The past few years have seen countless new developments in the education space, with edtech startups leveraging AR, VR, and AI into new products, and with myriad initiatives for learning loss recovery and online learning. But the key to any new tool or approach, the essential connector that brings it to life and brings meaning to learners, is of course educators.
Good teachers build relationships with their students that are the necessary foundation for learning. They facilitate learning experiences that are tailored to each individual student’s needs, and they ensure that students are supported and successful. So when we look at the education landscape, we cannot only discuss innovative tools and interventions. We must also pay close attention to the experiences of teachers, who are the lifeblood of any school.
Unfortunately, this past year more than ever, it has been plain to see that teachers are in crisis. They are overworked and underappreciated, and there are no imminent improvements on the horizon. This matters not only because teachers deserve to feel fulfilled in their profession, but also because teacher well-being is inextricably linked to student well-being. When teachers are stressed and demoralized, they struggle to build strong relationships and manage the needs of all students, affecting the learning environment.
A profession in peril
The teacher experience of 2022 can be summed up in one word: challenging. Teachers across the country have shared their struggles, which run the gamut from managing student behavior to a lack of classroom resources, to increased expectations from administrators.
In a survey of over 1,700 K-12 teachers conducted by Kahoot!, we see that student behavior is one of the top issues faced in classrooms, with teachers describing students being disengaged and lacking social emotional and self-regulation skills due to the quarantine and remote learning period of the pandemic. A panel at the Kahoot! EDU Meetup in March also discussed issues around a lack of administrative support, with teachers’ workloads becoming unmanageable and not having time for planning, parent meetings, and all that goes into teaching outside of class time.
As teacher trainer Matt Miller describes it, teachers have had so much added to their plates during the pandemic, but now that we’re coming out of the crisis, there has been no discussion of what to take off. Going back to teaching in-person implies that things should feel more normal, but he points out that no one has had the time or space to really process all that happened and the stress teachers have been through. This is a tough layer to add on top of an already demanding and often thankless job.
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Teacher influencer Nick Ferroni echoes some of these concerns. He observes that after spending so much time at home and increasing time with social media, students are feeling unmotivated in school and have missed out on learning to be respectful to their teachers and peers. Teachers try to support students in these challenges but are often the ones blamed for students’ difficulties, with parents and others demanding teachers be more engaging and provide more personalized instruction to every student.
Ferroni believes that much of the fun and fulfillment has gone out of teaching, which is why we will continue to see many skilled, experienced teachers choosing to leave the classroom unless schools can better support them and recognize them as the talented professionals they are.
New research is also showing that teacher well-being is at its lowest level in 50 years, across numerous measures such as funding, working conditions, accountability, and autonomy. While the pandemic did exacerbate many of the issues, the decline started about a decade ago, putting teachers in a tough position even going into the pandemic.
So what’s behind teacher burnout?
At a societal level, there is a fundamental lack of appreciation and respect for teachers, and this is often replicated with administrators and parents. Teachers don’t feel respected as experts in their field and aren’t given the autonomy to practice their craft, which leads to low morale and mental health issues. Often the solutions offered are surface-level and don’t address the heart of the issues.
On an individual level, teachers have been in emergency response mode for multiple school years now, and they don’t have the conditions needed to innovate and thrive. Education consultant Mandy Froehlich explains that teachers have been in survival mode, trying to adapt to ever-changing teaching formats. In this state, humans cannot effectively innovate and use divergent thinking to find creative solutions, but teachers have been asked to do this anyway, leading to burnout.
Mandy presents a hierarchy of needs for divergent thinking—including professional learning opportunities, an empowered mindset, effective leadership, and a nurturing school culture. With so much of this missing, Mandy is seeing trauma responses in teachers who are trying to do it all for their students, but no one in schools who is trained in how to heal that trauma in a human-centered way. Throughout 2022 she observed many teachers internalizing the pain of the last couple of years, manifesting in frustration and despair about their jobs.
4 ways schools can ring in the year of the teacher
While 2022 left us with serious challenges, we can look to 2023 with some optimism about how the situation could be improved. These broad strokes paint the picture of where change needs to happen:
- Teachers need space to heal, and to break the pattern of struggle. Teaching has always been an under-resourced, underappreciated profession, and teachers are used to seeing their jobs as a constant struggle. Mandy Froehlich believes that this perception needs to change in order for teachers to heal and feel empowered.
- Teachers need to reconnect with their jobs emotionally. Humans deserve to feel connected to their purpose and fulfilled by what they do. This doesn’t mean any job will be perfect, but teachers need to feel satisfaction in the parts of their job that are most meaningful—most often, building relationships and supporting students to succeed.
- Teachers need to be trusted and respected. Teachers are experts in their field and have been hired for that reason, but education systems often don’t provide the recognition they deserve or the autonomy they need to do their best work.
- Teachers need opportunities to play. Playful teaching allows teachers to experiment with new methods, adjust their teaching as they go, and find joy in their work again. This approach can combat low morale and improve learning experiences for students.
Change in these areas needs to come from various stakeholders at various levels, but with a coordinated holistic approach we can create an environment where teachers are fulfilled by reconnecting with their passion for teaching, and where students are therefore also supported and thriving.
