How Can We Make Teaching a Doable Profession?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses what needs to change to stop burning teachers out and make the profession sustainable long-term.
Key Takeaways
- The job has become undoable - Constantly adding responsibilities without removing any has made teaching unsustainable
- Systemic change is needed - Individual resilience and self-care aren't enough; the system itself must change
- Focus on the core mission - Stripping away non-instructional duties and letting teachers teach is the most direct path to sustainability
Transcript
How do we make this job more doable and keep people in the profession?
Because so many people are leaving.
If you were to interview some candidates for a job and one candidate said, I'm willing to do whatever it takes.
And the other candidate said, I'm going to do what I can.
You would be a lot less impressed with the candidate who said they were just going to do what they could, right?
There's this idea that we should be willing to do whatever it takes.
And I think behind that idea is is the misconception that the answer to all of our problems in education is personal sacrifice or martyrdom.
You know, this idea that if we are just willing to put in the extra effort, then that will solve all the problems that we're dealing with.
And there's this idea that if we treat education jobs like any other jobs that you know you show up you do your absolute best and that's it like the results are what they are there's this idea that that's selling out our students or you know selling ourselves short or just just not doing what we should be doing for our students and i think that puts us in this kind of impossible position where we're perpetually expected and expecting ourselves to do more than we actually can in the name of getting results that maybe we don't personally have the ability to get.
W.
Edwards Deming said that 94% of results and opportunities come from the system itself.
Like our performance as educators doesn't come mostly from our individual actions.
It comes from the effective functioning of the organizations that we're in.
And the idea that we can overcome that 94% with the 6% of individual effort I think just doesn't work.
And I think it's a recipe for the burnout that we're seeing right now across the profession, whether you're a teacher or administrator or in a different role.
This idea of self-sacrifice and heroism and martyrdom ends up being kind of a toxic pressure.
And I think especially when it comes to getting results for student learning.
We've always bought into the idea that we can do anything we set our minds to, we can do whatever it takes, and then that will get us there.
And I think what that's caused us to systematically do is underestimate the impact of poverty and other factors that really are outside of our control as educators.
And it's frustrating to feel held back by societal level inequities But I think the evidence is becoming more and more clear that we cannot personally overcome those.
We need societal level solutions to societal level problems.
So I just want to encourage you, if you are feeling like you can't sustain the pace you're working at right now, you don't have to necessarily and if you're feeling pressure to do that uh you can push back against that pressure you know I think the reality is so many people are leaving their jobs that we're we're long overdue for a recalibration of expectations and you know we can all do what we can but by definition we can't do more so let's let's make this a sustainable career let's make this a job that people want to do and not a job that people want to leave let me know what you think