To promote success in schools, focus on teacher well-being

To promote success in schools, focus on teacher well-being

To promote success in schools, focus on teacher well-being

Without question, teachers are central to student success. Anyone who has taught knows how rewarding it is to witness student learning. Teaching can also be one of the most stressful, demanding, and undersupported professions, leading to national teacher strikes, shortages, and high rates of turnover. In fact, research shows that 46% of teachers report high levels of daily stress, which affects their health, quality of life, and teaching performance, and costs U.S. schools billions of dollars each year. Although almost everyone understands the importance of student well-being and how teachers impact students, there is much less consideration for the well-being of teachers themselves. Even when teacher well-being is considered, it is often narrowly defined and something teachers are expected to “fix” on their own. In honor of National Teacher Day in the United States, we explore why a more holistic approach to teacher well-being is needed to optimize success in schools.

Teacher well-being is often narrowly characterized by what it is not. As one teacher shares in an all-too-common scenario, “The hours are long, the pay is poor, and the paperwork piles up quickly; it’s easy to lose sight of why I became a teacher in the first place.” Research consistently shows that teachers who are more stressed are less likely to form close relationships with students, which can negatively impact student achievement.

However, well-being is much more than the absence of illness or stress, or even feeling content; it is about teachers flourishing more holistically. In contrast to the previous teacher’s statement, well-being could manifest in the following ways, “I feel balanced and supported; I have freedom to use my creativity to help my students succeed; I have opportunities to learn and advance in my career; I am fairly compensated; I have a network of support to help me overcome challenges.” Narrowly defining well-being as the absence of stress or the presence of a positive mood leads to equally narrow CONTINUE READING: