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The early childhood education teacher workforce is consistently relied upon to bolster children's academic and socioemotional development in preparation for kindergarten and long-term outcomes. This is especially true of children who, historically overlooked and marginalized, are labeled "at risk." While research has focused on pervasive stressors as obstacles to these classroom professionals (e.g., teacher/teaching stress, curricular mandates, quality assessments, COVID-19), there is less research on stress in relation to the formation of teacher identity; specifically, how stress contributes to and detracts from the formation of a teacher's micro-identity, and how negative impacts of stress to the micro-identity may contribute to teachers' decisions to leave the field. Although once considered to be one of the fastest growing industries, The Great Resignation, as it has come to be known, estimates up to 25–30% of the workforce leave annually. To better understand the choices teachers make to leave the profession, the current study examined the influence of stress on teachers' microidentity by centering the voices of six Head Start teachers. Implementing a qualitative design, this investigation asked (a) Who are the Head Start teachers in the workforce today? (b) What are the particular stressors with which they contend? (c) How does the micro-identity of these teachers change as a result of stress, and what are the potential choices that follow? Results and findings indicated that Head Start teachers experience (1) stress as reality, (2) stress-shaped identities, and (3) identity-mediated choice. Implications and insights are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detrimental circumstances (e.g., poverty, homelessness) may affect parents, parenting, and children. These circumstances may lead to children being labeled "at risk" for school failure. To ameliorate this risk, more school and school earlier (e.g., Head Start) is offered. To improve child outcomes, Head Start teachers are expected to bolster children?s academic readiness in a manner that is beneficially warm, circulating warmth in their classrooms to sustain positive teacher-child relationships and the positive climate of the classroom. The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta et al., 2008) is one tool by which these domains of warmth are assessed. There are, however, significant personal and professional stressors with which Head Start teachers contend which the CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008) does not consider in its scoring methods. Uplifting the voices of six Head Start teachers, the present study implemented individual and focus group interviews during the summer and fall months of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, asking (a) What were the stories, histories, and lived experiences of these Head Start teachers with regard to stress and warmth in a time of crisis? and (b) How did these teachers understand and approach the CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008) and its measures of their warmth? Data demonstrated Head Start teachers engaged in a type of performativity to 1) mask their stress, potentially worsening their levels of stress in order to maintain warmth for their students' sake, and 2) outwit the prescribed CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008) observations. Implications and insights are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching has been identified as the most stressful profession in the human service industry (Greenberg in Teacher stress and heal the effects on teachers, students, and schools, Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 2016). Elevated teacher stress not only affects the teacher's well-being and likelihood of burnout, but also the classroom climate of young children. The purpose of the present study was to assess whether mindfulness practices can increase positive classroom climate and decrease perceived stress in early childhood teachers. Participating teachers were selected based on results of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS, Cohen in Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24:285–396, 1983). Data were collected on the positive and negative climate objectives from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta in Classroom assessment scoring system (CLASS) manual, pre-K, Paul H. Brookes Pub. Co., Baltimore, 2008), which were operationally defined. The Mindfulness Practices Intervention included yoga poses, intentional breathing, and guided mediation (Harris in Mindfulness 7:143–154, 2015), which were implemented within the school day during arrival, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, and after work in the evening. Perceived Stress Scale scores decreased for two of the participating teachers; all three teachers' increased positive climate and decreased negative climate. Results of the current study suggest that this low-cost, low labor-intensive intervention was effective in improving classroom conditions for both teachers and young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares developmental kindergartens of the past to current academic kindergartens through the voices of kindergarten teachers who taught in both types. Data were obtained from interviews of ten public school kindergarten teachers from California with experience in kindergarten ranging 18–34 years (M = 24). Teachers indicated that many of their students succeed in an academic program; however, students who are not competent in oral language when they enter kindergarten often struggle during kindergarten and beyond. Teachers described a rushed and stressful curriculum for both themselves and their students. Most participants believed that the English Language Arts Standards were too numerous to master, except by their most ready students. They believed that large classes, excessive testing, a short day, and lack of a partner teacher inhibit the achievement of unprepared students. It was generally agreed that the prior kindergarten structure, a transition from home to school, had advantages for the well-rounded development of young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]