Supporting Educators Effectively

An article by Krishna Kumar (Director, NCERT) published in The Indian Express. "Teacher is Walking Away" A Matter for Attention: “Teachers Are Leaving Their Jobs – A Bitter Truth” Because teachers are no longer being allowed to "teach" they’ve been turned into multi-purpose employees. Across the country’s schools/educational institutions today, a "silent revolution" is underway Teachers are exhausted, helpless, and disheartened. They are leaving their jobs some quietly, others emotionally withdrawing from their work. And the new generation? They no longer even want to become teachers. Why is this happening? 1. Teachers Trapped in Paperwork Teaching is no longer the priority. The daily routine has become — “Send photos,” “Provide proof,” “Upload reports.” "Provide Records." Their presence in classrooms is diminishing, while their presence in front of screens is increasing. 2. Excessive Emphasis on Technology Digital tools, apps, and smart boards are being forced upon every subject, every age group, every level. Teaching has turned into a mechanical process with hardly any human connection left. 3. Teachers Turned into Event Managers Every day now demands the celebration of some occasion Yoga Day, Mother Language Day, Environment Day... Instead of improving the quality of education, the new metric of performance has become How many events were organised? Both principals and teachers are trapped in this endless “show.” 4. The Plight of Rural Teachers Two or three teachers are responsible for hundreds of children. Apart from teaching, they must handle mid-day meals, scholarships, uniforms, bicycles, and endless government reporting. Education has taken a back seat *data collection* has become their main duty. 5. Mental Stress and Loss of Self-Respect Constant monitoring and the demand for “proof” have eroded trust. Dealing with students’ stress, and coping with parents’ unrealistic expectations these are emotionally draining teachers. 6. The Core Purpose of Education Is Lost Teachers face immense pressure to complete the syllabus. The number of subjects keeps rising. Schools/Institutions are no longer places for character building. Education today has turned into a “performance project.” The relationship between teacher and student once the soul of learning is now lost amid numbers and deadlines. Students now see teachers as service providers, not as guides or respected figures. Time to Attention The focus of education must be the student and the teacher not reports and statistics. If teachers are denied freedom, respect, and trust, then the education of the next generation will become lifeless. We must learn to trust our teachers again. Because if the teacher disappears the school/institution will remain, but education will not.

Teachers don’t claim “Teaching is the hardest of all professions!” Nowhere have teachers said other jobs aren’t important. Nowhere have they said that being a doctor or an architect or a mechanic is easy. Nowhere have they tried to put down anybody else’s job. The thing people often don’t realise is how much harder teaching is than other jobs because it is almost NEVER acknowledged. How many people have you heard say “I don’t like my job, so maybe I’ll quit and just become a lawyer.” Nobody says that. Because nobody would ever put down the amount of work that goes into becoming a lawyer, or the difficulty of the job. Teachers, on the other hand, aren’t afforded the same courtesy. Everybody thinks they can be a teacher. Everybody has some suggestion for what teachers should be doing when they’ve never been inside a classroom. Teachers simply want people to understand that what they do in their classrooms every day is nothing short of an act of love. They give all of themselves every day to ensure the students leave classrooms better prepared for the world, and what they do in their classrooms every day is draining. In the post-pandemic school system, teachers are facing an amplified amount of mental health issues and students’ needs being unmet. Teachers are adapting to new and unseen learning environments that are changing quicker than they can keep up. They are simultaneously battling with and partnering with new technology like AI. They are expected to be teachers, counsellors, social workers, tech experts, coaches, and more each day. Teachers are drowning under a list of to-dos that they’ll never cross off, and all they really want to do is teach.

