Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/969549
The transformation that happens to these teachers when they can reframe what they are experiencing can be lib- erating and empowering. Teachers are able to access a whole new set of tools and possibilities when you are able to reframe your diagnosis. And the term "burnout ," by suggesting that the individual is essentially at fault , leads to calls for teachers to show grit or be more resilient , t wo more per vasive buzzwords. DS: Absolutely. If the focus is on the individual, then the problem is not sys- temic or institutional or policy-based. It pushes the resolution right back on the individual. It comes down to, "If you were more this way, this wouldn't be a problem." In your 2011 ar ticle in which you first laid out the distinc tion of burnout vs. demoralization, you cite high-stakes testing, punitive accountabilit y systems, the narrowing curriculum, and other policies as main causes. In working on the book , were there any fac tors that contributed to teacher dissatisfac tion that surprised you? DS: First of all, I should stress that it's not just the high-poverty urban teacher who is feeling demoralized. We're see- ing this happening in some of those schools that show up in the U.S. News list of top schools in the country. I real- ized that I needed to address that more in the book. What I also learned traveling from state to state doing these interviews was that all these teachers are strug- gling in the exact same ways around these student learning objectives. They talked about profound administrative confusion, the amount of time they put into it, and the frustration that grew out of being told they were doing it wrong. Another piece is about the record-keeping technology, the use of proprietary software to build lesson plans that the district purchased, or entering assessments. The time teach- ers waste entering data, for example, may on one level seem insignificant. [But teachers] are being taken away from what they 're supposed to be doing as a teacher. Teachers who raise concerns often get tagged with being self-interested. Talking less about burnout and more about demoralization might expose them to more of this critique. How can we avoid this pitfall? DS: Much of the rhetoric around teacher-bashing and the need for these so-called reforms is because teachers are largely seen as doing what they want. For the teachers I talked to, the dis- cussion was always around a bigger concern about the well-being of the profession, the integrity of the profes- sion, the well-being of the students, and whether they are caring for stu- dents in the way that they deserve to be treated. But we're totally deaf to the moral concerns of teachers. The ways teacher dissatisfaction is captured, like in the IES staffing surveys, is mostly from a self-interested position, rather than giv- ing them the space to express concern for students or about being stewards of the profession. Instead, it's all about, for example, " This interferes with my family life," "I don't like the school leadership," "I don't have autonomy," and so on. So when a teacher says, "I can't be creative in the classroom anymore," what she may mean is, "I can't be more responsive to my students' needs, and I can't take something that How teachers "re-moralize" and not demoralize M O R A L R E W A R D S are the renewable resources that teach- ers can access when doing good work. Individuals engage in good work when they believe the work serves a social purpose that contributes to the well-being of others, and the way the work is conducted is aligned with that social purpose. Morally motivated teachers engaged in good work can "fill their tanks" at any point in their careers. Good work depends on the conditions of teaching, not just an individual teacher 's motivations, skill and expertise. The approaches that once enabled teachers to access what is good about their work may no longer be effective under the current conditions in which they work. Sometimes teachers will need to readjust their practice to be able to tap into the renewable resources available in good work. Sometimes teachers will need to join together to challenge factors that block their ability to engage in good work. At times, teachers will need to come together to remind themselves of what good work entails. Excerpted from Demoralized, Har- vard Education Press, 2018. " Whenever teachers heard language articulating their moral concerns about what was happening to the profession coming from the union, they felt supported and connected." 20 cta.org Perspectives