research paper on being a teacher

Becoming an English language teacher over lines of desire: Stories of lived experiences

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• Published: 31 October 2023

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• Nashid Nigar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7110-3694 1 ,
• Alex Kostogriz 1 &
• Laura Gurney 2  

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Beyond the notion of decision-making of career choice just being rational, this article proposes the primacy of ‘affect’ in the decision to become teachers over time. The article explores the becoming of immigrant English language teachers as an identity formation process, focusing on the lived experiences of 16 English language teachers since early childhood, mostly prior to their migration to Australia. Findings of the hermeneutic phenomenological narrative analysis of the teachers’ reflective accounts revealed two lines of becoming and their intersections—the line of becoming an English language learner and the line of becoming an English language teacher through decision-making for career choice. The histories of their initial professional decision to ‘become’ English teachers demonstrate the interplay of socially produced desires and personal investment in professional learning and capabilities since early childhood. Through unravelling the assemblages within which their desires to become teachers were fomented and strengthened through embodied lived experiences over a long period of time, we argue that the concept of English teachers’ ‘desired becoming’ informed their initial and long-term decision about career choice. This notion provides a window into the teachers’ decision-making of career choice in terms of the formation of their professional identities as an interplay of the affective and the rational. Embracing and appreciating the combined role of the affective and the rational in teachers’ becoming is important to consider in future research in this area as well as for teacher recruitment and retention, hence potentially addressing critical teacher shortages.

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Becoming an English teacher

How one makes the decision to choose a career may not always have a straight-forward answer. Some may choose a career based on self-concept, interest, motivation, and aptitude, or by analysing available opportunities and the values attached to these. According to social cognitive career theory, variables of self-efficacy shape career aspirations and trajectories (Lent et al., 1994 ). It has been argued that one’s interest in and selection of a future career emerge through the accumulative formation of beliefs, capacities, abilities and values (Lent et al., 1994 ). From the perspective of motivation theory, people choose careers based on their internal and external ‘needs’. Motivation theories of work (Locke & Latham, 2004 ) suggest that workers rationalise career decisions based on the motivational factors, drivers and triggers that shape their work roles and commitments. From these perspectives, career choice lies in the individual’s expectations for success in a profession and the value they assign to that profession (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000 ).

In the teacher education field to date, research concerning career choice—most of which is quantitative—has principally focused on internal and/or external motivational factors contributing to teachers’ decision-making about career (Heinz, 2015 ). This research tradition aims to establish causal relationships between factors, drivers, triggers, and decision-making. Self-beliefs, prior experiences and other socio-cultural influences may contribute to teachers’ career decisions (Heinz, 2015 ). Most research has been conducted via the FIT-Choice test (Richardson & Watt, 2006 ), underpinned by expectancy value theory to understand motivational influences which contribute to professional choice (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000 ). Motivational factors have been classified as intrinsic, altruistic and extrinsic (Heinz, 2015 ; Yüce et al., 2013 ). Intrinsic motivation involves passion for the profession, aptitude in teaching and personal fulfilment (Lovett, 2007 ; Manuel & Hughes, 2006 ; Yüce et al., 2013 ). Altruistic motivation is the intention to make a difference in communities and society (Chong & Low, 2009 ). Extrinsic motivations include job security (Jungert et al., 2014 ; Lam, 2012 ), high salary or reliable income, and long vacations (Lai et al., 2005 ; Lam, 2012 ; Struyven et al., 2013 ). Other factors of relevance are prior teaching and learning experiences (Heinz, 2011 , 2013 ), initial teacher education (Manuel & Hughes, 2006 ), demographic characteristics (Yüce et al., 2013 ), and considering teaching as a fall-back career (Cross & Ndofirepi, 2015 ).

A literature search on ‘becoming a teacher’ appeared mostly to focus on the initial decision-making of becoming a teacher and remaining in the profession. Similar to the literature already reviewed, this group of literature predominantly emphasises the working of the mind alone to become a teacher, especially motivation, informed decision-making, rational choice, etc. (e.g., Bruinsma & Jansen, 2010 ; Caires et al., 2012 ; Simonsz et al., 2023 ; Thornberg et al., 2023 ; Wolf et al., 2021 ). However, some research highlighted the role of the long-term embodied lived experiences in career decisions to become teachers. A study of 102 students conducted over time in the Australian rural context examining what it meant for them to become teachers in terms of their goals and aspirations found that the graduates’ deep values attached to their teacher education, credentials and initial professional experiences over years informed their desire to establish themselves and remain in the profession. Nonetheless, their convictions often wavered due to the contractual status of their profession (Plunkett & Dyson, 2011 ). A US study on a white science teacher’s becoming (identity) revealed how the social texts of her teacher education programme interplayed with her lived experiences of ‘her midwestern small-town childhood and a professional life in science’ (Gomez et al., 2007 , p. 2107). The study found the white teachers’ ‘ideological becoming’ was not complete and stable through teacher education and initial experiences but her becoming evolved in the critical reflexivity and fluidity of her understanding of herself and her students: ‘that collisions with ideas she has not before considered continue to disrupt and unsettle her thinking and practices’ (Gomez et al., 2007 , p. 2131). Although the findings of the two studies indicate that embodied lived experiences over time impact teachers’ career choice and remaining in the profession, it is problematic that the central role of affect influencing the long-term trajectory of ELTs’ careers is still unexplored.

Additionally, notwithstanding the growing interest in the emotional aspects of teaching and teacher identity (Hargreaves, 2005 ; Kelchtermans & Deketelaere, 2016 ; Nguyen & Ngo, 2023 ; Oplatka, 2009 ; Song, 2016 ; Zembylas, 2015 , 2006 , 2021 ), research is yet to address broader socio-cultural constructs (Klassen et al., 2011 ), or to examine how multiple interplays of socio-cultural and other material forces might affect a teacher’s becoming with regard to their decision to choose teaching as a professional career. Little attention has been paid to the primacy of affect in one’s decision to become a teacher (Kövecses, 2004 ) as an integral part of identity formation. Indeed, the primary role of affect is central in informing the career choice by their embodied lived experiences over time. For teachers to continue developing and remain in the profession, it is essential to deeply engage with their evolving professional identity formation process, even though it is inherently fluid and never truly complete. In order to address the issue of how a teacher chooses their career, develops their identity and remains in the profession, it is crucial to understand the pre-eminence of affective lived experiences that permeate a teacher’s decision in becoming a teacher as an identity formation.

To gain deeper understanding of the subtle influences of affective elements of lived experiences in the process of identity formation and developing as an English language teacher (ELT) before and after migration to Australia, we adopt a Deleuzian frame. We argue that becoming a teacher is not only based on rational choices responsive to internal and external motivational factors, but also on the socio-materially produced desires that underlie choices and decision-making (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983 ). As we argue below, English language teachers’ (ELTs) decisions are rationalised only after affective encounters—inter-subjective and inter-objective—as they engage with the material–semiotic–affective staging of events over time in their lives. The lived experiences enmeshed with embodied elements of affect make meanings guide actions, and the ‘meaning’ itself emerges as a new emotion, making further actions possible and actual (Sampson, 2022 ). According to Deleuze ( 1994 ), human subjectivity is better represented relationally and dynamically as becoming (rather than being) in the continuous process of differentiated repetitions. Becoming is always in a process of movement, making new meanings using the repertoire of real and abstract—materials of the world and ideas that encircle the lifeworld.

In this paper, we examine the complexity of the factors that may shape ELT becoming (Trent, 2012 ) over time. We discuss the findings of a study exploring how 16 teachers became ELTs in and through various situated practices and gathering of emotional experiences since early childhood. We frame the process of becoming a teacher as non-linear over an individual’s life. In this process, motivational factors that influence teachers’ decision-making emerge as a result of socio-material affect in their lives. That is, the desire to become a teacher is affective in that it drives the bodily capacity to make decisions, melding in this process ‘personal aspiration; spiritual endeavour; social mission; intellectual pursuit; the desire for connectedness; and a belief in the power of ideas and relationships manifested in education to alter the conditions of their own and others’ lives for the better’ (Manuel & Hughes, 2006 , p. 20). In this sense, the affective origin of desire flows through one’s motivation, which ‘in itself implies emotion’ (Du Toit, 2014 , p. 6). Embodied desiring refers to the body’s capacity to project itself as always more than itself . The significance of this study is its provision of a decentred perspective on participants’ decision-making to become ELTs by considering the dialectical relationship between the affective and the rational in ‘the dynamic of human life’ (Vygotski, 1965 as cited in Rieber & Aaron, 1987 , p. 333). The career decisions of ELTs arise from a blend of embodied lived experiences and rational thinking. Both Spinoza and Vygotsky shared a similar perspective on this, with Vygotsky noting that “consciousness is the experience of experiences (soznanie est’ perezhivanie perezhivanii)”, which aligns closely with Spinoza’s definition of consciousness as “the idea of the idea…” (Sévérac, 2017 , p. 80).

Desire and becoming

In this research, the decision-making about career choices as part of the immigrant English teachers’ becoming is conceptualised as a form of ‘desired becoming’—that is, as the ‘will to power’ which is sublimated into their desires to influence and benefit others, and into a creative activity of ‘self-overcoming’ or ‘self-mastery’ (Nietzsche, 2002 , 2008 ). In social life, power is associated with education and knowledge (Foucault, 1980 ), and desiring power thus can be linked with the desire to be educated (i.e., power to ) and to educate others (i.e., power over ). Thus, we shift the focus from pre-formed desires and the workings of reason to explore the socio-material and political becoming and the flows of desire that precede (and result from) the formation of subjects and objects. In this way, becoming an English language teacher can be traced historically to the flows of desire in and across socio-material assemblages .

According to Deleuze and Guattari ( 1983 ), an assemblage is a constellation of bodies and things that are coded by taking a particular form and occupying a particular territory. An assemblage connects material bodies and things on a horizontal axis, forming socio-material relations that become represented and meaningful as a social order(ing) of bodies, actions and reactions. One’s becoming implies a vertical axis of movement across assemblages, involving a ‘flight’ of desire across their territorial boundaries. A translation from the French agencement , assemblages are productive comings-together which channel affect , or the ‘capacity to affect or be affected’ (Fox & Alldred, 2015 , p. 401). Content comprises the machinic assemblage of bodies and actions, ‘an intermingling of bodies reacting to one another’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988 , p. 88), whereas expression is the collection assemblage of enunciation —’of acts and statements, of incorporeal transformations attributed to bodies’ (p. 88). Expression within assemblages become semiotic systems or regimes of signs , whereas content becomes pragmatic systems of actions and passions (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988 , p. 504).

