I’ve written many times about teaching being an altruistic profession - one in which the potential job satisfaction is huge, given that, at its core, your work is about helping your pupils go on to live happy and fulfilling lives.
There is, however, a flip side that can be highly damaging to teachers’ health and wellbeing. That very sense of selflessness and duty can be a heavy burden - and it is even open to exploitation.
Teachers drive themselves on - through weekends, holidays and into the wee small hours on school nights - because they don’t want to let their pupils down. The idea of putting others first is so ingrained and internalised that teachers’ supposed 35-hour working week is, by and large, nominal: add up all the marking, preparation, extracurricular activities and the rest, and the actual time spent doing the job will typically be far more.
Even when you’re not working in any demonstrable sense, there is the constant mental load of knowing that so many people rely on what you do, that you can’t afford to coast or have off days - because then you’ll feel you’re letting your pupils down. Given that the satisfaction of fuelling young people’s success was part of the draw of being a teacher in the first place, any sense of falling short of your usual standards can be crushing.
In an online article for Tes Scotland last Sunday, secondary teacher Jamie Thom spelled out why the apparently benign idea of “selflessness” being an essential quality in a good teacher can be highly problematic.
A cursory Google search for “selfless teachers”, Thom found, threw up this “infuriating” quote, which, should you desire, could for a fee be scrawled on to a mug for you: “A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others.”
He was dubious as to how many teachers would want a permanent reminder that “literally burning out” is part and parcel of being a good teacher.
Instead, Thom - also an author whose latest book is about how teachers can manage stress and anxiety - counsels an approach inspired by the Dalai Lama: “wise selfishness”.
Teachers should, for example, prioritise better sleep, put their family first and find fulfilling pastimes that help them to switch off from the “rapid conveyer belt” of their work.
This will, of course, often be easier said than done, and it really should be part of a wider culture shift in education. Pushing yourself to the limit - or even beyond - should not be so commonplace in teaching, and, encouragingly, we are hearing of more and more schools explicitly telling their staff that.
Earlier this month, for example, principal teacher Katie Shearer wrote for us about how her primary prioritised staff wellbeing by, for example, making time for staff “wellbeing walks” and by fostering a school culture in which it is OK for teachers to make mistakes.
This is laudable, but schools cannot offset the dangers of staff burnout all by themselves.
Shearer warned that teachers’ unstinting commitment - never more obvious than in the pandemic - can be exploited: it can serve to guilt-trip teachers, normalise excessive work and compromise mental health.
And that will not be counteracted purely by schools changing their approaches to teacher wellbeing - real, lasting solutions lie largely beyond the school gates.
Teachers’ huge contribution to society needs to be recognised more. If “teacher bashing” wasn’t so common, if politicians didn’t fuel misleading narratives about schools’ supposed shortcomings, if the profession didn’t have to fight quite so hard for pay that simply kept up with inflation - if, in short, teachers felt more appreciated - perhaps they wouldn’t put so much pressure on themselves.
Tips to help teachers manage the stress of the job are all very well - but what’s really needed is a fundamental shift in how the profession is viewed by society at large.
Henry Hepburn is news editor at Tes Scotland
This article originally appeared in the 19 November 2021 issue under the headline “The solution to teacher burnout lies beyond the school gates”
