Snippet: What Demoralization Does to Teachers ☇

While not the usual tech things I highlight on here, this was a sobering article from last year by Anne Helen Peterson on something we all should be concerned about. Even if her portion doesn’t convince you, the responses from teachers in the second portion will:

Burnout, [Doris A.] Santoro explains, is a form of depletion — but also posited as imminently solvable, if the teacher just draws on their reserves, their resilience, their deep love for the profession. Within this figuration, a failure to recover from burnout is an indication that you simply don’t love teaching enough.

Which is bullshit, of course. As Santoro writes, “our current predicament has many teachers running on empty, even those with good boundaries and solid self-care practices.” What educators are feeling right now — what they’ve felt over the last year — is not just frustration and fear inspired by the pandemic. It’s not just burnout. It’s way beyond that. It’s chronic burnout and deep demoralization as their labor is increasingly under-funded, under-valued, and under-resourced.

The profession has been at a breaking point for some time — and has remained in tact on the strength of teacher dedication. But no amount of passion can withstand chronic devaluation and exploitation.