De-centring desire from the subject, while exploring decisions to become a teacher, means attending to how desire as a life force is immanently networked with other forces that are together constitutive of the social production of that desire. According to Deleuze and Guattari ( 1983 ), socio-material assemblages have ‘machinic’ rather than organic relations between the constitutive elements and, hence, there is no desire without ‘desiring-machines’ and their connective desiring production. Deleuze and Guattari ( 1983 ) differentiate in this regard between unconscious desire and preconscious social investment. While unconscious desire has to do with pre-personal creative desire, preconscious social investment is concerned with values, beliefs, and intentions.

The analysis of how socio-material assemblages may produce the desire to become an ELT responds to the differentiation between ‘the unconscious libidinal investment of group or desire, and the preconscious investment of class or interest’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983 , p. 343). In this study, unconscious desire allows us to comprehend a free-floating desire to learn English, while preconscious social investment captures the influence of beliefs about teaching English and teaching as a career choice. The analytic also includes the affective vectors of molar and molecular lines (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988 ) that map the entanglement of participants’ desires in debilitating and enabling ways. Molar lines relate to the subject’s embodiment of the rigid segmentations of socio-cultural apparatuses (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988 ; Foucault, 2013 ), such as ‘native-speakerism’. Molecular lines refer to ‘a precise state of intermingling of bodies in a society, including all the attractions and repulsions, sympathies and antipathies, alterations, amalgamations, penetrations, and expansions that affect bodies of all kinds in their relations to one another’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988 , p. 90), such as relational experiences. The functions of molecular lines can be viewed as thrusting unfolding of possibilities to ‘become’ and ‘becoming’ against the ‘pre-existing, molar, arboreal’ (Rogers et al., 2014 , p. 22) structure that inhibits the process of becoming.

Undertaken as part of a larger project, the study was informed by hermeneutic phenomenology and the innovated hermeneutic phenomenological narrative enquiry. In hermeneutic phenomenology, the researcher and participants engage with the research process intimately and deeply, but the researcher still seeks to interpretively understand the multi-layered meanings of the experienced phenomena in terms of their commonality of occurrence among participants (van Manen, 1990 ). In this study, recursive interpretations and the uses of narrative techniques were the core means to gather and interpret the complex patterns of the lived phenomena (Nigar, 2019 ).

Sixteen participants (see Table 1 ), all of whom lived in metropolitan centres in Australia at the time of data collection, participated in the study. Amongst them, four participants—Ling Ling, Becca, Quang and Raphael—had started their formal English teaching career in Australia. The others began in their countries of origin but some taught in other countries of residence too, such as United Arab Emirates (Janaki) and Uganda (Mahati). Two of them taught English to international students in their countries of origin, namely, Frida and Mandy. The interviews were conducted by the first author of this manuscript. Her emic (insider) view lay in her familiarity with some of the historical and current global contexts of research into English language learning and teaching, and almost 10 years’ of English language teaching experience. Considering her as ‘one of them’, the participants felt comfortable in telling her their stories (see Guba & Lincoln, 1994 ). From the etic (outsider) perspective (Olive, 2014 ), however, the researcher was conscious of her beliefs and assumptions, and how they might influence the interpretation of research data.

Fifteen participants flexibly wrote narratives online over a period and then took part in one-on-one interviews (one participant was only interviewed). The narratives focused on their experiences of English learning and choosing their career. The interview prompts elicited information about their family, linguistic, cultural, educational and geographic backgrounds; their English language learning experiences; their motivations to become ELTs; how they obtained their first English teaching positions; and how they remained in the profession. In addition to the online narratives and interviews, relevant data were also collated from responses to other prompts used in the main project, such as emails. The research (project ID 19107) was approved regarding ethical measures by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee. Prior to signing the consent forms, all participants were informed of the voluntary nature of the research participation and their full anonymity.

A hermeneutic phenomenological narrative method (van Manen, 1990 ) was adopted to sequence and analyse the data through recursive analyses and uncover the themes. The analysis aimed to reconstruct socio-material assemblages within which participants had interacted, based on the participants’ narration of their life events (Bruner, 1990 ). In the following sections, we present the various assemblages of desiring production which were constructed from the data; however the figure does not represent the complex and non-linear process of interactions and influence of the assemblages (Fig. 1 ).

Final themes and subthemes

Assemblages of desiring production

The participants had often ‘unconsciously’ internalised the desire to become proficient in English under the influence of more knowledgeable others (Fleer, 2021 ; Vygotsky, 1978 ). As they initially encountered the language and then began their formal education, their embodied emotional experiences and their echo in their reflections ( perezhivanie ) of English and English language learning worked as affective-volitional forces for them to become proficient users of the language (Vygotsky, 1999 ). The participants’ embodied and desired selves, shaped through these experiences, impacted their later career decisions. In what follows, we address different kinds of assemblages within which the participants operated—families, school education, culture, and higher education—and through which their desires for English were activated and mediated. They interacted with these assemblages at different times. Furthermore, the size and duration of the assemblages, and the ways in which they (re)formed participants’ desires, were quite variable.

Family assemblages

In their pre-school years, the participants’ desires for English were kindled by affective intersubjective relations and cultural objects and artefacts (Anning et al., 2008 ; Fleer et al., 2017 ). The roles of significant others (Fleer, 2021 ), including parents and family members, contributed to their internalisation of a passion and imagination for the language and teaching. They were exposed to English through a wide variety of popular cultures, educational materials, and practices in family settings. These included electronic media, books, and games, replete with sensory-motor impacts. Participation in activities mediated by English and associated forms of cultural artefacts, which were perceived as affective experiences (Michell, 2016 )—engaging and experienced as enjoyable—drove them further to desire English proficiency.

Although formal language learning started for the participants in school, most were exposed to English in their early childhood. Twelve participants said that in their early childhood or primary school years they were also exposed to popular culture in English: literature, music, film, and television. Oksana recalled that her parents ‘listened to the Beatles songs, and since the time I was born, I was exposed to that music, and I fell in love with the language’. Similarly, Becca wrote, ‘I’ve been exposed to English as long as I can remember, and I’ve always liked it. I liked the way it sounded, I liked its “coolness” (it was the language of movies and songs)’. As a child, Frida played English board games at home; she recalled, ‘I would usually play against my grandmother and my aunts, who all had a higher level of English than my 10-year-old self, so I learned to pick up new words from them’.

As Fleer ( 2016 ) pointed out, affective environments were produced by family members and practices—ordinary emotional experiences and ways of ‘being with’ or ‘becoming with’—that led the participants to pay attention to and desire English. However, while most participants’ immediate family members explicitly and actively encouraged their education in the language, some did not (e.g., Frida has an estranged father). Janaki’s learning was interrupted by a forced marriage when she was in high school, and Mahati was also subjected to attempts to be forcibly married by family members during her higher education. Janaki reflected, ‘[i]t was after my marriage that I completed bachelor’s degree in education and a Masters in English … through Distance Education’.

In family settings, popular media and early learning activities emotionally affected the participants, activating a passion to learn English and dialogically imagine their multilingual and multicultural self (Kostogriz, 2005 ). Their socio-culturally internalised sensory-motor experiences of cultural elements during early childhood (Fleer et al., 2017 ; Vygotsky, 1987 ) were later rationalised as their affective and passionate attachments to English.

School education as assemblage

Participants’ early desires for English were reinforced institutionally, resulting in strong interest and sometimes ‘love’ for the subject of English. At school, participants’ interest was mediated and intensified through interactions with curricula, pedagogies, teachers, teaching styles, and language policy, regardless of the medium of instruction. In school, they discovered new meanings associated with their developing English skills. They were inspired to invest in learning English as they sought ‘to make a meaningful connection between [their] desire and commitment to learn [the] language, and their changing identity’ (Norton, 2010 ). Their desire for English constantly shifted across institutional practices and beyond, together with their emotional responses to these, as in a socially mediated process children learn interacting with others (van der Veer, 2012 ).

Participants held mixed feelings about learning English at school, particularly in relation to how the language was taught. Learning English was not always enjoyable. Jasha, who reflected that she only enjoyed it when speaking activities were included in the lessons, commented:

…it was quite boring: boring texts to read, boring lessons on grammar, no listening, and no speaking. And boring teaching! … the antiquated Prussian system …learning …supposed to be a hard job, not fun.

However, some participants enjoyed communicative and translanguaging elements of learning with their peers and teachers (see also Aoyama, 2020 ; Cenoz & Gorter, 2020 ). Negative feelings, such as of ‘rote learning’ shifted into positives when participants experienced democratic ways (Soong, 2018 ) of language learning, such as through play, music and singing, and their sense of achievement in English learning grew.

Participants recalled feelings of pride and positive emotions (e.g., Ross & Stracke, 2016 ) in their language learning progress and the social recognition which accompanied their developing skills. As Jigna remembered, ‘my interest in English was reflected in my academic achievements which further encouraged me to embrace English in my educational choices’. Feelings of self-consciousness led high-achiever Carlos to feel embarrassed about achieving consistently strong marks in all assessment, to the extent that he began to deliberately make errors. However, this feeling of embarrassment had positive connotations for Carlos, and it drove him to feel empowered about his English skills. The sense of pride emanated from the energies of positive emotions through meaningful connection with pursuing language learning (Ross & Stracke, 2016 ).

Positive or negative relational experiences with teachers and the curricula also contributed substantially to the participants’ learning and future professional selves. Through lived experiences with different teachers, Jasha learnt how not to be unethical and partial in her teaching as well as how to develop an identity of English language and culture through her full immersion in her interaction with the teacher and the language. Jasha nostalgically reminisced,

When I was in Year 7, I think, I volunteered to accompany a teacher to a bookshop … The Picture of Dorian Gray. I asked her whether she could get an extra book for me, and she did. I consider this the beginning of MY English. This was the first time I realised that English could be alive and beautiful, that it can express feelings and send subtle messages. To this day I don’t dare to re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray in fear that the magic will disappear. The experience is too precious to lose, even today.

An ecstatic experience for child-Jasha, going to the bookshop with her teacher was an affective moment which was beyond her rationalisation. Many years later, the joy of reading and sensing English in the book was still precious for her.

Teachers and tutors were powerful sources of inspiration and reflection of English language teaching and learning experiences for most other participants too. Institutional practices created affective environments in which participants’ already embodied desires for English were reinforced through collectively produced affects. These embodied language learning experiences also reveal how participants’ everyday and scientific concepts acted dialectically (Vygotsky, 1987b )—for example, they could relate their everyday understandings of English (acquired through books and pop-culture) to the linguistic concepts taught in schools. The embodiment of desire and knowledge draws attention to educational institutions as assemblages that are situated in broader assemblages constituting the cultural-historical life of society. Now, we turn to cultural forces as assemblages.

Local and global forces as assemblages

All participants storied how their desires for English language and associated cultural forces were equally fostered by the influences of cultural-historical discourses and artefacts (Anning et al., 2008 ; Rogers et al., 2014 ; Somerville, 2011 ). Their desires were produced as collective affections at local and global levels. Multiple cultural-historical discourses (Turner & Lin, 2020 ), such as colonial history, English as a global language, and the prestige status and utility of the language generated affective intensity. For example, Jigna, who lived in post-colonial and multilingual India, narrated her relationship with English as complex and deeply rooted in her consciousness:

English comes naturally to me … It is and was the stamp of quality education … I was made aware of the archetypes of cultural-dom while trying to imbibe everything in English.

Mandy also believed that colonial histories had shaped the contemporary status of English in the Philippines. In the region, English is associated with job opportunities and income since their English-speaking workforces are employed by Business Process Outsourcings (BPOs), such as call centres. Global and neoliberal market forces are entangled with English (Pennycook, 2002 , 2007 ) and encounter numerous other educational, ideological and linguistic forces. For example, in Vietnam, Quang reflected on the ideology of native-speakerism and the notion of authenticity in language use, to which he was not only exposed, but also in which he was also complicit:

At first, my professional self was formed by the collective view that Vietnamese teachers are inferior due to our lack of exposure to authentic English language materials and communities. I accepted that as fact and even played a role in downplaying our own values and elevating that of ‘native speakers’. While believing that the ‘native speakers’ could do a better job, I propagated the idea to my peers without questioning the validity of such claim.

Living in war zones, with trans-generational violence, may have strongly influenced Jasha and Raphael to divert their desires beyond their local contexts. Raphael, while undertaking compulsory military training and service, was eager to interact with English-speaking tourists. The profound emotions generated by these interactions brought feelings of rest and diversion. Their affect around learning English included ‘a terrain ranging from emotion, to feelings, desire, love, hate, anger, boredom, excitement, frustration, violence’ (Albrecht-Crane, 2002 , p. 7).

The embodied socio-historical values of English drove the participants to embrace English learning further within complex flows of spatial–temporal and embodied relations. They conceptualised associated cultural tools (or skills in using English) as mediational and imaginative artefacts to mobilise across spaces (Marginson & Dang, 2017 ).

Higher education as assemblages

As adults, most participants became conscious of how their intellectual capacities could mediate their emotionally driven desires and that they could agentively drive their own actions and behaviours (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983 ; Spinoza, 1994 , Vygotsky, 1930, 1982a as cited in Van der Veer, 1984 ). Perhaps their desires for English then coincided with those related to their emerging professional selves in the broader uses and practices of English and professional education. They most consciously opted to study English and related disciplines in universities. For example, similar to the influence over time of choosing the career in the study by Plunkett and Dyson ( 2011 ), Quang rationalised that he had chosen to study teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) because he was aware of his abilities and skills in English. However, he acknowledged that his embodied desires, influenced by a significant other, were still a strong contributing factor in his career choice:

My choice was also influenced by an English teacher I had, who was caring and knowledgeable; she most certainly fit into our Vietnamese vision of a teacher: wise, strict but caring, dedicated, who gives but asks for little in return. I of course aspired to be such a teacher.

Akin to the teacher in the study by Gomez et al. ( 2007 ), Frida’s rationalisation of choosing teaching as a career through passing a “Licensure Exam for Teachers” emerged from her deep-seated experiences of English learning as a child in the extended family, community libraries, a neighbour’s library and the church in “Quezon City”. Her other emotional attachments to decide to be an ELT were her higher education through the medium of English and working as an international ship crew. In fact, she fortuitously discovered her decision to be a teacher when she enjoyed teaching English to a crew member on the cruise, a ‘60-year-old Colombian musician’:

… it felt good to help out this person. This was my first conscious effort at helping someone learn survival English. When I returned to the Philippines after a few contracts abroad, I decided to get a job teaching English.

Within higher education, English became the medium through which to gain knowledge, be exposed to the world, become qualified for the teaching profession, and potentially migrate to English-speaking countries. Participants expanded their networks and opportunities, developing their English proficiency further and eventually becoming English language teachers formally. Some participated in cultural activities in English in and out of educational institutions; for example, Natalie entered university debate competitions, Raphael communicated with English-speaking tourists, and Carlos immersed himself in ‘ Cultural Inglesa’ (emphasis added).

As they became further exposed to different manifestations of the language, and their awareness of ideas around the language grew, some participants began to consider their English skills not yet advanced—or authentic —enough. In response, Becca and Jasha strove assiduously to learn what they called ‘real English’. In the pursuit of ‘real English’, Becca travelled across English speaking countries:

… my first contact with real communication in English occurred near Birmingham ... After that I spent another summer in New Jersey, USA when I was twenty-one … I think that the real break in my English studies came when I came to Australia.

Similarly, Jasha worked hard to bring her ‘English alive … and so I did work hard, mostly on the appropriateness of expressions, and intonation’. She believed ‘there was a real English somewhere out there, and it was my job to find it’. It is however not uncommon for non-native English speakers to have an ambivalent relationship with their so called ‘accented English’, as they might ‘want a NS English identity as expressed in a native-like accent’ (Jenkins, 2005 , p. 541). This may be due to the historical and global impact of the discourse of native-speakerism, its adjacent discourses and its associated ideological values and meanings (Holliday, 2018 ; Nigar et al., 2023 ).

Desires through traits, values, attributes, and investments

Personal traits (Parsons, 1909 ) and values (Kassabgy et al., 2001 ) are argued to be major contributing factors in career decision-making across professional fields (Judge, 1994 ; Jugović et al., 2012 ). These work as the ‘cycle of influence’ (Manuel, 2003 ) as the study by Manuel and Hughes ( 2006 ) reports: ‘personal aspirations to work with young people to make a difference in their lives; to maintain a meaningful engagement with the subject area they were drawn to; and to attain personal fulfilment and meaning’ (p. 5). Across assemblages of desiring production, participants’ perceived attributes and interests played an important role. Frida told of her ‘innate and genuine sense of wanting to help others’. Frida added that she ‘would like to pass on what knowledge’ she had gained ‘through work/life experience’ by teaching English ‘to those who wanted to learn it as a second language’. Becca related her own painstaking language learning and international student experiences to what her students were going through. Carlos emphasised the importance of making a difference to his students on the basis that English education could be a form of individual empowerment. Similarly, Raphael recollected,

I enjoyed helping people improve on their language … because I saw myself, still see myself as one of them, one of the migrants that have come here and found it hard. And if I made it, then I could help other people make it. So that was one of the motivations of becoming a teacher and helping people.

The participants wanted to make a difference (Lovett, 2007 ) in others’ lives by making use of their skills and knowledge. Their knowledge of English, personal attributes, and professional values, in congruence with professional cultures, contributed to their career choices (Judge, 1994 ). They imagined empowerment through the process of empowering others.

Becoming and staying a teacher

Through various networking opportunities, 13 of the participants who started teaching in their countries of origin and some who taught in non-native English-speaking contexts found their first employment serendipitously, without difficulty. Amongst them are Thi through her friend ‘Phuong’, Mahati through her ‘father’s friend’, Oksana through her ‘teachers’, and the rest through formal application processes. Indeed, compared to the Australian context (e.g., Nigar et al., 2023 ), participants remembered their first employment experiences in their countries of origin as accomplishments. Studies in settings in the United States (Mahboob & Golden, 2013 ) and the United Kingdom (Clark & Paran, 2007 ) also suggest that non-native English teachers’ employment is challenged by the so-called native-speaker selection criterion.

They recalled these first positions as accomplishments and described their teaching experiences as developmental, rewarding and fulfilling. Mahati was ‘very well respected [as a teacher] in India and in Africa’. Similarly, Oksana reflected that ‘Everyone respected me for being an English teacher at the age of 21, so I stay in the profession’. Thi said that her first few days working as a teacher ‘changed my life forever as I felt energised working with young children and a mix of local and expatriate teachers every week’. Becca summarised:

I finally got to do something that I actually enjoy and I’m very grateful for it. Every day when I step into the classroom, I think to myself how fortunate I am to be doing something that most of the time feels more like a hobby than a job.

All participants eventually migrated to Australia and obtained ELT positions there. Different lines of ‘desired becoming’ were at play: through migration, participants desired to improve their English, undertake further studies, or teach English to others. The accumulation of the ‘affectives’, in both unconscious desires and preconscious social investments, energised them to act and become mobile.

Finding employment as an ELT was not without its challenges. For example, Quang had completed a relevant undergraduate degree in Vietnam and two post-graduate degrees in Australia, but still it took him until the second year of his second post-graduate degree to get a paid teaching job. Becca, while an international student for seven years in Sydney, had ‘been kind of dreaming of, for the previous three or four years, doing a master of TESOL’. Ling Ling came to Adelaide as a high school student and moved to Melbourne to complete ‘a secondary education and arts degree, majoring in Japanese, Chinese and English translation’. However, despite the challenging landscape of securing employment, they were still positive about developing their English and ardently pursued their careers.

