the most well-behaved children in her classroom, she’s
just, you know, cold, there’s no warmth there’s no affection, and she’s one of the.
If you don’t want to be with children, why are you in this building, and that’s the thing that again
going back to our, our classroom is built on a foundation of love, and the children.
I had a professor, our principal who used to say all the time, you know, children only learned
from those who love them. And that’s not 100% true because you can learn a lot of nonexamples
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of behavior, but you’re going to learn the things that you want to learn and you need to learn the
positive lessons that will stick with you when you know you’re loved and you know you’re safe
and know. And so I think that’s the big difference is that, and I can see, and I’ll be honestly it
does rather do it a little

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Kelly
So, I have taught for 20 years this is the I’m halfway through my 20th year.
I am teaching first grade classroom this year to 16 students.
I have three four white students this year, two mixed race children, five Hispanic and white one
is African American and white, I have one Chinese girl, I have one boy from India.
How does your students ’ performance impact the way you feel about your work?
These are my babies. And I adore them and I will do anything for them. I’ve always been very
connected to the families of my students. I text often I email, send photos back and forth. I feel
like it’s really important to do that especially at such a young age to foster the communication
between home and school, and you know some years is better than others with some kiddos.
I feel like I have an even closer bond, this year with my kids because I was with them last year
through the pandemic and saw them in their homes, all year.
If it was not for them yeah sure I wouldn’t be here I guess if it wasn’t for my bond with the kids,
I won’t just say these kids have kids from years past that I see every year in the hallways all the
time.
It wasn’t for such a strong bond, I will not be teaching, more money for the headache or the
stress it takes on your body.
Describe a time when you felt emotionally overwhelmed in the execution of your work?
Yeah. Um, I am very close to one of my students who is battling homelessness. And I throughout
the summer, talked to the mom by text or phone.
They were in a homeless shelter very good one for about 6 months trying to escape a man.
And what happened is started stalking this family when they finally got into stable housing into
an apartment, and the mom picked up the kids, and left, and had gone without her meds for
several days, mom needs 4 months for mental issues I’m not exactly sure what.
And she called me and said I need you to come pick up my kids right now. I’m not safe, and I
can’t take care of my kids, and I was like, oh, like I so wanted to just jump up and go grab them
and take care of them and take care of her, but I knew that I would get legally and a lot of trouble
at work for doing that and it was completely overwhelming telling her like I cannot do that
knowing she had nobody else to turn to. And it was awful. It was awful.
In these moments, do you ever feel like leaving your profession?
Um, I mean I definitely think about it from time to time. It’s never the kids or situations like that
that want to make me leave, it’s the paperwork, it’s admin is having a boss that I don’t agree
with or the time constraints, it never has to do with the kids, or behavior.
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How do you plan for your self-care in managing the emotional exhaustion experienced at
work?
I am horrible at this, I don’t.
I mean it’s it’s just the craziest that’s ever been as I’m sure you know right now with everything
going on.
It’s the worst it’s ever been in 20 years. And with my own children I’m often not getting home
from games and events and things until almost eight o’clock at night, and then I’m scrambling to
throw dinner together. And then I’m trying to help them [my children] with homework and then
I’m very often, up to one or two in the morning so like, there is no self. For me, I mean like this
self-care that a few days this week I’ve been like forget the makeup like I need 5 extra minutes
of sleep, and like that’s not me to be like that but I’m like, I can’t do this I’m throwing my hair
back and no makeup and just survive hanging on by.
I’ve even canceled my own counseling sessions that I was going to every two weeks to kind of
help because I literally don’t have the time.
How does your administration create support systems for managing your emotional
challenges at work?
Now, so we have new admin this year, I mean they’ve been a principal moved up from AP so
we’ve worked with her before, and we have one of our assistant principals and then we have a
new one so it’s kind of a new team to us and so we’re also learning how to do things differently
and figure things out but they are all completely overwhelmed just as much as we are.
And like every single person in the building is like just hanging on by a thread. we lost tons of
people throughout the pandemic. And so, there’s so many people who don’t know what this is
about and how to do it and it’s hard.
It’s really hard, and more meetings for all of us because brand new people don’t have to serve on
committees or go to meetings, the same way that veteran, people do.
So on our team. I’m on a team of seven, there’s only two of us are able to put all the meetings
and everything, so it’s a lot.
Do you and the other season teachers, or even newer teachers do you create like your own
ad hoc sort of support systems or, or how do you lean into each other for, for support?
I’m texting about how crazy it is are sending each other stupid pictures or means like I mean this
is just simply right like you can’t make this up, I mean it’s I don’t even know it’s like literally
just like one day after another day and just kind of fumbling through right now it’s, it’s pretty