I keep seeing posts like this one circulating in teacher training programmes and from professional communities on social media. Despite being widely debunked, the idea that students learn best when instruction matches a preferred “style” (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, etc.) still finds its way into classrooms. This is not just outdated, it’s harmful. It encourages teachers to pigeonhole students, distracts from proven strategies that actually work, and wastes valuable time on ineffective methods. Clearly researched and peer reviewed evidence shows that matching teaching to “learning styles” does not improve outcomes: Pashler et al. (2008) – No credible evidence supports learning styles improving achievement. Coffield et al. (2004) – Found over 70 models of learning styles, most lacking validity or reliability. Brown, Roediger & McDaniel (2014) – Emphasise strategies like retrieval practice and spaced repetition. Hattie (2012) – Focus on visible learning and teacher clarity, not style-matching. Howard-Jones (2014) – Labels like these promote “neuromyths” with no scientific backing. Great Teaching Toolkit (2020) – Prioritise high-impact instruction over learning style theory. We owe it to our students, and to the profession, to move on from feel-good myths and focus on what works. We should base our practice on research, not repetition of outdated myths.

The noise in education feels deafening at times. Everywhere I look, educators are setting their own standards, each arriving with the confidence of revelation. Every voice is louder than the previous one; every post, panel, or paper positions itself as the sharper, cleaner, more definitive answer. “Best practice” now often means “my practice, packaged,” and the algorithm rewards certainty more than nuance. We are benchmarking ourselves against self-authored criteria, awarding ourselves gold stars for ideals we just coined, and moving on before those ideals meet the slow, stubborn reality of our classrooms. What unsettles me is the velocity. New models, new lenses, new taxonomies appear faster than the time it takes to test their claims beyond a workshop or a pilot. We circulate insights that look fully formed but are rarely longitudinal. Dissent reads as ignorance; hesitation looks like incompetence. There’s a competitive intimacy to it: we all want to help, but the cadence of the field can make help sound like a pitch. Evidence is invoked, but the evidence that travels best is the kind that compresses well into a slide. And then, layered on top of this, come the sudden directives from the government. One season it’s art integration, the next it’s experiential learning, then perhaps a new pedagogical technique. Each is introduced as though it is the long-awaited breakthrough. Teachers are expected to adapt almost instantly - learn the new vocabulary, adjust lesson plans, tick the new compliance boxes - while still managing the endless rhythm of everyday teaching and administration. For the common teacher, this does not create clarity. It creates fatigue. It feels less like growth and more like a bombardment - an endless stream of frameworks, slogans, and expectations that rarely come with the time or support to truly make sense of them or probably reject them. This is the paradox of our moment: never before have we had so many ideas in education, and yet never before possibly, has it been so difficult for teachers to know which ones truly matter. Amidst the noise, the teacher’s voice often risks being drowned out. And that's the reality we probably cherish! #education #teachers #noise #research #schools #priyankeducator

If you feel like you’re sprinting through the curriculum you’re not alone. 🏃♂️ But here’s the catch: Cognitive science says fast teaching doesn’t equal deep learning. Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988) reminds us that the brain’s working memory is limited. When we overload it, learning stalls no matter how great the content is. This isn’t just about students. It’s about teacher sustainability too. So many of us are under pressure to “cover everything.” But here’s the truth: Trying to do too much leads to shallow learning and teacher burnout. What works better? Teaching with the brain in mind: • Chunking content into manageable parts (Miller, 1956; 7±2 rule) • Using worked examples to reduce extraneous load (Sweller, 2006) • Providing pause time so students can consolidate and process • Eliminating distractions—less “busywork,” more focus • Building schemas through repetition, connection, and reflection • Focusing on one learning intention at a time As Willingham (2009) puts it: “Memory is the residue of thought.” We must give students time to think deeply not rush to the next thing. Slow learning is strong learning. Let’s ditch the overload and create space for what really matters: Clarity. Connection. Purpose. And yes - our own wellbeing too. #CognitiveLoadTheory #EvidenceBasedTeaching #TeacherWellbeing #DeepLearning #PrimaryTeaching #CurriculumDesign #BrainBasedLearning #EducationResearch #NeuroaffirmingPractice #LessIsMore