Participants’ decisions to remain in teaching also involved negotiations with challenges within their educational institutions. The commodification of English and prevalent native-speakerism appeared in a few teachers’ stories. Thi commented that, in the Vietnamese English teaching context, ‘the preference of native speakerism is still vastly dominant, which has a profound negative impact on the non-native teacher’s self-confidence and self-esteem’. Mandy was upset when ‘native English speakers (without any legitimate qualifications)’ were paid three times more than she was at her institution in the Philippines. While completing an MA TESOL in Sydney, Becca said,

…from the very first class of my master’s degree course, I was terrified of having to teach English to an actual group of real humans … It was all about me and my own grasp of English. Is my English good enough to teach it to others? Am I qualified enough to teach it to others? What if the students see right through my feelings of inadequacy? What if they catch me off guard and I won’t be able to answer their questions?

The findings above reveal that decisions to become ELTs for the 16 participants did not occur in teleological order or determinate ways. They transpired in ceaseless ideas of spatiotemporal assemblages of becoming users and teachers of English. Participants’ bodies were affectively invested as the intricate interactions of minutely assembled (Braidotti, 1993 ) socio-cultural and symbolic drives across the lines of becoming.

The participants’ decisions to become English language teachers were the products of ongoing interplays of socio-material desires related to learning English and becoming ELTs since early childhood. Their unconscious desires and preconscious social investments over time led them to rationalise their lines of becoming. Although the English language ‘desiring machine’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983 ) functions somewhat differently in and across non-English speaking countries, the flows of desire it produced for the participants were connected to the ‘social machine’ of English language education. We argue that, in part, this connection can be understood as an intersection of a desire to gain power through learning English and a desire to empower others.

Since early childhood, the participants’ desires were produced repeatedly across molar lines of disjunctions and segments. In family assemblages of produced desires, they were exposed to English popular culture and English learning activities, and they discovered they were desiring the desires held by others. Their fascination with books, music, television programmes and movies implicate the symbolic simulated significations (simulacra) of the consumer cultures of capitalist society (Baudrillard, 1994 , 2016 ). The strategy of a captivating educational relationship (Sæverot, 2011 ) was evident when, at the age of four, Frida was given children’s books and nursery rhymes with pictures, was home-tutored in English by her grandmother and aunt, and was rewarded with her favourite treat when she wrote or counted in English. Frida’s desire was purposefully ignited ‘in the world of signs expressed in a pictorial language—an impact perception of a child prior to the language acquisition’ (Semetsky, 1999 , pp. 67–68).

Despite the seductive mechanisms of molar lines, most of the participants sensed molecular lines of desire operational in affective ‘self-mastery’. Molecular lines take their own directions, which may or may not culminate in change. Participants started to connect to the pleasures and serendipities of learning English, exploring the novelty of the culture they associated with it. As Jasha put it: ‘then I discovered the joy of Agatha Christie, followed by G.K. Chesterton—so many opportunities to see different layers and different contexts of English! And different registers!’. The power of desire, a productive force, affected Jasha in the perpetuation of an active flow of elation in encounters with those books. Others were affected and enthused in engagements with books, movies, comics, serials, and games.

Participants’ desires were coded in the school system too, a molar line of coding and encoding production, reproduction, and simulation. According to Deleuze and Guattari ( 1988 , pp. 75–76), ‘the compulsory education machine […] imposes upon the child semiotic coordinates … Language is made not to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience’. Most participants’ desires were stratified and segmented within capillaries of the education system (Savat & Thompson, 2015 ): ‘techniques and practices, as an expression of control society, constitute the new sorts of machines that frame and inhabit our educational institutions’ (p. 273). Notwithstanding the major molarisation of the institution, miniscule pleasures associated with learning English were experienced as they engaged intimately with special language programmes, resources, teachers, and achievements. For example, Jasha and Janaki’s teachers had sparked a love of reading which would carry into the future. Sensations of care and secret bliss were evident when Jasha’s teacher purchased her a much-loved book. According to Sellar ( 2015 , p. 426), this may be described as ‘discovering the desiring-machines operating outside of representation and reaching the investment of unconscious desire in the social field’.

Participants felt empowered, taking pride in their developing English language and cultural skills by engaging with the resources and other opportunities they could avail. Hien, Natalie and Jigna were proud of their English skills and academic achievements from childhood since they stood amongst others. The flows became materialised in the cases of inmost locus of self-management, private self-talk (Flanagan & Symonds, 2022 ) and enjoyable interactions with others and objects external to them. The encounters of ‘“affect” address those resonances in their bodies and their relations to each other that conjured non-representational kinds of effects—intensities, sounds, sensations, odours, touches, remembrances’ (Albrecht-Crane, 2002 , p. 7).

Some participants were subjectified in the intricate and discrete ‘white walls’ of post-colonial and neoliberal ‘faciality’ of English. Globally, English is used in association with economic, ideological, socio-political and cultural forces (Shin, 2006 ). As discussed, native-speakerism and the notion of authentic language persist. Becca and Jigna pushed themselves to seek the real English at home and abroad. However, native-speakerism is divisive , and ‘the “native speaker” ideal plays a wide-spread and complex iconic role outside as well as inside the English-speaking West’ (Holliday, 2006 , p. 385). However, along molecular lines, participants ‘not only have to deal with erosions of frontiers but with the explosions within shanty towns or ghettos’ (Deleuze, 1992 , p. 5). They de-territorialised and kept seeking individual and intersubjective effectuations of molecular desire lines in multiplicities. For Jigna in India, ‘English became the language’ of her ‘thoughts and logic’; she viewed the multicultural and multilingual context in which she found herself through the lens of translanguaging in productive tension and desire (Turner & Lin, 2020 ).

Growing up, teacher participants broadened the imagined communities of English language and culture (Pavlenko & Norton, 2007 ), which influenced their choice of English teaching as a career. For Mahati and Janaki, commitment to English language learning was a means of emancipation from patriarchal norms (Kobayashi, 2002 ; McMahill, 1997 ), so they persisted in infiltrating the imagined communities of their ‘desired becomings’ (Norton, 2000 ). Through cyclicities of molecularities, driven by the axiomatic values of the participants as ‘“i-for-myself”, “i-for-the-other”, and “the-other-for-me”‘ (Pape, 2016 , p. 279), the teachers imagined their selves in students’ selves, and in modulation, students’ selves in themselves. They desired their students to engage, experiment and connect (Mercieca, 2012 ).

Desire is always progressive since it is invested in social actions (Smith, 2011 ). Becca, Ling Ling, Quang and Raphael—as international students and immigrants—suffered as vulnerable workers (Colic-Peisker, 2011 ; Nyland et al., 2009 ); however, in ‘movements and rests’, they passionately pursued higher education and further training, and took pride in their academic achievements. They experienced culture shock and nostalgia, and they suffered emotionally. However, instead of collapsing into the ‘black hole’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983 ), they developed adaptability in affective multiplicities. They developed and transformed educationally, professionally, interpersonally and interculturally. For example, Becca dedicated every opportunity to develop her English to ‘the next level and be fluent’. After commencing teaching, she built kindred relationships with students, engaged with creative pedagogies, and was even learning Spanish as she felt it would benefit her many students who were proficient in the language.

Deleuze and Parnet ( 2007 ) define a profession as a ‘rigid segment, but also what happens beneath it, the connections, the attractions and repulsions which do not coincide with the segments, the forms of madness which are secret, but which nevertheless relate to the public authorities’ (p. 125). The participants of this study were situated in striated educational policies and regulations, teaching standards and curricula, professionalism and hierarchies. They also described their desires at the site of affective interactions, at the cut lines, which were stirring, multiple, connective, incidental, approving and revitalising over time.

Their career choices to teach English language were rationalised neither as ‘one stop’ events nor in linear processes of motivations; rather, these decisions were impacted by complex circuitous interchanges between personal and socio-cultural elements. Their narratives suggest that their processes of becoming English teachers were driven by the force of desire that materialised in interactions of the sensuous and the rational, in their thoughts of themselves and others, as they pondered, enquired, engaged, and connected to find their own-other-selves in others. Empowered and transfigured by affects (Spinoza, 1994 ), individuals’ lives pass on; as the operations of other bodies are inextricably conjoined with their own, so bodies realise themselves in relation to their own parts (Leibniz, 1898 ).

Itermingled in the spatiotemporal processes of becoming teachers were relational intimacies and multiplicities— esprit de corps and their rotations (Deleuze, 2001 ), and their effectual impacts to be empowered and empower others.

A world already envelops an infinite system of singularities selected through convergence … however, individuals are constituted which select and envelop a finite number of the singularities that their own body incarnates. They spread them out over their own ordinary lines, and are even capable of forming them again on the membranes which bring the inside and the outside in contact with each other. (Deleuze, 2004 , p. 109)

We conclude that the concept of English teachers’ ‘desired becoming’ provides an aperture into the formation of their professional identities as an interplay of the affective and the rational. We invite all to embrace and appreciate that the combined role of the affective and the rational in teachers’ becoming is important to consider in future research in this area as well as for teacher recruitment and retention, hence potentially addressing critical teacher shortages. Exploring ‘affect and desire’ can illuminate not only the process of teacher recruitment and retention but also the decision to leave the profession, as well as overall job satisfaction. Including affective components in teacher education may have ‘an expansive power of ontological freedom’ and meaningful professional contribution (Kostogriz, 2012 , p. 397), that may also address professional interests and resilience. This implies that choosing teaching as a career should be conceived with recognition of the primacy of affective experiences, counteracting solely rationalised discourses of professional regulation and accountability: ‘rationalization and control that produce a number of social pathologies, such as alienated teaching and learning and reified social relations between teachers and students’ (Kostogriz, 2012 , p. 397). Future studies of desired becoming across different subject areas and settings of teaching might highlight the importance of affect in the work of teachers.

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Nigar, N., Kostogriz, A. & Gurney, L. Becoming an English language teacher over lines of desire: Stories of lived experiences. Aust. Educ. Res. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00662-4

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What’s it like to be a teacher in america today, public k-12 teachers are stressed about their jobs and few are optimistic about the future of education; many say poverty, absenteeism and mental health are major problems at their school.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand the views and experiences of public K-12 school teachers. The analysis in this report is based on an online survey of 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers conducted from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, 2023. The teachers surveyed are members of RAND’s American Teacher Panel, a nationally representative panel of public K-12 school teachers recruited through MDR Education. Survey data is weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to account for differences in sampling and response to ensure they are representative of the target population.

