Description

Public school educators spend a significant amount
of time in the life of a child, and in some cases,
their daily contact may even exceed that of the
primary caregiver. As families continue to be
besieged by financial challenges, mental and
physical health issues, and intrapersonal and
interpersonal difficulties, their distress and
dysfunction will continue to spill over into the
school system. Educators will be challenged to
maintain a healthy degree of engagement with
students, students families, and colleagues. This
study was undertaken to explore the concept of a
continuum of career engagement in the field of
education. Assessed levels of career satisfaction,
burnout, and compassion fatigue served as respective
indicators of healthy career engagement,
disengagement, and overengagement. Although educator
burnout has been studied quite extensively, research
examining primary and secondary trauma in the lives
of school personnel has been conspicuously absent.
This study sought to determine whether today s
educators are burning out or burning up, with the
latter resulting from ''flying too close to the
flame''.