“All we need is another photocopier.”
When I started teaching, I promised myself that if I stayed long enough to become a school leader, I would install a second photocopying machine to improve staff morale and wellbeing.
Nothing was more frustrating than having to join the queue of grumpy, pre-caffeinated teachers waiting for their turn on the photocopier, praying that it would either not run out of paper or get jammed.
Just get another photocopier, I thought, and all of us teachers will be happy. How hard can this be?
For me, there was always something new standing between me and perpetual happiness.
Then, wellbeing got more complex
Fast forward. Teacher wellbeing is my work now.
But it seems to be quite a bit more complex than it has ever been.
Teachers share (in person and through surveys) that they are suffering from the demands of the vocation and want school leaders to prioritise their well-being and mental health.
Whilst this has always been a running sore, these days, it feels and looks different, and it will take more than a sticky plaster to make it all better.
There are many reasons for this, but here are three off the top of my head:
- The profession has become increasingly more complex. One simple example would be the number of computer systems a typical teacher now has to use to stay functional. School reports are done on one system, registration on another, communications on another, and the student learning platform is something else altogether. Photocopiers? Yeah, they are still annoying, but no more than all the other machines and administrative systems teachers now have to compete with.
- Yes, and COVID. And what it did to change our thinking on the purpose of work and the possible models of working, learning and teaching that might be effective. There is a feeling that we can and should be doing things differently. 4-day weeks, flexible, blended, hybrid working. All of this plays on the mind and causes dissonance.
- We read the research about the impact of mobile phones and media on young people. But these same forces are affecting our teachers. They are also grappling with the diseases of our times —social comparison, perfectionism, and materialism.
“So, what should we do about it?”
Well, before we go there, I love this wisdom one wise teacher shared with me in response to this question:
“Well, whatever you do, don’t try a cookie-cutter approach. It never works.”
So, what is a cookie-cutter approach?
As I see it, there are three parts to this wisdom:
- Firstly, a one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter is fine if you want to mass-produce cookies. But that is not going to work with people with different needs in different contexts. No two people are the same, and, as such, they will not all have the same taste in cookies.
- Cookie-. Baking cakes and offering a few nice cookies to staff every so often is wonderful. Morale goes up instantly, and the feel-good factor can last some time. However, as with our blood sugar, what goes up must also go down. Put simply, relying on cookies is not a sustainable approach to looking after teachers.
- -Cutter. What about cutting things, then? Yes, we will need to cut. Many processes should be reviewed and removed if they no longer make sense or add the intended value. But you can not cut everything. Teaching is a demanding job, has always been a demanding job, and if you chase well-being solely by cutting things that teachers do not want to do, then we might well find ourselves in a school without students or parents (or bloody SLT) to deal with one day.
So I ask again, what should we do?
I asked this question again of my wise advisor. He’s seen it all before.
“No idea, he says. That’s what you are paid for.”
Indeed.
Serendipities 