Here are the questions used for this report , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

Low-poverty , medium-poverty and high-poverty schools are based on the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (less than 40%, 40%-59% and 60% or more, respectively).

Secondary schools include both middle schools and high schools.

All references to party affiliation include those who lean toward that party. Republicans include those who identify as Republicans and those who say they lean toward the Republican Party. Democrats include those who identify as Democrats and those who say they lean toward the Democratic Party.

Public K-12 schools in the United States face a host of challenges these days – from teacher shortages to the lingering effects of COVID-19 learning loss to political battles over curriculum .

In the midst of all this, teachers express low levels of satisfaction with their jobs. In fact, they’re much less satisfied than U.S. workers overall.

Here’s how public K-12 teachers are feeling about their jobs:

• 77% say their job is frequently stressful.
• 68% say it’s overwhelming.
• 70% say their school is understaffed.
• 52% say they would not advise a young person starting out today to become a teacher.

When it comes to how their students are doing in school, teachers are relatively downbeat about both academic performance and behavior.

Here’s how public K-12 teachers rate academic performance and behavior at their school:

• 48% say the academic performance of most students at their school is fair or poor. A third say it’s good, and only 17% describe it as excellent or very good.
• 49% say the behavior of most students at their school is fair or poor; 35% say it’s good and 13% say it’s excellent or very good.

The COVID-19 pandemic likely compounded these issues. About eight-in-ten teachers (among those who have been teaching for at least a year) say the lasting impact of the pandemic on students’ behavior, academic performance and emotional well-being has been very or somewhat negative.

Assessments of student performance and behavior differ widely by school poverty level. 1 Teachers in high-poverty schools have a much more negative outlook. But feelings of stress and dissatisfaction among teachers are fairly universal, regardless of where they teach.

Related: What Public K-12 Teachers Want Americans To Know About Teaching

As they navigate these challenges, teachers don’t feel they’re getting the support or reinforcement they need from parents.

Majorities of teachers say parents are doing too little when it comes to holding their children accountable if they misbehave in school, helping them with their schoolwork and ensuring their attendance.

Teachers in high- and medium-poverty schools are more likely than those in low-poverty schools to say parents are doing too little in each of these areas.

These findings are based on a survey of 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers conducted Oct. 17-Nov. 14, 2023, using the RAND American Teacher Panel. 2 The survey looks at the following aspects of teachers’ experiences:

• Teachers’ job satisfaction (Chapter 1)
• How teachers manage their workload (Chapter 2)
• Problems students are facing at public K-12 schools (Chapter 3)
• Challenges in the classroom (Chapter 4)
• Teachers’ views of parent involvement (Chapter 5)
• Teachers’ views on the state of public K-12 education (Chapter 6)

Problems students are facing

We asked teachers about some of the challenges students at their school are facing. Three problems topped the list:

• Poverty (53% say this is a major problem among students who attend their school)
• Chronic absenteeism (49%)
• Anxiety and depression (48%)

Chronic absenteeism (that is, students missing a substantial number of school days) is a particular challenge at high schools, with 61% of high school teachers saying this is a major problem where they teach. By comparison, 46% of middle school teachers and 43% of elementary school teachers say the same.

Anxiety and depression are viewed as a more serious problem at the secondary school level: 69% of high school teachers and 57% of middle school teachers say this is a major problem among their students, compared with 29% of elementary school teachers.

Fewer teachers (20%) view bullying as a major problem at their school, though the share is significantly higher among middle school teachers (34%).

A look inside the classroom

We also asked teachers how things are going in their classroom and specifically about some of the issues that may get in the way of teaching.

• 47% of teachers say students showing little or no interest in learning is a major problem in their classroom. The share rises to 58% among high school teachers.
• 33% say students being distracted by their cellphones is a major problem. This is particularly an issue for high school teachers, with 72% saying this is a major problem.
• About one-in-five teachers say students getting up and walking around when they’re not supposed to and being disrespectful toward them (21% each) are major problems. Teachers in elementary and middle schools are more likely than those in high schools to see these as challenges.

A majority of teachers (68%) say they’ve experienced verbal abuse from a student – such as being yelled at or threatened. Some 21% say this happens at least a few times a month.

Physical violence is less common. Even so, 40% of teachers say a student has been violent toward them , with 9% saying this happens at least a few times a month.

About two-thirds of teachers (66%) say that the current discipline practices at their school are very or somewhat mild. Only 2% say the discipline practices at their school are very or somewhat harsh, while 31% say they are neither harsh nor mild. Most teachers (67%) say teachers themselves don’t have enough influence in determining discipline practices at their school.

Behavioral issues and mental health challenges

In addition to their teaching duties, a majority of teachers (58%) say they have to address behavioral issues in their classroom every day. About three-in-ten teachers (28%) say they have to help students with mental health challenges daily.

In each of these areas, elementary and middle school teachers are more likely than those at the high school level to say they do these things on a daily basis.

And teachers in high-poverty schools are more likely than those in medium- and low-poverty schools to say they deal with these issues each day.

Cellphone policies and enforcement

Most teachers (82%) say their school or district has policies regarding cellphone use in the classroom.

Of those, 56% say these policies are at least somewhat easy to enforce, 30% say they’re difficult to enforce, and 14% say they’re neither easy nor difficult to enforce.

Experiences with cellphone policies vary widely across school levels. High school teachers (60%) are much more likely than middle school (30%) and elementary school teachers (12%) to say the policies are difficult to enforce (among those who say their school or district has a cellphone policy).

How teachers are experiencing their jobs

Thinking about the various aspects of their jobs, teachers are most satisfied with their relationship with other teachers at their school (71% are extremely or very satisfied).

They’re least satisfied with how much they’re paid – only 15% are extremely or very satisfied with their pay, while 51% are not too or not at all satisfied.

Among teachers who don’t plan to retire or stop working this year, 29% say it’s at least somewhat likely they will look for a new job in the 2023-24 school year. Within that group, 40% say they would look for a job outside of education, 29% say they’d seek a non-teaching job in education, and only 18% say they’d look for a teaching job at another public K-12 school.

Do teachers find their work fulfilling and enjoyable?

Overall, 56% of teachers say they find their job to be fulfilling extremely often or often; 53% say their job is enjoyable. These are significantly lower than the shares who say their job is frequently stressful (77%) or overwhelming (68%).

Positive experiences are more common among newer teachers. Two-thirds of those who’ve been teaching less than six years say their work is fulfilling extremely often or often, and 62% of this group says their work is frequently enjoyable.

Teachers with longer tenures are somewhat less likely to feel this way. For example, 48% of those who’ve been teaching for six to 10 years say their work is frequently enjoyable.

Balancing the workload

Most teachers (84%) say there’s not enough time during their regular work hours to do tasks like grading, lesson planning, paperwork and answering work emails.

Among those who feel this way, 81% say simply having too much work is a major reason.

Many also point to having to spend time helping students outside the classroom, performing non-teaching duties like lunch duty, and covering other teachers’ classrooms as at least minor reasons they don’t have enough time to get all their work done.

A majority of teachers (54%) say it’s very or somewhat difficult for them to balance work and their personal life. About one-in-four (26%) say it’s very or somewhat easy for them to balance these things, and 20% say it’s neither easy nor difficult.

Among teachers, women are more likely than men to say work-life balance is difficult for them (57% vs. 43%). Women teachers are also more likely to say they often find their job stressful or overwhelming.

How teachers view the education system

A large majority of teachers (82%) say the overall state of public K-12 education has gotten worse in the past five years.

And very few are optimistic about the next five years: Only 20% of teachers say public K-12 education will be a lot or somewhat better five years from now. A narrow majority (53%) say it will be worse.

Among teachers who think things have gotten worse in recent years, majorities say the current political climate (60%) and the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (57%) are major reasons. A sizable share (46%) also point to changes in the availability of funding and resources.

Related:  About half of Americans say public K-12 education is going in the wrong direction

Which political party do teachers trust more to deal with educational challenges?

On balance, more teachers say they trust the Democratic Party than say they trust the Republican Party to do a better job handling key issues facing the K-12 education system. But three-in-ten or more across the following issues say they don’t trust either party:

• Shaping school curriculum (42% say they trust neither party)
• Ensuring teachers have adequate pay and benefits (35%)
• Making schools safer (35%)
• Ensuring adequate funding for schools (33%)
• Ensuring all students have equal access to high-quality K-12 education (31%)

A majority of public K-12 teachers (58%) identify or lean toward the Democratic Party. This is higher than the share among the general public (47%).

• Poverty levels are based on the percentage of students in the school who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. ↩
• For details, refer to the Methodology section of the report. ↩
• Urban, suburban and rural schools are based on the location of the school as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (rural includes town). Definitions match those used by the U.S. Census Bureau. ↩

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Enhancing psychological well-being of school teachers in India: role of energy management, thriving, and stress

Smita chaudhry.

1 Department of Human Resources, FLAME School of Business, FLAME University, Pune, India

Raina Chhajer

2 Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Management Indore, Indore, India

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

The psychological well-being of school teachers is a growing concern in the post-pandemic era. Many initiatives are undertaken by individual school authorities and government agencies to address this issue. In this study, we examine the impact of energy management, thriving, and stress on the psychological well-being of school teachers in India.

Data was collected from 356 school teachers in Rajasthan, India, through a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. These teachers were working both in rural and urban areas. The relationship among energy management, thriving, stress, and psychological well-being was analyzed using hierarchical regression.

The findings suggest that energy management positively impacts psychological well-being. A mediating effect of thriving and stress on the relationship between energy management and psychological well-being was also found. The results support that psychological well-being can be enhanced by investing in managing school teachers’ energy levels.

These results contribute to our theoretical and practical understanding of factors that can enhance the psychological well-being of school teachers and improve the quality of education. Institutes may design and implement interventions on energy management to enhance the psychological well-being of school teachers.

