Drawn to the Flame: Volume 45

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic certainly exacerbated the teacher shortage in the United States for all racial/ethnic groups, but especially for Black teachers. Black teachers account for 7–8% of the total teacher population and this percentage is the direct result of decades of systemic and structural barriers set against Black teachers in the form of racism. Still, Black teachers who enter the profession do so with the willingness to support all students and uplift Black students who often go years without seeing a teacher that looks like them. Black teachers often face different expectations than their white counterparts and these expectations, without the proper support, lead to Black teachers burning out at higher rates. In an effort to understand Black teachers' and the experiences that contribute them remaining in the classroom, the researchers explored Black teachers' working conditions through a phenomenological approach. The findings of this study suggest that Black teachers deserve working conditions that nurture who they are culturally and professionally, that reject actions of oppression toward them – both implicitly and explicitly, and offer spaces for Black teachers to be authentically heard.

At the virus' US epicenter, New York City, teachers experienced the impact of the pandemic firsthand in real time. Consistent with intensification (Apple, 1986), as school struggles to adapt to a rapidly changing social and educational landscape, socioemotional stressors and occupational responsibilities increase. Through the metaphoric (Craig, 2018) image of a candle, and using the tools of narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) – broadening, burrowing, storying, and restorying – we surface four teachers' lived experiences in a year filled with incredible grief and loss, socio-political-cultural trauma, racial strife, and personal-professional challenges to show their resolve and resiliency to persevere through and beyond burning out.

Disillusionment among novice teachers often sets in upon entering the teaching profession. Unfortunately, this disillusionment often leads to novice teachers leaving the profession at high rates, with underserved schools more adversely impacted by their departure. This chapter explores the sources of burnout via the lived experiences of three novice teachers and the impact that burnout had on their intent to remain in the profession. The “reality shock” teachers experience will be exposed through teachers' personal stories while examining the sources of support and strength teachers sought from both within their learning community and beyond, and how those served as a means to survive the novice years.

There has been a reduction of arts funding the United States educational system, even though research has identified the need for socioemotional learning policy/guidelines/requirements in the US Ed. and more school teachers and counselors. In Texas, geopolitical issues and natural disasters impact learners in the state and corporal punishment is still allowed in some districts, such as Pampa Independent School District (ISD). A study of six art teachers across a large urban school district was conducted to better understand this conundrum vis-a-vis semi-structured interviews with art teachers working in public Middle and High Schools. This chapter investigates the impact of art practices and art teachers on socioemotional self-regulation of students, as we consider the impact on teacher retention using the Heuristic model of child self-regulation and reactivity and school outcomes (Liew, Erbeli, Nyanamba, & Li, 2020). Finally, the ironic finding that teaching art classes is financially emotionally draining for teachers to the point of decreasing retention, yet some are still impassioned to teach art classes, is juxtaposed with attachment theory. Recommendations for art education policy and pedagogy are made using the lens of socioemotional learning, art therapy, empathy, and emotional self-regulation.

Education, and especially the life of a teacher, is constantly evolving. Teachers' roles and responsibilities have become more complicated and multifaceted over time. Therefore, they have to invest a great deal of time, energy, and effort to navigate the demands and complexities of their role. In the last 20 years, education has changed in response to increased workload, the rise of high-stakes testing and accountability, social-emotional and behavioral challenges among students, school safety concerns, equity concerns, and now the coronavirus pandemic. These factors have been linked to high stress and teacher burnout, which leads to more teachers leaving their jobs (Arvidsson et al., 2019). Nonetheless, those who endure the flames of burnout do so because they are resilient in the face of adversity and persistent in their commitment to the call of teaching and learning. This chapter examines the effects of stress and burnout among three alternatively certified teachers and the behaviors and strategies these educational first responders employ to build resilience and persistence in their service to the students who shape our future.

A war still rages in the United States. This is a war with many different battles – one such battle being against queer teachers and students, as well as teachers and administrators who support queer youth and teachers in their schools. While this battle may look new in the social media landscape that is 2022 (TikTok and YouTube videos and anyone with the slightest thought, even if based on someone else's, a regurgitated idea and old tropes, is posting to social media as if they are saying something new and profound, yet is old tried and filled with hate), it is almost the same old battle where queer and LGBTQ2+ are used interchangeably. Queer folks are the ones being sacrificed to save the nation from spiraling into the abyss of debauchery and chaos of a lost moral compass (Gogarty, 2022; Lorenz, 2022; Montpetit, 2022). If this is the case, and queer people are battling for humanity and existence in schools, understanding teacher burnout from a queer perspective poses incredible challenges. Why would one want to be a teacher, especially a queer person, if we are so often the brunt of the attacks in this war to control society?

