Setting Boundaries

It is no surprise that when asked to select topics they would like to learn more about, participants often request boundaries. Educators tend to be givers, and they care deeply about instructional efficacy and making an impact on students’ lives. Unfortunately, this can lead to neglecting personal needs and can contribute to burnout.¹

In the boundaries session, participants start by building awareness of their current work-related boundaries. They learn about four common types of people in workplaces—takers, matchers, self-protective givers, and selfless (boundaryless) givers—and how educators who are selfless givers end up with higher burnout and lower student achievement.² Participants then reflect on where they tend to fall on this spectrum and how their identity, including their situational power and context, informs their default stance.

Next, Educators Thriving introduces a research-based framework for boundary setting that suggests people tend to fall on a spectrum from highly segmented to highly integrated workers.³ Segmented workers have very clear boundaries between their professional and personal lives; integrated workers have more fluidity and less contrast between personal and professional roles. The research is clear that neither integrating nor segmenting is inherently better; what matters is “the interaction between the individual and the workplace.”⁴ Participants then take a self-assessment to identify the extent to which they segment or integrate. After reviewing the self-assessment, they reflect on the extent to which their current (enacted) boundaries reflect their aspirational (preferred) boundaries. For many, this is an “aha” moment that their current reality is not enabling long-term sustainability.

Moving toward intended action, Educators Thriving shares framing inspired by the book The Power of a Positive No.⁵ Educators reflect on which priorities related to well-being domains (physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual) they want to protect and what they need to say “no” to in order to say “yes” to their personal priorities. For example, an educator prioritizing time with family may turn down an afterschool volunteer event in order to say “yes” to attending their child’s soccer game. Another educator who wants to complete a master’s degree may decline serving on their school’s instructional leadership team for a year.

To wrap up, educators learn about the benefits of “micro-transitions” between personal and professional roles.⁶ Too often, we come home ruminating on the day’s tasks and do not feel done. Micro-transitions can help ease the exit from one role (leader, educator) to another (friend, parent, spouse, caretaker, etc.). Small “rites of transition” can be as simple as meditating for five minutes, listening to a soundtrack for the drive home, riding a bike to and from work, or calling a friend—something to signal leaving work and preparing to enter a new role. Participants identify ways they can build micro-transitions into their day to create mental and physical boundaries between roles.

As an application activity after the session, participants clarify the boundaries they want to set, make a plan, try it out, and reflect on how it went. They are also given resources to read more research related to boundaries.

Endnotes

1. P. Jennings and M. Greenberg, “The Prosocial Classroom: Teacher Social and Emotional Competence in Relation to Student and Classroom Outcomes,” Review of Educational Research 79, no. 1 (March 2009): 491–525.

2. A. Grant and R. Rebele, “Beat Generosity Burnout,” Harvard Business Review, January 23, 2017, hbr.org/2017/01/beat-generosity-burnout.

3. B. Ashforth, G. Kreiner, and M. Fugate, “All in a Day’s Work: Boundaries and Micro Role Transitions,” Academy of Management Review 25, no. 3 (July 2000): 472–91.

4. G. Kreiner, “Consequences of Work-Home Segmentation or Integration: A Person-Environment Fit Perspective,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 27, no. 4 (2006): 485–507.

5. W. Ury, The Power of a Positive No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship—and Still Say No (New York: Bantam, 2007).

6. Ashforth, Kreiner, and Fugate, “All in a Day’s Work.”

[Photo courtesy of ISD 624]