Introduction

School teachers deal with daily classroom and student management challenges ( Fenwick, 1998 ). They have to manage the learning environment, pedagogy with different types of students within the given learning environment, their own identity, and informal student interactions. This impacts their energy levels, resulting in emotional fatigue and lethargy. Research indicates that these factors lead to burnout among school teachers, leading to intentions to leave the profession ( Blix et al., 1994 ). Many of them cannot cope with work stress, leading to stress-related health problems. They also have lower psychological well-being due to significantly lesser perceived control regarding autonomy, authenticity, connection to others, and resilience than other professionals ( Grenville-Cleave and Boniwell, 2012 ).

School teachers’ psychological well-being has especially been impacted during the Covid-19 pandemic, as they had to manage multiple tasks. Research conducted during the pandemic revealed that uncertainty, workload, negative perception about the job, concern for others’ well-being, health struggles, and playing multiple roles hampered school teachers’ mental health and well-being ( Kim et al., 2022 ). The sudden introduction of distance learning, including adopting new technology, revising pedagogy, and mode of assessment to deliver online education efficiently, was a challenge for many school teachers in India ( Bhattacharya and Tandon, 2023 ; Dayal, 2023 ).

Psychological well-being implies having a sense of purpose, personal growth, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, autonomy in thoughts and actions, and positive interpersonal relationships ( Ryff and Singer, 2006 ; Ryff and Singer, 2008 ). School teachers need to maintain their psychological well-being not only for their health, but also to be effective educators. Glazzard and Rose (2020) argue that school teachers’ psychological well-being is essential for the quality of education they provide. It can impact students’ motivation, engagement, and academic achievement, thus affecting their performance and well-being. Psychological well-being enables teachers to sustain their teaching performance and make a desirable impact on their pupils ( Rahm and Heise, 2019 ; Greenier et al., 2021 ).

Energy management can be a valuable and essential tool to enhance psychological well-being. Energy management refers to managing one’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy levels to maintain a state of optimal functioning ( Ryan and Frederick, 1997 ). School teachers dedicate long hours to preparing interactive sessions, conducting in-class lectures, grading assignments, attending to their students’ ongoing learning challenges, and involving students in diverse activities for their overall development. Energy as a limited resource gets exhausted in attending to these various demands. Teachers proficient in managing their energy are better equipped to handle the demands and challenges of their profession. Research indicates that energy management promotes work engagement and job satisfaction while reducing burnout ( Parker et al., 2017 ).

Energy management practices implemented by school teachers might impact their psychological well-being. This study examines the impact of energy management on school teachers’ psychological well-being. Our study also explores the role of thriving and stress in determining the impact (see Figure 1 ). Thriving implies having an experience of both vitality and learning at the same time ( Carmeli and Spreitzer, 2009 ). Stress is defined as a negative emotional and physiological response to challenging events or situations ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ). Theory indicates energy management as an antecedent of thriving, yet empirical research is required to explain this relationship. Further, the relationship between energy management, thriving, stress, and psychological well-being remains unexplored in the context of Indian school teachers.

Guiding model.

Although the study is based in the Indian context, it can be helpful to any other country for two reasons, as indicated by the literature. First, school teachers may experience poor psychological well-being due to factors that may be applicable anywhere in the world like work–family conflict ( Zhou et al., 2021 ), life and work circumstances ( Jelińska and Paradowski, 2021 ) and challenges of the teaching occupation ( Fenwick, 1998 ; Grenville-Cleave and Boniwell, 2012 ). Second, teachers strongly influence their students by virtue of their profession. Their low well-being can hamper the well-being and learning of the students ( Roeser et al., 2022 ; Wu and Lu, 2022 ). Thus, the study is vital in any geographical context to understand the measures that can be taken to enhance teachers’ psychological well-being.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, we review the existing literature on psychological well-being, energy management, thriving, and stress and hypothesize the relationship between the variables. Second, we describe our research method to collect and analyze data to test the hypothesized relationships. Third, we present our results based on the analysis, including descriptive statistics and regression analyses. Fourth, we discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice, recommendations for improving school teachers’ psychological well-being, and areas for future research. Finally, we conclude with a summary of our study. In the following section, we explore the literature on psychological well-being, energy management, thriving, and stress and the theoretical basis of hypothesizing the relationship among them.

Theory and hypothesis

Psychological well being.

Well-being refers to a state of optimal functioning characterized by the presence of positive emotions, a relative absence of negative emotions, and satisfaction with one’s life ( Keyes, 2007 ). It is a crucial aspect of an individual’s overall health and quality of life. Psychological well-being is a fundamental aspect of human life and encompasses various dimensions of an individual’s psychological functioning ( Mehrotra et al., 2013 ). Ryff and Singer (2006 , 2008) identified six primary dimensions of psychological well-being: a sense of purpose, personal growth, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, autonomy in thoughts and actions, and positive interpersonal relationships. Individuals with higher levels of psychological well-being tend to have a greater sense of purpose in life, are open to personal growth, exhibit confidence in influencing their environment, accept themselves for who they are, maintain high-quality relationships with others, and think and act independently.

Keyes (2013) stated that psychological well-being promotes self-awareness, satisfaction of emotional needs, attainment of intrinsic goals, self-reliance, and the ability to act with consciousness. It involves developing personal resources, positive relationships, purposeful engagement in life activities, and self-realization ( Keyes, 2002 ). Psychological well-being is a dynamic process that reflects individuals’ ability to adapt to life’s challenges and maintain a positive outlook toward their future ( Mehrotra et al., 2013 ).

Psychological well-being has been found to be a crucial factor in promoting work engagement among teachers. Studies have shown that teachers with higher levels of psychological well-being have higher work engagement, which is defined as the level of enthusiasm, involvement, and dedication toward work ( Greenier et al., 2021 ). Studies have also shown that teachers suffering from depression can adversely affect students. Wu and Lu (2022) found that teachers’ depression can negatively affect students’ academic achievement and emotional well-being. Thus, schools and educational institutions must prioritize teachers’ psychological well-being to ensure positive outcomes for teachers and students.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the well-being of teachers, resulting in depression, anxiety, and burnout ( Kotowski et al., 2022 ; Lacomba-Trejo et al., 2022 ; Lizana and Lera, 2022 ; Ramos et al., 2022 ). Such ill effects have been widely reported in recent studies, highlighting the importance of understanding and addressing these issues to support the mental health of educators.

Energy management

According to job demand-resources theory (JD-R), individuals must maintain specific personal resources at work to combat everyday job demands ( Bakker and Demerouti, 2017 ). This equilibrium helps in sustaining individuals’ engagement levels and performance at work. One such personal resource that may impact the psychological well-being of individuals is their levels of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy.

Energy management refers to effectively using and replenishing one’s personal resources to achieve desired outcomes ( Ryan and Frederick, 1997 ). In the context of teachers, it refers to efficiently using their physical, emotional, and cognitive resources to fulfill their work responsibilities.

Teachers in India face various challenges that impact their energy levels and ability to perform their duties effectively. The teaching profession is known for its demanding nature, which can often lead to burnout, hampering their energy levels. It has been found that teacher burnout is a significant problem in India ( Shukla and Trivedi, 2008 ). Teachers who are fatigued, stressed, or burnt out may be less effective in delivering instruction and engaging with students. According to Shukla and Trivedi (2008) , demographic factors such as age, gender, and marital status have also been found to impact the energy level of teachers.

Energy management can have a significant impact on the well-being of individuals. Sugiura et al. (2005) conducted a study to examine the relationship between physical activity and psychological well-being. They found that physical activity levels were significantly related to psychological well-being, with individuals who engaged in more physical activity reporting higher levels of psychological well-being. Research on school teachers has found that physical activity promotes mental health ( Aperribai et al., 2020 ). Low physical activity is associated with low well-being, stress, depression, and anxiety in teachers ( Çifçi and Demir, 2020 ; Biernat et al., 2022 ).

A study conducted by Parker et al. (2017) examined the momentary effects of different types of work-related energy management strategies on employee well-being. The researchers hypothesized that energy management is part of a resource investment process to maintain and improve well-being. They found that the effectiveness of this resource investment process depended on the type of strategy used and the existing drain on resources, such as job demands. The study’s findings suggested that adaptive energy management strategies that promote effective resource investment can help individuals maintain and improve their well-being. The study also showed that prosocial energy management, which involves using personal energy to help others, was positively related to job satisfaction. This suggests that energy management practices involving social support and connection can positively impact individual well-being.

Thus, teachers proficient in managing their energy would experience higher levels of psychological well-being.

H1 : Energy management is positively related to psychological well-being.

Thriving is a psychological state in which individuals experience vitality (an affective dimension) and learning (a cognitive dimension) ( Spreitzer et al., 2005 ). Vitality is the experience of having energy and feeling alive at work. Learning refers to a sense of greater understanding, knowledge, and skills at work. Thriving individuals have a feeling of energy and continuous growth and development at work. Both vitality and learning are essential for thriving. They might feel depleted and burnt out if they are learning but lack energy. Alternatively, if they are energized but are not learning, they might stagnate at work. Thriving reflects an individual’s ability to flourish and reach their full potential ( Spreitzer et al., 2005 ). It increases job satisfaction, engagement, and performance ( Saks, 2006 ).

Literature suggests that energy management may enable thriving in the workplace ( Spreitzer et al., 2005 ). Energy management involves regulating and optimizing personal energy levels to enhance performance, while thriving involves flourishing in multiple domains of life, including work. Different energy management strategies, including emotional, mental, and physical, are positively associated with work engagement ( Zhang et al., 2022 ), which is related to thriving ( Saks, 2006 ). Studies have also indicated that energy management enhances positive affect, a source for thriving at work ( Spreitzer et al., 2005 ). Proper exercise and movement (cardiovascular and strength training), nutrition (a balanced combination of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins), and sleep (seven to eight hours per night) increase positive moods during the workday ( Spreitzer and Grant, 2012 ). Emotional energy management has been found to be effective in activating recovery processes ( Zhang et al., 2022 ). Individuals adopt strategies like energy audits to sustain their energy levels ( Spreitzer and Grant, 2012 ).

The concept of thriving is closely related to psychological well-being and has been found to impact individual outcomes favorably. Teachers who reported higher levels of thriving reported lower levels of stress and burnout ( Shukla and Trivedi, 2008 ). The vitality dimension of thriving pertains to high energy and enthusiasm for work, which indicates positivity toward work. A study of teachers found that high levels of both vitality and learning (i.e., high thriving) were associated with more favorable outcomes related to satisfaction and burnout. In contrast, low vitality/high learning extremes were associated with a wide range of less desirable outcomes, such as emotional exhaustion and depersonalization ( Keith, 2021 ).