THERE are some lessons in pressure that no teacher should ever have to learn ... Teachers across the country are straining under immense pressure, signalling an urgent need for a fresh approach to supporting the profession. The full extent of these pressures has been exposed by new University of New South Wales research, which revealed just how hard teachers are being pushed. In a study of nearly 5,000 primary and secondary teachers from schools across the country, nine out of 10 reported that they were experiencing moderate to extremely severe stress. Average levels of stress were almost four times higher than the national norm.  To make matters worse, more than two-thirds said their workload was largely or completely unmanageable. The results of the study reflect a profession buckling under unrealistic expectations. Talk to any teacher and you will hear stories of challenges coming at them from every direction. At the heart of those stories is a growing tension between what parents hope for and what teachers can realistically provide and achieve. It is perfectly understandable that every parent wants their child to receive individual attention. Parents desire the kind of attention that recognises their children’s unique strengths, weaknesses and potential. Yet in classrooms with more than 20 students, one-on-one teaching is simply not realistic. Teachers do their best to stretch themselves across a group of children but high numbers make it impossible to provide each child with the focus parents are hoping for. The result is frustration on both sides.  At the same time, teachers are asked to teach an ever-expanding curriculum. They also increasingly report spending countless hours filling out forms, writing reports and managing compliance paperwork. This time could otherwise be devoted to lesson planning or direct teaching. Meanwhile, teachers are increasingly called on to manage complex student behaviours tied to broader social and family issues, even as support services struggle to keep up. Of course, there are plenty of positives that come with teaching though the benefits are being rapidly overshadowed by these mounting pressures. The solution to these challenges is unlikely to be found in the usual places.  It will not be found in policy papers, bureaucratic backrooms or another round of top-down reforms that sound great but fail in practice. It is time to move beyond convention and instead listen to those who live the reality every day. A national TeachTank – a think tank led by teachers – is urgently needed. Such a forum would give frontline educators a platform to design solutions rooted in classroom experience. Until the voices of teachers themselves guide the agenda, reforms will continue to miss the mark and leave classrooms overstretched and educators undervalued. #education #teaching #policy #management #aimwa #humanresources Cartoon used under licence: CartoonStock

Reimagining the 🏛️ Classroom: Imagine a classroom where students drive the lesson, and the teacher offers constructive feedback at regular intervals, prompting learners to think beyond the textbook through deep, open-ended questions and organizing tasks that connect mathematical concepts to everyday life. Sounds fantastic, right? But do we observe this in every classroom? If yes, we’re approaching our 🦄 unicorn moment, a rare but ideal educational experience. If not, the question becomes: How do we cultivate such classrooms? It all begins with teacher training and the instructional model adopted by the institution. Let’s explore three popular models of teacher training: 1. 🧑🏫 Craft Model (Wallace, 1991) In this model, the trainee teacher works closely with an expert, learning by emulating their teaching techniques. Pitfall: The trainee is primarily exposed to the strategies of a single expert, which may limit innovation and adaptability. 2. 📚 Applied Science Model Trainees acquire scientific knowledge and pedagogical theories, then apply them in the classroom. Pitfall: A disconnect often exists between theorists and practitioners, creating barriers in translating theory into effective practice. 3. 🤔 Reflective Model Trainees integrate theoretical knowledge with prior experience, apply it in practice, and reflect on their teaching. This reflection informs future planning and instructional decisions. Strength: Though non-linear, this model encourages problem-solving and continuous growth. 🏅 The Ideal Approach: A Thoughtful Blend Personally, a hybrid model offers the most effective results. Trainee teachers: -Study pedagogical theories, -Observe expert practitioners, -Design and implement their own teaching strategies, -Receive mentorship and constructive feedback from experienced educators. This approach fosters autonomy, creativity, and continuous improvement, ultimately driving classrooms where students are active participants in their learning journey. #teacher #educator #teachertraining, #trainingmodel #  