awful lot of the kids it’s great when the door shuts and I just have the kids but it’s ridiculous.
The amount of testing and documentation and paperwork and communication I mean it’s it’s like
three times what we’ve ever had to do before [the pandemic]
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I mean even like something as silly as our schedule. This year, we are supposed to teach math for
I’m sorry. La for me at this number right 150 minutes a day, our schedule is only 75 minutes, so
we still have to cover the same amount of material, and that and keep up, and not only get on
grade level but like make catch up.
Well that’s not possible and that 75 minutes of LA is broken up into three chunks, which is not
very effective. So, part of that is the pandemic. Part of it is we have to new curriculum this year
on top of all these new people and all these trainings and new admin and it’s like just as
firestorm of like everything happening at the same time.
And it’s, you know, making or breaking people as we speak right or just leaving saying I’m not
doing it and I can’t blame them like I you know my assistant is supposed to be my assistant
halftime and she’s a really good friend and I adore her but the way, being pulled constantly, I
would not do that for the money and as her friends, and like leave. Go, go do something else but
as a professional, hard, hard.
Describe the guidance you would give a new teacher entering the field about self-care in the
workplace?
Um, I don’t know. I’ve always told them that as a teacher, I’ve never had great balance in my
life, and to kind of accept that, that I want to care but like I could never be a good wife, a good
mother, good at home and taking care of the home front and a good teacher all the time, and take
care of myself.
There are times where I’m really selling as a teacher and I can hold it together and I mean, I am
just hitting it out of the park at school, but home is falling apart in some way or the other or my
falling apart like I’ve never been able to make it all work.
I’ve never seen anybody who was a successful teacher who did not take work home.
Typically, lately I spend anywhere between 75 to 78, hours a week on school and coming on
Saturdays I’m working many hours every night.
It shouldn’t have to be that, but I have to say that not taken work, and those teachers that I see is
great teachers are always people who it extends beyond the classroom.
I’m one of my frustrations right now and I’m grateful for the new people that we have because,
for God’s sakes number one we need bodies here we don’t have enough bodies I mean our
principal is doing lunch coverage and helping with trash stuff and helping with here I mean it’s
it’s crazy like everybody’s stressed right now.
And I feel like a lot of younger people have come into the job and to work and have different
expectations and say no, I’m not going to put up with that. I’m not taking work home. I’m not
going to those not doing all this. And it leaves the rest of us like this is how it is like take it or
leave it.
How do you create plans to determine students ’ exposure to trauma?
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I think a lot of it is intuitive truly like experience and intuitive and knowing what’s typical and
not typical listening. I have some kids that will just start opening up and you got to know when
to listen instead of telling them to be quiet all the time, I think, you know, eating lunch with my
kids, and getting time to talk with them or spending that time with them and not just having them
do their thing but listening, paying attention to what they’re drawing, how they play in the center
so I still do developmental centers because I want to see how do they play How do they interact
with other kids, what kind of scenarios are they setting up.
Um, I also have good communication with my parents and so if somebody all of a sudden stop
communicating or stops returning text then I start to dig deeper and see what’s going on. I also
will ask my kids a lot of times you know which had for dinner last night Oh that sounds good.
Lots of questions, but a lot of listening and watching is the biggest thing.
So, if I ’m hearing you correctly. You ’re, it is your experience and your knowledge over the
years of serving children that helps you to develop these systems but they ’re not necessarily
district driven or part of the curriculum.
Correct.
Do you consider the race or ethnicity of the student when making these determinations?
No, I don’t think. No. no, cuz man there’s all kinds of trauma.
I can’t think of how race would impact that I have to homeless students right now, what is mixed
race was, African American, but I don’t think that the race has anything to do with how that
would impact me or change anything I would do.
Describe how you tailor your teaching style to address a students ’ traumatic experiences, if
at all?
So, sometimes it’s about proximity, like, I’ve, one of my little ones right now like just wants to
be able to talk and have some attention just focused on him and he’s happy to just come sit right
next to me and work with me, and that’s fine if that’s what he wants and I can do that or I can
give them time I have one little one who wants to sit and spend time reading with me in the
morning his kids are coming. Okay, we can sit and read a book because that that gains me the
ability to get a little closer and to have her buy in a little bit more when she sees that I’m willing
to spend time and take care of her and do the things that she needs.
So it’s kind of a lot of bargaining without the kids really knowing what I’m doing. Sometimes
there are topics that maybe I alter or certain books that I will read that has certain kids or
characters going through things that I might make sure that will do that and we talked about it a
little bit more.
Sometimes there are different playground things happening and I might make sure to do a lesson
