Energizing Exhausted Teachers
NOVEMBER 27, 2013
Allison Rimm has a recent post at the Harvard Business Review offering some interesting Tips for Energizing Your Exhausted Employees. Rimm speaks of work with IT staff in the medical industry, but see if this sounds like advice that would apply to education.
It was clear from the rich literature on motivation and from my own experience that employees would need five things:
- A solid understanding of the relevance of their work to the hospital’s mission.
- A chance to use their skills and expertise to make a positive contribution.
- More control over their work environment and their future.
- Opportunities to develop new friendships and interdisciplinary collaboration.
- New tools and the support necessary for their efforts to succeed.
School at the end of the rainbow (photo by the author)
Substitute “school” or “district” for “hospital” and we might have some interesting though imperfect parallels to education. You might think the easy part is seeing the relevance of our work to our mission. For teachers, it seems like it should be so direct. Our mission is to educate our students, and our work is… educating our