In April 2015, Steven C. Ward (2015) of Newsweek sought to answer the question, “Why has teacher morale plummeted?” In his article, he offers a variety of diverse and insightful explanations, ranging from teachers’ “lost control of curricula” and the embrace of “edu-fashions” claiming to be one-size-fits-all solutions (for example, competency-based education, flipped classrooms, and the charter school movement) to “enrollment declining in teaching programs” (Ward, 2015). And as 2012 Connecticut Teacher of the Year David Bosso (2017) writes, “For a variety of reasons, but most certainly due to the increased demands of the evolving educational landscape, teachers often experience a discrepancy between the moral and affective purposes of their work and the external forces that affect it.”
All these explanations have an element of truth to them. The constancy of policy changes is disorienting and frankly demoralizing—another common observation of new retirees. The frequency with which teachers are asked to absorb and master new trends (in technology, instruction, or social experimentation) is exhausting. In 2012, MetLife released a study titled The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, and the study’s executive summary and major findings sections both support the contention that teachers are battling the strains of endless reform yet are receiving a woeful lack of support (MetLife, 2012). Some disheartening highlights from this study’s surveys, conducted in 2011, reveal the following (MetLife, 2012).
Clearly, classroom teachers are having to make do with insufficient materials while educating more and more students, many of whom are struggling outside school and may require extra care at school. Add all these factors together, and teaching in the 21st century has a psychological toll. The changing policy landscape coupled with the psychological stresses of education highlights the extent to which classroom instruction and teachers’ perceptions of their place within the profession have categorically changed between 2010 and 2020 alone. The American Federation of Teachers (2017) reports that half of all teachers have experienced a significant decline in their enthusiasm for the job. Moreover, a significant portion of them (26 percent) do not even feel safe on the job, as they have been “bullied, harassed or threatened” (American Federation of Teachers, 2017, p. 4).
Teachers have long complained about the fact that they lack a voice in setting policy and they lack power in dictating the direction of education in their state or community; in fact, this shared feeling dates as far back as 1988, when the New York Times published an article titled “Study Shows Teachers Still Feel Left Out on Policy” (Daniels, 1988). Similarly, when teachers are in the midst of constant change, they feel a lack of power, as the challenges that confront them are often beyond their control. This feeling of powerlessness that accompanies mounting responsibilities and policy reform often results in so much stress that teachers don’t realize they can control how they respond to challenges—or practice self-care. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the first chapter of this book tackles the issue of taking teacher self-care seriously.
NOTICE the WAVE
What are some examples of tasks and responsibilities you never thought you would have to take on when you first became a teacher? How did you initially respond to these tasks and responsibilities once they became your own?
Teacher Stress and the Manifestations of Burnout
Teachers face a daunting list of stressors. As professor Einar M. Skaalvik and scholar Sidsel Skaalvik (2007) note, “Stressors may include students with behavioral problems, problems in the parent–teacher relationship, conflict with colleagues, or having to organize teaching in new ways as a consequence of working in teams or because of school reforms” (p. 613). But this is just part of the picture. For many teachers, the weight and worry of the unknown is also a great source of stress. They ask themselves, “What will problematic students do tomorrow?” and “What new reform will I need to adjust to next year?”
This stress and uncertainty may disturb teachers’ sense of their own capabilities. In their classic study on dimensions of teacher self-efficacy, Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2007) explain, “Self-efficacy beliefs are constructed largely on the basis of one’s prior mastery experiences” (p. 621). In terms of a healthy perception of one’s classroom efforts, self-efficacy occurs when teachers feel they are effective instructors and successful managers of desirable classroom outcomes. However, when stress and frequent changes enter the picture, teachers’ levels of self-efficacy may decrease. Professors Robert Klassen and Ming Chiu (2010) find that high stress and low self-efficacy are strongly correlated, so teachers with great levels of stress tend to experience low levels of self-efficacy. Even the very best teachers can experience feelings of low self-efficacy if they are hit with enough stressors. Indeed, low self-efficacy is more a consequence of being overwhelmed in the classroom than it is a lack of pedagogic or subject-matter competence.
High levels of stress and low self-efficacy make for a dispirited corps of teachers. MetLife’s (2012) study reveals that teachers experienced a 15 percent drop in job satisfaction in two years and the percentage of teachers who voiced the possibility of their leaving the profession increased by 12 percent in three years. American University’s School of Education (2019) reports that many of the negative feelings associated with modern teaching—a lack of resources, low pay, negative political environments, too much emphasis on testing, and too much teaching to the test—are driving teachers from the classroom. On top of that are teachers’ clear feelings of hopelessness, or futility, when it comes to the metrics by which many in and outside the profession define educational success, as only 43 percent of surveyed teachers believed student achievement would improve between 2011 and 2016 (MetLife, 2012). In the 21st century, capable teachers who may have entered their careers with confidence and positivity may end up feeling, frankly, burned out.
According to professor Ralf Schwarzer and scholar Suhair Hallum (2008), burnout is “a chronic state of exhaustion due to long-term interpersonal stress within human service professions. It pertains to feelings experienced by people whose jobs require repeated exposure to emotionally charged social situations” (p. 155). Indeed, most difficulties that teachers encounter in the profession are emotionally charged.
Schwarzer and Hallum (2008) quote the foundational work of Michael P. Leiter and Christina Maslach (1998) and argue that there are three symptoms of burnout: (1) emotional exhaustion, (2) depersonalization, and (3) reduced personal accomplishment.
1. Emotional exhaustion: When teachers say, “I am at the end of my rope,” they mean they have emotional exhaustion. It is a juncture of one’s career characterized by the sapping of one’s emotional energy. Frequent symptoms of emotional exhaustion can include lethargy, fatigue, and even debilitation (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008). This stress component is more than the physical exhaustion that results from being on one’s feet for seven hours, engaging large numbers of students for whom the teacher has full responsibility. Instead, this manifestation of teacher burnout usually emerges after long exposure to stressful situations—situations that are often beyond the classroom teacher’s control.
2. Depersonalization: When teachers pivot from a positive and enthusiastic professional disposition