on that like we had an incident the other day where one little girl spent, she has physical
challenges she doesn’t have four arms but she has hands so like everything fine motor is very
difficult for her.
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And she had spent 2 days working on a birthday card for another little girl in the class. The other
little girls usually great they’re usually friends gave the card to her and the little girl said Why
did you draw me Brown, and was devastated.
Both girls were in tears sobbing both families got involved both families were like oh my gosh
what happened to ruin their friendship.
You know, it just kind of hit the other one funny we realized there were some bigger issues
going on so like I’ve made more of an attempt to have. Make sure kids know like our art center
that has much multicultural colors and crayons like you’re able to use those guys those aren’t just
the art center like we can use those or it doesn’t you know we see people different way and that
doesn’t change who we are inside and just kind of reading more books about it.
So sometimes things will just come up that it’s like yeah we need to address that as a class in
front of everybody.
I ’m curious, the child that was received the card what was her race?
She is half Hispanic and half white, and it really caught me off guard because I’m especially
close to this family and spend time with them outside of school.
It completely floored me. Because this child usually loves that she looks like her aunt and not
like her mom, and the family does talk about race and how they all look a little different and
that’s okay so it really kind of threw us all, for a loop that this was so upsetting to her, but also
showed us that she had some big feelings about this that needed to be discussed so that’s kind of
an ongoing thing right now. And the other little girl just felt horrible, but that’s the color that I
see you and so, you know, that was, that.
Sure. So I mean it’s interesting a disabled child drew a picture for a mixed child and had this
reaction it’s pretty fascinating, the disabled child, her she was white.
So [the other girl] she said because life is hard for brown people, and we need to talk about that.
What sorts of things have you guys been talking about in the classroom around that after that
happened or just with her?
Just kind of pointing out that we’re all different and it’s okay and
I’m trying to think like one of the big things as she started working with a counselor at school,
who’s also been talking to mom about like, just because we think that kids are okay with things
doesn’t mean that they are.
It had come up because she had heard about slavery somewhere and seeing that brown people
will use a slave so she was afraid of she was seen as brown and she will be a slave, somebody so
that’s kind of where it came up.
We haven’t talked about slavery specifically in here but I like I’m very aware that this is
something that is going to come up and so we’ve talked about how yeah like people were treated
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differently based on their skin color and so her point is but they still are sometimes I’m like yeah,
that’s hard like sometimes life stinks and things do happen.
Yeah, it certainly is so interesting, they’re so young. I mean that’s like so little, I know and they
really haven’t been out in the world very much because it’s covered and everything so it’s very
interesting.
Yeah. Yes. So, how does I mean that that’s a really good example for my next question but
maybe we can expand on it a little bit but how students individual traumatic experiences
manifest in behavioral challenges in the classroom.
How does a student ’s individual traumatic experiences manifest in behavioral challenges in
the classroom?
Yeah, I mean I definitely can see like a parent who seems completely overwhelmed and stressed
out I’m seeing that child seems to be kind of like crying for attention and constantly like okay
wait, I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do and she talks out loud constantly and this is a
new thing for her.
And it’s like okay so wait I got my name on the paper and then I’m going to write my day and
then we don’t have to do so what did you do it and it’s constant and it drives me crazy but I’m
sure that like Mom’s going through a tough time right now and has some major anxiety going on
and so I’m seeing it with her little one now in school.
There are two little siblings in the home, and when we’re on zoom you know the little ones were
kind of like running around everywhere. And I realized that she really wasn’t super present when
this child was doing school every day, and I think it’s really hard for her to focus on him she
keeps saying I’m going to do better.
I’m going to do better. I’m like, it’s okay. But the student comes in, often late and feels frazzled
and he’s super super bright super bright and it really like stresses them out.
And so it’s hard to get him like back on track with your okay I know you’re late, we can catch up
and very very stressed about what he has missed each day and apologizing for mom, making him
late. So I’m seeing it with him.
Does this differ based on students ’ race and ethnicity?
So this is a white student and trying to think like both parents are very highly educated and really
make a big deal about how important school is and have clearly done tons of academic work
with their child before he ever started kindergarten.
Um, but I just like looking at the surface it feels like she should have the tools to be able to do
this like they have stable housing finances aren’t aren’t an issue, she has her own transportation,
like, they can read language is not an issue, you know, and it’s like, what is happening here.
And so I’ve definitely been concerned that perhaps there’s more going on behind the scenes. So
I’ve just kind of heard dad talking in the background, and I’m just kind of concerned about what
mom and dad’s relationship is at home behind closed doors and feeling like poor mom is trying
174

