Record number of teachers quit for mental health reasons in 2021

BurningnnTree , 10 months ago

This article is talking about teachers who quit in 2021, which was during the pandemic. But the article doesn’t mention the impacts of the pandemic at all. Seems like they’re leaving out a lot of important context.

SlopppyEngineer , 10 months ago

This is the same in more places and more jobs: Schools, hospitals, nursing homes, …

Workers: we need more budget to attract new people. We’re already stretched too thin as it is

Boss: I’m cutting the budget to save on costs. If you don’t like it then quit.

Workers: That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Here’s my notice. I quit.

Boss: You can’t do that! Now I’m in trouble!

orcrist , 10 months ago

Of course they did. Without a skilled principal, teaching during the pandemic was chaos. No real attendance rules, no fair way to calculate grades, tons of extra work. Maybe veterans could manage, but early to mid career workers were just there on the edge of bailing.

Cataphract , 10 months ago

I’m not really understanding this comment. Teaching during the pandemic was chaotic, yes. I don’t think a skilled or unskilled principal made the difference for a lot of people (besides some mental support and I’m assuming you’re referring to the position of principal). There were attendance rules for the districts around my area, grades were calculated regularly like before (not sure what you mean by “fair”), and the curriculum was maintained the same so I’m not sure where the ton of extra work was coming from.

This is all anecdotal from my perspective so if you had a school district that failed to properly follow protocol I apologize and sympathize with the situation you were in. I think most of the problem was how we transitioned with such a drastic change. Resources weren’t properly reinvested, proper training support for educators wasn’t given, and the students weren’t prepared in a meaningful way for the shift.

In this day and age of online training though, for future employment, it could’ve been something that better situated students to handle obstacles they may encounter in the future (what school is suppose to prepare us for). Just looking at the stats for online education show more than 1/4 of all students are engaged in a form of distant learning. This is going to be something that only increases over time so we should be better prepared as a society to be flexible with transitions like WFH, etc. (source source)

orcrist , 10 months ago

I’ve spoken with hundreds of students and dozens of teachers from many schools. So this is anecdotal based on interviews…

School district policies were reactionary in large part. Some schools were all paper based. Some were all digital. Some students didn’t have reliable internet. And it took months to get anything figured out, because in many situations the bosses had no idea what to do. However, schools with leadership who could take assertive steps to say “this is our path for the next six months” tended to be less stressful working environments.

Now, what about attendance. Again it depended on the district. Still does. Most schools classify infectious disease absences as uncounted absences, which don’t show up on the transcript. But what about edge cases? If a parent is worried about infection, then what? If a sibling has a fever but doesn’t get tested, then what? If a student is absent but only on quiz or test days, do you fail them for those quizzes and tests, even though the reason given would ordinarily let them retake the quiz or test, or not have it included in the grade? … And absence count might matter for university, or maybe not, but we didn’t know back then so we had to assume it did. And what if a student misses all the term tests? Can you give them a grade at all? … These questions could be answered by the department, school administration, or district. And yet at many places they were often left up to individual teachers. In any case, there is no clear notion of “fair” if you consider all the edge cases.

Overwork is even easier to see. Teachers had to get students to fill out health forms, and collect them, and maybe call parents who didn’t. Teachers were running thermal image cameras, and disinfecting things. In many districts, lessons were hybrid, and teachers were running all the tech for that. I could go on, but this should be enough to explain the general situation that thousands of teachers faced.

In other words, please talk to other teachers in other school districts in Japan. :-)

Cataphract , 10 months ago

I’ll have to take your word on the interviews, I’m open to other perspectives which is why I initiated this dialogue with stating my confusion. I’m still not seeing the connections that I initially confronted. As you stated, the questions are usually answered and administered from top-down (department, district, then principal). I’m not sure on what effectiveness a “skilled” principal could have when the district is not prepared, though I could see a case for an unskilled principal not instituting/following change as instructed.

All of the questions you’ve brought up are valid whether there is a pandemic or not (which is why I specified your pandemic remark). When considering any fairness, edge cases will always be problems that need to be addressed. I agree the situation of overworking was exacerbated during the pandemic but existed long before that as funding and support systems have been slowly dwindled away.

I’m not sure on what the crux of this debate is but I feel like the light has been shifted from “education responsibility” to “pandemic bad/we need X”. I believe education has been getting the short straw for decades and the pandemic was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. A decent principal or administration assessing the health scenarios you presented would not fix the broken system. Schools being all paper based, the overworking of staff, students lack of reliable internet, not having a pre-pandemic plan ready (it’s been known for a long time that it was a problem to arise soon), all of these are problems that needed to be addressed a long time ago. Most early education schools only have one I.T. person and usually doubles their role in another form (teaching classes as well).

I feel like teaching is chaotic as a whole regardless of the situation society faces. Hearing about how the pandemic was the root cause of the problem just sounds disingenuous and completely glosses over the need for distant education to be an effective tool for future students. Teachers should be available to help explain and instruct how to fill out health forms, just like tax forms and other important documentation that should be covered at some point in a students career. Classes should be hybrid, teachers should be familiar and take supplemental training for the new tech they are using. All of this should be countered with support so nothing is “added on” to the workload. Again, these aren’t problems that were cleared up when the pandemic restrictions were lifted. Plenty of teachers are still on the edge of bailing as the system continues to decline.