By Sharon McDonough and Narelle Lemon
Dr. McDonough is a researcher in teacher education with advanced disciplinary knowledge of sociocultural theories of teacher emotion, resilience, and wellbeing. Sharon brings these to explore how best to prepare and support teachers for entry into the profession, how to support the professional learning of teachers and teacher educators across their careers, and how to support wellbeing in education and in community. Sharon’s research expertise lies in creative research methods, self-study, and phenomenology.
Dr. Lemon is a Professor and Vice-Chancellor Professoriate Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Narelle is an interdisciplinary scholar across the fields of arts, education, and positive psychology. Her research expertise is in fostering wellbeing literacy in the contexts of K-12 schools, initial teacher education, and higher education—that is, capacity building in wellbeing and self-care of proactive action across diverse areas of evidence-based wellbeing science in order for teachers to flourish.
Dr. McDonough and Dr. Lemon wrote an article in the current issue of The Educational Forum, “I Feel Like Nothing Else Will Ever Be This Hard”: The Dimensions of Teacher Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic." It is available free in the month of November.
What does it take for teachers to remain resilient in the face of challenges and difficult situations? Any teacher who has lived and worked through the last few years of the global COVID-19 pandemic knows all too well the multiple challenges that teachers have faced in our schools. When the COVID-19 virus began to have an impact on our society in March 2020, and periods of lockdown and stay-at-home orders were instituted around the globe, teachers had to quickly shift to new ways of working and connecting with their students. Teaching remotely meant that teachers had to quickly learn new technologies and skills. They had to find ways to support both the academic learning and the emotional wellbeing of students while working remotely and juggling the demands of their home lives and supporting their own wellbeing.
It was a tough order for anyone to deal with. So, how did they manage it? What strategies, resources and networks did teachers draw from? And now that we are entering a new phase of the pandemic, where living with COVID-19 is part of our regular daily lives, how can we draw from the lessons learned during the pandemic?
Our article in the current issue of The Educational Forum looks at the experiences of 137 Australian teachers through the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We identified the dimensions that enabled them to remain resilient as they moved through the early shifts to remote learning during lockdown and stay at home orders and we share two key findings with you here as we think these are central to continuing to build teacher resilience in complex times.
1. Building a wellbeing literacy to support their own wellbeing.
Without a doubt, schools and educational systems must support teachers and their wellbeing, but our research shows that teachers with individual wellbeing literacy were cognizant of the strategies they could also take to support their own wellbeing: from prioritizing boundaries; making time for exercise, meditation, or other self-care strategies; and ensuring that they maintained time for family. Developing their own wellbeing literacy and a bank of strategies that they could draw from enabled teachers to navigate the stressors they were encountering.
2. Developing sources of social and pedagogical support.
One of the things highlighted by the pandemic was the inequalities that exist across the educational system, and while some teachers had much local support within their own school context or system, others had to look elsewhere to develop new networks. These sources of social and pedagogical support enabled teachers to remain resilient as they dealt with rapidly learning new technological skills and platforms and tackled the isolation of life away from the classroom and staffrooms. Teachers described making use of social media to share social and pedagogical support, and teacher professional associations were also seen as key supporter for teachers.
What's next?
Individual teachers can still use these two strategies as resources for remaining resilient in the face of unexpected challenges, but the lessons from that time also highlight the areas that school and government leaders and systems must continue to grow and develop to support teachers. By providing opportunities for teachers to expand their wellbeing literacy (along with implementing policies, processes, and work practices that support communal wellbeing) and by structuring opportunities for social and pedagogical support, school leaders and systems can also play a vital role in supporting teacher resilience in tough times.
Dr. McDonough is a researcher in teacher education with advanced disciplinary knowledge of sociocultural theories of teacher emotion, resilience, and wellbeing. Sharon brings these to explore how best to prepare and support teachers for entry into the profession, how to support the professional learning of teachers and teacher educators across their careers, and how to support wellbeing in education and in community. Sharon’s research expertise lies in creative research methods, self-study, and phenomenology.
Dr. Lemon is a Professor and Vice-Chancellor Professoriate Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Narelle is an interdisciplinary scholar across the fields of arts, education, and positive psychology. Her research expertise is in fostering wellbeing literacy in the contexts of K-12 schools, initial teacher education, and higher education—that is, capacity building in wellbeing and self-care of proactive action across diverse areas of evidence-based wellbeing science in order for teachers to flourish.