to do everything without any support and is really getting overwhelmed. Something’s not right.
So I’m just kind of watching carefully.
When they ask you the race that that makes me feel differently but just looking at like the
resources they have available to them it’s like this should not be this difficult to you have, I
mean, would you have different expectations, if the parent did not have those resources available
to them.
Yeah, I would, um, because, like I’ve got several kids with no car. So if they’re coming late to
school it’s like, Okay, I get it, or one of my homeless children and that we were having trouble
with the buses tried to get to him and the bus was coming 2 hours before school and the child
was exhausted and the mom was trying to get your work schedule like I get that like that makes
sense to me and they didn’t have transportation. Okay, I get it.
But on the surface with a family who seemingly has everything. Something else isn’t right and I
can’t figure out what it is.
Describe the support you have received from your administration that has helped you
manage behavioral challenges in your classroom?
No, you know, because that’s so little of a problem that’s nothing they wouldn’t even hear about
from me or know about I mean that is such a small issue right now. Something I see, and I see
the kid dealing with it but nothing.
They know very little about very few kids just because of the amount of things that they’re
dealing with right now. So, it if it would have to be something extremely substantial, are you to
receive administrative support like you haven’t even heard anything about my homeless child
and the parents, asking me to come get them that wasn’t even the kind of thing I would ever talk
to them about what would you talk to them about
I mean they’re just running all over and like I said I mean they’re truly like, hoping with
cafeteria they’re helping cover classes, it’s not like they’re just not doing anything.
I might talk to them about severe behaviors I’m trying to think I have one I had a little boy who
was in appropriately touching a little girl in the classroom, that when they found out about. And
something probably that could become a legal issue probably for me to talk to them about it.
I mean, the whole school is below grade level everybody’s in crisis mode everybody’s
scrambling so like that’s not a big deal to them, you know, I see.
But it’s not getting attention because it’s not like the crisis.
I understand, right, I get it. It seems like everything is a crisis. Yes. Right now, we talked about
launching the whole school right now and it’s like ours where they need to go.
What is your approach to assessing students from different racial backgrounds?
Only if they have a 504 plan or an IEP.
175

