Great piece here Tom. "Policy needs to acknowledge the humanity of teachers as agentic professionals, who, rather than simply implement mandates and directives, require a degree of freedom to make the critical judgements needed to support not only their students and schools, but the growth of themselves as educators and professionals." Excellent quote. It's great to read an article on the relative silence on teachers wellbeing and agency - yet there's so much shock and head scratching as to why so many are leaving. I note your chart you use here has school leadership as the number one reason for teachers leaving, which tells us that it's likely both eyes are on the students most of the time. By the time they look up and refocus on teachers they may be surprised to have fewer and fewer.
Hey Mel, great to hear from you! Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts here and the encouragement is much appreciated.
Your link between the chart and my final words was something I hadn't even picked up on whilst writing so thank you for making that connection! An important consideration for school leaders to keep in mind. Just a matter of making this known.
Really enjoyed this one Tom, especially the idea of 'two eyes'. Have noticed it this week in planning conversations, doing a pivot after discussing student impact to teacher impact. Different decisions are definitely made.
Hi Kristy, thanks so much for reading! Appreciate the kind words. What you're saying is so important to consider, especially in a profession where it might not be feasible to do all that we might like to support our students (although we certainly desire to!). Out of interest, how did you negotiate this conflict the example you're talking about?
Great piece here Tom. "Policy needs to acknowledge the humanity of teachers as agentic professionals, who, rather than simply implement mandates and directives, require a degree of freedom to make the critical judgements needed to support not only their students and schools, but the growth of themselves as educators and professionals." Excellent quote. It's great to read an article on the relative silence on teachers wellbeing and agency - yet there's so much shock and head scratching as to why so many are leaving. I note your chart you use here has school leadership as the number one reason for teachers leaving, which tells us that it's likely both eyes are on the students most of the time. By the time they look up and refocus on teachers they may be surprised to have fewer and fewer.
Hey Mel, great to hear from you! Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts here and the encouragement is much appreciated.
Your link between the chart and my final words was something I hadn't even picked up on whilst writing so thank you for making that connection! An important consideration for school leaders to keep in mind. Just a matter of making this known.
Really enjoyed this one Tom, especially the idea of 'two eyes'. Have noticed it this week in planning conversations, doing a pivot after discussing student impact to teacher impact. Different decisions are definitely made.
Hi Kristy, thanks so much for reading! Appreciate the kind words. What you're saying is so important to consider, especially in a profession where it might not be feasible to do all that we might like to support our students (although we certainly desire to!). Out of interest, how did you negotiate this conflict the example you're talking about?