Therefore, we propose that teachers proficient in managing their energy are more likely to experience a thriving state, leading to better psychological well-being.

H2 : Thriving mediates the relationship between energy management and psychological well-being.

Stress is a complex physiological and psychological response to perceived or actual threats, challenges, or demands that disrupt individuals’ homeostasis and require them to adapt or cope with the situation ( Selye, 1976 ; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ). The experience of stress is influenced by various individual and environmental factors, including personal characteristics, coping strategies, social support, and job demands ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ). Stress can positively and negatively affect individuals’ health, well-being, and performance, depending on the type, intensity, and duration of stressors and their response to them ( Cohen et al., 1997 ; McEwen, 2000 ).

Energy management is associated with lower stress. According to job demand and resource theory, if job demands exceed job resources, individuals tend to experience stress ( Bakker and Demerouti, 2017 ). For example, high job demands, such as workload or job complexity, can lead to high-stress levels and energy depletion. Conversely, job resources such as social support, feedback, and job control can lower stress levels. At the same time, the conservation of resources theory posits that individuals are motivated to acquire, maintain, and protect their resources ( Hobfoll, 1989 ). According to the theory, stress occurs when individuals perceive that their resources are threatened or depleted. Considering that energy is a personal resource, the two theories imply that individuals who conserve or manage their energy levels (vis-à-vis job demands) tend to experience lower stress ( Hobfoll and Freedy, 1993 ).

Stress and psychological well-being have been studied extensively as related constructs, with research findings suggesting that stress can negatively impact psychological well-being ( Sugiura et al., 2005 ). Individuals who experience higher levels of stress are more likely to have lower levels of psychological well-being, including lower levels of positive affect, life satisfaction, and self-esteem. Segrin et al. (2007) found that stress plays a mediating role in the relationship between social skills and different aspects of psychological well-being. Individuals with better social skills tend to experience less stress, contributing to higher psychological well-being. They also found that stress is linked to higher levels of depression and anxiety and reduced life satisfaction.

Therefore, we propose that teachers proficient in managing their energy are less likely to experience stress, leading to better psychological well-being.

H3 : Stress mediates the relationship between energy management and psychological well-being.

The following section explains the research methodology for testing the hypotheses. We elaborate on the data collection procedure, demographics of the sample, measures for the variables, and verification of data validity and reliability.

Sample and procedure

An online survey was conducted during May 2022 in the state of Rajasthan, India. Six hundred fifty school teachers were invited to participate in our study using a questionnaire-based survey from various schools. Participants were recruited via convenience sampling. School teachers who were employed in public or private schools for more than a year, who completed at least their graduation, were included in the study. Three hundred fifty-six school teachers responded after giving their informed consent, yielding a response rate of 54.77%. No significant difference was found between respondents and non-respondents in terms of their gender, location of school (urban/rural), type of school (private/public), and method of teaching (online/offline). Thus, there is no evidence of non-response bias. We found ten missing values across nine responses that we imputed using the mode or median (depending on the repetition of values) of the concerned variable for the specific respondent. This imputation method was suitable since the missing values were less than 5% ( Schafer, 1997 ).

Participants were acquainted with the objectives and procedures of the survey, and anonymity and confidentiality were assured. The procedure involved asking individual school teachers to rate their energy level, thriving, stress, and psychological well-being using a self-reported online survey questionnaire. On completion of the survey, we shared an information sheet with school authorities and requested them to circulate the same with their school teachers. The information sheet included details of different sources of energy, various energy management practices, and the energy audit tool designed by Spreitzer and Grant (2012) . The Institutional Review Board of the Indian Institute of Management Indore approved the study procedure (reference number IRB/01/2022-23/HSS).

The study sample consisted of 206 female respondents (57.9%) and 146 male respondents (41%), with 42.7% of the responses received from urban schools and 57.3% from rural schools. 253 responses were from public schools, and the remaining were from private schools. Most respondents (58.7%) had over ten years of work experience, and the average age of the participants was 36.65 years.

The sample had a significant number of respondents (58.1%) who worked in higher secondary schools, and most (81.2%) used offline teaching modes. Many of the respondents (73.3%) had a post-graduate degree. Regarding personal information, most respondents were married (87.1%), with children distributed across different age groups. Additionally, 48% of the respondents had no support system at home, such as parents, in-laws, or maids, while 72.2% had caregiving responsibilities. Detailed demographic information about the respondents is presented in Table 1 .

Demographic profile of school teachers.

N  = 356.

The study employed Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 28) by IBM Corporation to analyze the data using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and hierarchical regression. Initially, we subjected each variable to EFA using principal component analysis to identify and remove items with factor loadings less than 0.5 or significant cross-loadings. We then checked the reliability of the variables concerning the remaining items to identify variables with a Cronbach Alpha (α) reliability coefficient of less than 0.70 ( Nunnally, 1994 ). Table 2 provides all variables’ factor loadings and reliability measures with their corresponding selected items.

Item scales.

Cronbach Alpha = α; N  = 356.

We adopted a 16-item energy management measure developed by Schwartz and Catherine (2007) . Respondents had to answer using a seven-point Likert scale with the categories 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Sample items include “I frequently find myself feeling irritable or anxious at work, especially when work is demanding.” After exploratory factor analysis, 13 items were retained, and three were dropped. The reliability of the energy management measure was 0.87 (Cronbach’s α).

We adopted a 10-item thriving measure developed by Porath et al. (2012) . Respondents had to provide answers using a seven-point Likert scale with the categories 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Sample items include “I see myself continually improving.” After exploratory factor analysis, eight items were retained, and two were dropped. The reliability of the thriving measure was 0.90 (Cronbach’s α).

We adopted a 10-item perceived stress measure developed by Cohen et al. (1983) . Respondents had to answer using a seven-point Likert scale with the categories 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Sample items include “I find that I cannot cope with all the things that I have to do.” After exploratory factor analysis, six items were retained, and four were dropped. The reliability of the perceived stress measure was 0.79 (Cronbach’s α).

Psychological well-being

We adopted an 18-item perceived stress measure developed by Ryff and Keyes (1995) . Respondents had to answer using a seven-point Likert scale with the categories 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Sample items include “I like most parts of my personality.” After exploratory factor analysis, ten items were retained, and eight were dropped. The reliability of the perceived stress measure was 0.84 (Cronbach’s α).

In this study, age and gender were used as control variables.

In the following section, we present the quantitative analysis of the sample data and the results of hypotheses testing based on hierarchical regression in IBM SPSS v28.

We prepared the correlation matrix to better understand the responses regarding the critical variables under study: gender, age, energy management, thriving, stress, and psychological well-being ( Table 3 ). By presenting the means, standard deviation, and correlation among these variables, the matrix helped comprehend the response patterns for the variables and the nature and significance of the relationship between them.

Means, standard deviation, and inter-correlations.

N  = 356. * p  < 0.05; ** p  < 0.01; *** p  < 0.001. Pearson correlation coefficient. Two-tailed significance values are reported.

The results for energy management showed a significant positive correlation with thriving ( r  = 0.18, p  < 0.01), a negative correlation with stress ( r  = −0.20, p  < 0.01), and a positive correlation with psychological well-being ( r  = 0.26, p  < 0.01). The results for thriving showed a significant positive correlation with psychological well-being ( r  = 0.47, p  < 0.01). The results for stress showed significant negative correlation with psychological well-being ( r  = −0.27, p  < 0.01). The results indicate that high energy management is associated with thriving and psychological well-being. High stress is associated with low energy management and less psychological well-being. The relationship between the variables was consistent with the theoretical underpinnings, previous empirical findings, and our proposed hypotheses.

Hypotheses testing

We tested the hypotheses using hierarchical regression of energy management, thriving, and stress on psychological well-being as a dependent variable ( Table 4 ), and regression of energy management on thriving and stress as dependent variables. We used the parameters of standardized coefficients ( β ), R 2 , Δ R 2 , and Adjusted R 2 . R 2 and Adjusted R 2 indicate the proportion of the variance in the criterion variable explained by predictor variables. However, Adjusted R 2 also considers the significance of the predictor variable in explaining the variance, i.e., it increases with the inclusion of a predictor variable only if it significantly impacts the criterion variable. The following section details the analysis of the hypotheses.

Hierarchical regression for psychological well-being.

N  = 356. * p  < 0.05; ** p  < 0.01; *** p  < 0.001; All coefficients are standardized; One-tail significance values are reported. Model 1: Model with Gender and Age; Model 2: Model with Gender, Age, and Energy Management; Model 3A: Model with Gender, Age, Energy Management, and Thriving as a mediator; Model 3B: Model with Gender, Age, Energy Management, and Stress as a mediator; Model 3C: Model with Gender, Age, Energy Management, both Thriving and Stress as mediators.

Effect of energy management

Hypothesis 1 predicted that energy management is positively related to psychological well-being. Model 2 indicated a significant positive relation between the two variables ( β  = 0.25, p < 0. 001), with energy management explaining an additional 7% of the variance in psychological well-being (Δ R 2  = 0.07, p  < 0.001; Adjusted R 2  = 0.06), thus providing support for H1.

To test the mediation Hypotheses, we created three alternate models: Model 3A, Model 3B, and Model 3C. Model 3A specified the intervening role of only thriving. Model 3B specified the intervening role of only stress. Model 3C specified the intervening roles of both thriving and stress.

Thriving as a mediator

Hypothesis 2 predicted that thriving mediates the relation between energy management and psychological well-being, as energy management enables thriving that, in turn, increases psychological well-being. Regression of energy management on thriving indicated a significant positive relation ( β  = 0.18, p < 0. 001), and Model 3A indicated a positive relation of thriving with psychological well-being ( β  = 0.43, p < 0. 001). Also, the inclusion of thriving reduced the effect of energy management on psychological well-being ( β  = 0.18, p < 0. 001) and explained an additional 18% of the variance in psychological well-being (Δ R 2  = 0.18, p  < 0.001; Adjusted R 2  = 0.24). These results provide support for H2 on the mediation of thriving, according to the mediation method by Baron and Kenny (1986) .