Describe how you create equity in the classroom for children from differing racial and
ethnic backgrounds?
We do a lot of work in our school around the spring which is kind of silly to say it’s a specific
time.
Well, we have a whole class on it for like a month.
Now we have our little girl with physical challenges. Well, we have few steps tools around the
room for her to be able to reach or she uses the fat pencils instead of the other ones and she has
cups with crayons and markers on her desk rather than inside. She can’t reach all the way to the
back of her desk.
We have one kiddo, who is on the spectrum, and he is our calendar manager. And so our
schedule manager so he moves a magnet with each subject that we do for the entire class that’s
his job to tell everybody what we’re moving into because it just kind of helps him.
So I have a lot of kids that we have certain things that we do just for them and I’ve told the kids
that’s what they need to feel better at school and to help them focus and be able to learn.
Some kids always need help finding a page some things like to be on the carpet.
Um, I guess I just get so frustrated like from the top down, it’s always like teachers need to
practice self care self care, and it just like feels like one more thing to do, rather than like really
looking at what the problem is, I don’t know what the fix is. Maybe more people in the building
but there’s a shortage all over the country right now so like what do you do when you’re in the
midst of it, because we’re told that basically everything is important and nothing can go.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Teachers come to their work in the classroom with socially generated values, beliefs, and attitudes, supporting or limiting their ability to create equitable learning experiences. Teachers’ beliefs and practices may include colorblind ideology that interacts with diverse students’ world views. If those students’ experiences include racial-socialization trauma, a teacher practicing colorblind ideology may lack the ability to recognize, name, and address such trauma. Moreover, teachers’ exposure to diverse students’ unaddressed primary trauma can lead to secondary trauma, an experience associated with compassion fatigue. This study, grounded in the Bandura (2005) Social Cognitive Theory, uses a qualitative interview approach to collect data from teachers serving predominantly historically minoritized student populations. This dissertation explores the assumed influence of intersecting racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology on teachers’ compassion fatigue. The study validates racial-socialization trauma and colorblind ideology; however, it could not definitively connect these factors to teacher compassion fatigue. Instead, the study identified a culture of fatigue and assumes all three identified factors reduce teacher motivation and student performance. Three elemental themes emerged: a lack of resources and support systems, individual teacher capacity, and fatigue culture. This dissertation provides recommendations for each identified theme. The research contributes to an evolving body of research suggesting that teachers experience compassion fatigue like other helping industries such as social workers, first responders, and therapists. This dissertation digs deeper into this body of research, exploring if preexisting and juxtaposed forces such as colorblind ideology and racial-socialization trauma clash in the classroom, exacerbating teacher compassion fatigue.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Del-Zio, Desiree Nicole (author)

Core Title Teacher compassion fatigue in predominantly BIPOC classrooms - a qualitative study

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Degree Conferral Date 2022-05

Publication Date 05/02/2022

Defense Date 04/08/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag colorblind ideology,colorblindness,community of practice,compassion fatigue,fatigue culture,individual teacher capacity,OAI-PMH Harvest,race trauma,race-based social-emotional assessment,racial socialization trauma,social-emotional assessment,teacher compassion fatigue,teacher professional development

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Hyde, Corinne (committee chair), Ho, Mary (committee member), Pascarella, John (committee member)

Creator Email ddelzio1@gmail.com,delzio@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111160248

Unique identifier UC111160248

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Del-Zio, Desiree Nicole

Type texts

Source 20220502-usctheses-batch-936 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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