You don’t fix teacher burnout with biscuits. You fix it with dignity. Many schools still believe teacher morale improves with: free coffee, staff parties, or fancy infrastructure. Those things are welcome — but they are not what teachers stay for. What teachers actually need is far more fundamental: Respect and recognition Fair workload and fair pay Supportive, empathetic leadership Work–life balance Real professional growth A voice that genuinely matters As a school leader, I’ve learned that when teachers feel heard and trusted, everything else improves — classrooms, culture, and student learning. Teacher burnout is not a motivation problem. It’s a systems and leadership problem. If we want better learning outcomes, we must start with human dignity. Because happy teachers don’t just teach better — they stay, grow, and build stronger schools. #TeachersMatter #SchoolLeadership #EducationReality #TeacherWellbeing #RespectTeachers #LeadershipInEducation

This graphic perfectly captures a critical distinction: "Teacher Well-Being" vs. "Teachers Being Well." Too often, we're offered superficial perks—yoga days, motivational emails, or fruit bowls in the staff room. While well-intentioned, these gestures fail to address the systemic issues that lead to burnout. True well-being, the kind that allows educators to thrive, is built on a different foundation: Sustainable Workloads: Ensuring that lesson planning, marking, and administrative duties are manageable. Psychological Safety: Creating an environment where teachers can voice concerns, ask for help, and innovate without fear of judgment. Meaningful Professional Support: Providing relevant, ongoing development that is supportive, not punitive. Human-Centric Policies: Treating educators as professionals and humans, not machines designed for output. As the image rightly states, "When teachers are well, teaching is well." Investing in these structural supports isn't just good for teachers; it's the most essential prerequisite for student success. #TeacherWellBeing #EducationLeadership #SchoolCulture #TeacherSupport #SustainableTeaching #PsychologicalSafety

Let's talk about supporting our education heroes....Teachers! I'm pictured below with my longtime friend and career educator, Stephanie. She's been an educator for over 25 years. Teaching is not just a profession for many, including Stephanie; it's a calling. Our #educators play a vital role in shaping the future, but they face unique challenges that can lead to #burnout. Let's shine a light on this issue and work together to support our #education heroes. A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of co-facilitating sessions for school staff and school administrators across North Carolina alongside Mike Perko, Morgan Daniels, Wendy White, Lawrence Henderson and Sallie Lee that were designed to help schools develop a strategy to help prevent #teacherburnout in their schools. We were afforded the opportunity to do this important work thanks to the leadership of Ellen Essick and Susanne Schmal at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Here are some crucial steps schools can take: 1️⃣ Recognize the Signs: Understand the signs of #teacher burnout, such as chronic exhaustion, emotional detachment, and a sense of hopelessness. These are signals that a dedicated #educator may be struggling. 2️⃣ Offer Support: Create a #culture of support within our #schools and educational institutions. Encourage open dialogue and provide resources for #mentalhealth and #wellbeing. 3️⃣ Work-Life Harmony: Advocate for work-life harmony. Teachers often work long hours, including evenings and weekends. Encourage regular breaks and time for #selfcare. 4️⃣ Professional Development: Invest in professional development programs that equip teachers with tools and strategies to manage #stress and prevent burnout. 5️⃣ Reducing Administrative Burden: Streamline #administrative tasks to allow educators to focus on what they do best—teaching. 6️⃣ Peer Support: Foster #peersupport networks where teachers can share experiences, strategies, and emotional support with their colleagues. 7️⃣ Recognition: Recognize and celebrate the dedication and hard work of our educators. A simple "thank you" can go a long way. 8️⃣ Policy Advocacy: Advocate for policies that address the systemic issues contributing to teacher burnout, including class sizes, resource allocation, and standardized testing pressures. Education is the foundation of a prosperous society, and teachers are the architects of that foundation. Let's unite to ensure that our educators receive the support and appreciation they deserve, so they can continue shaping the minds and hearts of the next generation. If you're an educator, school administrator or know someone who is, comment below with how you support our educational heroes. If you don't know where to start, let's chat! #mentalwellness #workplacementalhealth #workplacestress #mentalhealthawareness #wellbeingatwork #workplacewellness #employeementalhealth #employeewellness #employeewellbeing #employeeretention #teacherretention #DEI #leadership