As the novel virus was declared a pandemic, Korean schools quickly transitioned to remote schooling based on its advanced IT system, government-operated digital learning platforms, and an abundance of pre-existing online teaching materials (Byun & Slavin, 2020). Unfortunately, this story of “successful” educational responses to the pandemic was of little relationship to physical education (PE) partly because of the sparsity of supportive resources for online teaching of the hands-on subject area but mainly because of the incompatibility between the nature of the online classroom and the essence of PE (Baek & Yoon, 2020; Oh, 2021). As its name implies, physical education is inseparable from physical movements, bodily dialogue, close physical contact, and active, direct interactions between engaged individuals. Accordingly, PE teachers, dwelling in either online or blended classrooms where bodies are absent, and touch is unthinkable, are experiencing diminished room to implement their pedagogical repertoires and, in turn, affecting their deconstruction and reconstruction of their teacher identities (Kamoga & Varea, 2022). In a nutshell, PE subject matter and PE teachers' identities are being challenged and experiencing unexpected metamorphoses amid this global crisis.

Stress and burnout in public school teachers and principals have been well documented for the past 40 years. Sources of stress and burnout are often systemic and include numerous factors from low pay to student behavioral issues to accountability pressures. Additionally, stress and burnout in the educational workforce have implications on both the efficacy of individuals' work and their intentions to leave. In a postpandemic era where record numbers of teachers and school leaders are leaving the profession, mitigating burnout and improving the sustainability of the education workforce is essential. This chapter provides strategies at multiple levels, including the individual, school, and district, to reduce negative psychological impacts of educational work and inform structural changes. Policy recommendations at both the state and federal level are also provided. And lastly, implications for educator and principal preparation programs are detailed. Approaching burnout and well-being from a multilevel perspective can rectify both direct and indirect causes of burnout, and a systematic approach is more likely to lead to meaningful, sustained change to better working conditions. Improving the US educational system in a postpandemic era will require concerted efforts to support the head, the heart, and the health of public education professionals.

Teachers leave the profession for various reasons, such as inadequate pay, work demands, and lack of support from their administrative leaders. Hargreaves (2004) attributed the growing teacher burnout phenomenon to accountability pressures in the forms of high-stakes testing and increasing work demands. This stress can result in teacher's low self-efficacy and the perception of workplace alienation. Seyfarth (2008) described an alienated teacher with the “feeling that one's work is meaningless and that one is powerless to bring about change” (p. 198). Administrative leadership can further inhibit a teacher's professional growth by failing to meet the teacher's needs with respect to instructional coaching and lacking opportunities for professional self-reflection.

Teacher burnout is a persistent challenge for school principals, complicated by the lack of a proven, repeatable strategy to mitigate burnout. If left unresolved, burnout can adversely affect school culture and student learning, leading to turnover that can compound these harmful effects. Since burnout can vary in severity and frequency, principals can work to mitigate burnout in the moment, seizing the opportunity when burnout is first observed. In this narrative sketch, I provide an overview of my experiences in my development as a principal and how this informed my approach to supporting teachers. I also discuss my experiences as principal in working with teachers at different stages of burnout severity, sharing specific stories and reflecting on both the successes and failures of my efforts, including the use of chocolates and tissues to create an individualized safe space to initiate open dialogue. The title, “Chocolates or Tissues,” is a metaphor that represents my momentary burnout mitigation strategy but may also serve as a metaphor for the need for principals to seek individualized opportunities for resolution in a burnout moment when working with teachers.

This chapter uses narrative inquiry to tell the stories of two female neophyte educators experiencing the oppositional misalignment between their idealized perception of female teachers in American society and their personal realities by providing alternate images of women in education. American teachers, especially women, are perceived as a homogeneous group that lives to serve the children of others and inhabit a monochrome, two-dimensional, existence inside the educational landscape of schools (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996). However, the prevailing notions and outdated imagery of teachers is flawed in its lack of acknowledgment of the richly diverse and textured lived experiences of women both inside and outside of the educational field. Furthermore, female teachers face tremendous pressure to imitate these unrealistic ideals and expectations at the expense of the authentic self, which can lead to a myriad of internal dissonances, such as burnout, serving as an umbrella over PTSD, anxiety, compassion fatigue, decreased confidence, and lower job satisfaction. The researchers in this chapter come from nontraditional backgrounds to capture the negative effects of subtle, persistent, and unrealistic expectations of females that contribute to feelings of burnout at the onset of our teaching careers.

Twenty-first century education has been reconfigured to keep up with growing societal shifts in an effort to support a wide variety of learners. As changes occur, the workload for teachers continues to expand with little to no support and resources within classroom spaces to keep up with the current times. Post pandemic, the expectations and systems have shifted emphasizing the need for more programming around social emotional learning and systems to help mitigate the learning disruption. The insurmountable pressure placed on teachers has led to a robust and persistent departure of the profession causing the entire education system to rethink the policies, structures, and systems that influence teacher burnout.