Excerpt:

“… Energy and passion are infectious. Social-emotional contagion in the classroom is a demonstrated phenomenon, one that I’ve explored in my work and been fascinated by for years. It’s variously been called affective crossover, emotional transmission, or spirals of enthusiasm and engagement. Whichever label you prefer, it indicates a contagious quality to emotions in the classroom. Instructors and students synchronize their positive and negative emotions as well as their degree of engagement in the material.

…So far, most of the research on how professors influence students’ mental health has focused on intentional interventions — activities explicitly designed to teach students about well-being or to practice positive psychology in the classroom. What I’m arguing is that our potential influence goes well beyond such explicit activities. In my new book, Mind Over Monsters: Supporting Youth Mental Health With Compassionate Challenge, I consult research, talk to students, and interview various experts to make the argument that, as teachers, we may have an unprecedented opportunity to regularly shape and support the well-being and mental health of our students.The best evidence we have suggests that well-being consists of a pleasant brew of positive emotions, a sense of meaning and purpose, a general feeling of life satisfaction, and an ability to pursue self-defined goals. All of those elements are at work in a well-run course led by an enthusiastic and committed instructor. A good course generates interest and excitement, joy and pride in learning and succeeding, social connections with peers and instructors, and purpose and competence emerging out of class activities.

…This semester I participated in a “fireside chat” with the remarkable teacher and scholar Eugenia Knight, an associate professor at Simmons University, where we both work. She has decades of experience as a clinical social worker and teaches in our social-work department. The topic of the campus chat — uniting my research and Eugenia’s clinical expertise — was how to support both student and faculty mental health. Something she said hasn’t stopped reverberating in my brain since the chat because it perfectly encapsulates what I hope to convey here: “For our students to be well, they need us to be well.”

A joyful (and sustainable) path forward. The trouble is that these are anxious and disheartening times for faculty members. Pandemic overwork and new challenges like ChatGPT are just the half of it. Tenure, academic freedom, support for equity and inclusion, and other cornerstones of academic life are also in the crossfire. Add in all of the work that goes into providing student-centered experiences in the classroom, and the effort to better support their mental health can end up taking a toll on ours. This kind of teaching often means extra time and emotional labor on the part of an already-burnt-out work force. What to do?

… One such practice, I believe, is to cultivate mutual joy in learning environments — be it a physical or online classroom. Yes, much about the current landscape of higher education (and the broader world in which it operates) does not naturally invoke joy, but we can foster it in sustainable ways. “Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy,” writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in her luminous best-selling book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. “I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”

Here, then, as the academic year ends, are some ideas for rekindling the joy of teaching this summer.

First, get some rest.

Personalize your course policies and syllabi to reflect your values.

• When someone compliments your teaching, what is it you most hope they’ll say?
• If you’re more of a glass-half-empty sort, what are your teaching pet peeves? When you see a fellow instructor doing something in class that gets stuck in your craw, what is it?

Create assignments that you get some measure of satisfaction in evaluating.

Build moments of excitement, social interaction, and sustainability into your fall courses — for you and your students.