Stress as a mediator

Hypothesis 3 predicted that stress mediates the relationship between energy management and psychological well-being, as energy management reduces stress, which, in turn, decreases psychological well-being. Regression of energy management on stress indicated a significant negative relation ( β  = −0.20, p < 0. 001), and Model 3B indicated the negative relation of stress with psychological well-being ( β  = −0.23, p < 0. 001). Also, the inclusion of stress reduced the effect of energy management on psychological well-being ( β  = 0.21, p < 0. 001) and explained an additional 5% of the variance in psychological well-being (Δ R 2  = 0.05, p  < 0.001; Adjusted R 2  = 0.11). These results provide support for H3 on the mediation of stress, according to the mediation method by Baron and Kenny (1986) .

A comparison between the three models revealed that thriving and stress together explained variance in psychological well-being the most, as shown in Model 3C (Δ R 2  = 0.20, p  < 0.001; Adjusted R 2  = 0.26). When considered together, both thriving ( β  = 0.40, p < 0. 001) and stress ( β  = −0.14, p < 0. 001) mediated the relation between energy management and psychological well-being.

According to Cohen (2013) , effect size, in terms of standardized coefficient ( β ), is small if it is between 0.10 and 0.29 and medium if it is between 0.30 and 0.49. The findings showed that the effect size was small for the relation of energy management with thriving, stress, and psychological well-being and the relation of stress with psychological well-being. The effect size was medium for the relation of thriving with psychological well-being.

Based on the study’s results, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications and future research avenues in the following section.

This paper explores the relationship between energy management, thriving, stress, and psychological well-being among school teachers in India. Education is considered the backbone of any country and plays a crucial role in shaping the nation’s future. Teachers are pivotal in delivering quality education and preparing students for the future. However, teaching is a demanding profession that can significantly impact teachers’ psychological well-being, especially in the post-pandemic era ( Kim et al., 2022 ). Glazzard and Rose (2020) argue that teacher well-being is essential for the individual teacher’s mental and physical health and the quality of education they provide. It can impact students’ motivation, engagement, and academic achievement, thus affecting their performance and well-being. Our findings show that energy management can effectively enhance psychological well-being, by increasing a sense of thriving and reducing stress. This has implications for theory and practice.

The psychological well-being of teachers and its determinants have been extensively discussed in the literature. Studies have explored the role of several factors in determining psychological well-being, including acceptance of technology ( Fülöp et al., 2022 ), professional identity ( Zhao et al., 2022 ), affective, normative and continuance commitment ( McInerney et al., 2015 ), growth mindset ( Nalipay et al., 2022 ), coping strategies ( Gustems-Carnicer and Calderón, 2013 ), social support and work autonomy ( Kim et al., 2022 ), teacher efficacy (for example, in digital technologies) and emotional support ( Chan et al., 2021 ), assessment periods, the pressure of extracurricular activities, the experience of the unexpected, keeping up with the pace of change and changes in school leadership ( Glazzard and Rose, 2020 ), the ratio of positive to negative emotions ( Rusu and Colomeischi, 2020 ), and perceived school administration values and their congruence with personal values ( Wang and Hall, 2019 ).

However, limited literature associating energy management with school teachers’ psychological well-being exists. Few relevant studies have mainly focused on the dimension of physical energy ( Aperribai et al., 2020 ; Çifçi and Demir, 2020 ; Biernat et al., 2022 ). Other education studies have discussed students’ energy management ( Spreitzer and Grant, 2012 ). By highlighting the positive impact of physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental energy on the psychological well-being of school teachers, the study extends the literature on antecedents of psychological well-being in the education context ( McInerney et al., 2015 ; Fülöp et al., 2022 ; Zhao et al., 2022 ).

Extant literature exists on antecedents of thriving ( Prem et al., 2017 ; Rego et al., 2021 ; Babalola et al., 2022 ). In the context of school teachers, a few studies have explored the effect of a supportive work environment ( Collie and Perry, 2019 ) and inter-collegial strengths ( Moore et al., 2022 ) on thriving. However, the impact of energy management on thriving has yet to be examined in the context of school teachers. Besides, limited literature exists on the association of school teachers’ thriving with aspects related to well-being. Studies have examined the effect of thriving on burnout ( Keith, 2021 ) and well-being ( Okros and Virga, 2022 ). By investigating the role of school teachers’ thriving in the relationship between their energy management and psychological well-being, this study extends the existing literature on thriving in general and in the education context, particularly ( Babalola et al., 2022 ; Moore et al., 2022 ).

Considerable studies have been conducted on stress factors ( Schaubroeck et al., 1989 ; Universari and Harsono, 2021 ). In the context of school teachers, studies have discussed factors like principled leadership ( Collie and Perry, 2019 ), educational technology ( Fernández-Batanero et al., 2021 ), inadequate salary, and low status ( Litt and Turk, 1985 ). However, the relation of stress with energy management has not been examined. Besides, studies have explored the negative impact of stress on teacher commitment to continue teaching, the formation of strong student-teacher relationships ( Klassen et al., 2013 ), and the quality of online instructions ( Panisoara et al., 2020 ). However, none of them have explored the impact of stress on well-being. By investigating the role of school teachers’ stress in the relationship between their energy management and psychological well-being, this study extends the existing literature on stress in general and stress in the education context in particular ( Fernández-Batanero et al., 2021 ; Universari and Harsono, 2021 ).

Practical implications

The findings have practical implications for both individual school authorities and government agencies. These institutions can come up with specific employee or process-level interventions that help develop and manage the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental energy of the teachers. They can take the initiative to make the teachers more aware of the need to manage their energy and guide them in achieving this objective. These institutions can hold informative programs on physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being for the teachers. These discussions could be held during weekly staff meetings, information on different energy sources could be disseminated via online or print materials, and an introduction to well-being could be included as a specific module during the teacher training program.

Institutions can conduct yoga, mindfulness, time management, and stress management workshops. These workshops could be conducted regularly online or in person during school hours. An hour-long session conducted thrice a week may include a sequence of whole-body stretching, breathwork, meditation, and a few well-being practices like writing gratitude letters, savoring, and strength spotting activities. Certified instructors may be invited to lead these programs. They can also offer active mental and emotional health support by appointing counselors or accessing online counseling services. These initiatives would help teachers build resilience and cope with the job demands.

Institutions can provide resources and take measures that help reduce the teachers’ workload, enable them to manage their classes and students better and create opportunities for learning, socializing, and building a support system within the peer group. Such initiatives would help the teachers conserve energy, develop professionally, and feel emotionally and socially connected to others. Moreover, teachers may also experience more positive affect, enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement in the institution, which would help them cope with daily challenges and manage their energy better. Similarly, government agencies can tie up with experts in the domains of energy management and psychological well-being to provide training to teachers across educational institutions in a systematic and organized manner.

Limitations and future research avenues

Despite the theoretical and empirical contribution of the studies, the paper also has a limitation. We acknowledge that in this study, only self-reported measures were used that might have introduced potential response biases. Due to the self-reported data collected from a single source, the findings might have a possibility of common method bias. Besides, collection of cross-sectional data prevented us from analyzing causal relationships. Additionally, due to time constraints, we could collect data from only one state in India, which limits the generalizability of findings. To address this limitation, future research may include other states in India to measure cultural and contextual variations among school teachers across India.

Future research studies may include an experimental design to test this theoretical model further. An energy management workshop focused on enhancing teachers’ physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental energy could be a significant intervention to be tested. School teachers could be recruited to join energy management workshops by forming partnerships with state or district education offices. Forming such partnerships might further help in collecting data from a larger sample. School teachers may be randomly assigned to experimental and wait-list control groups. Data could be collected pre- and post-workshop and follow-up after one month. The findings might further investigate the causal relationship among the study variables and the longitudinal impact of the intervention. Examining the school teachers’ energy management practices and their psychological well-being over an extended period might provide further insights into the long-term effectiveness of interventions and their sustainability.

Lastly, studies can explore the role of other variables like family and institutional support, work engagement, and personal values in determining energy management’s effect on school teachers’ psychological well-being. For example, the Job-Demand and Resources Model of work engagement ( Bakker and Demerouti, 2017 ; Cho et al., 2020 ) states that perceived support or personal values could be essential antecedents to work engagement, leading to enhanced psychological well-being. Using this theoretical framework, further research questions could be explored. The next section summarizes and highlights the salient aspects of the study.

In India, education has been given considerable emphasis, with several policies being implemented to promote and enhance the quality of education. One of the factors that is imperative for this purpose is the psychological well-being of teachers who impart this education, especially in the post-pandemic times. Limited literature has discussed what actions can be taken at the individual level to increase psychological well-being. Our paper investigates whether psychological well-being can be increased if teachers have physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental energy. Data collected from 356 school teachers from the most significant state of India reveal that these dimensions of energy management can increase psychological well-being as they enhance thriving and reduce teachers’ stress. These results contribute to our theoretical and practical understanding of factors that can enhance the psychological well-being of school teachers and improve the quality of education in the long term.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving humans were approved by Indian Institute of Management Indore. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

SC: research design, introduction, literature review, analysis, interpretation, and discussion. RC: conception of the study, variables, literature review, formation of hypotheses, data collection, and interpretation. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Simran Sardar and Upendra for their research assistance.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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• Our Mission

Teacher as Researcher: The Ultimate Professional Development

Seeking to learn from what happens in the classroom, teacher researchers are innovators, curriculum drivers, agents of school change, and directors of their own professional development.

Teacher researchers pause each morning as they walk into their classrooms and ask, "What will my students teach me today?" To answer that question, they listen to and watch their students engage in authentic work; collect work samples, photographs, and transcripts to document what their students say and do; and use that information to evolve their practice as they celebrate and support the voices and experiences of the children they teach. In this sense, teacher researchers are innovators, curriculum drivers, agents of school change, and directors of their own professional development.

Support and Growth

As a doctoral student, I participated on the Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum Teacher Researcher Team led by Jane Hansen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia and Reading Hall of Fame Member . For years, in preparation for our teacher research team meetings, I selected a piece of student writing that spoke to me. It would be a piece that made me scratch my head and ask, "What can I learn as a writer and teacher of writing from this young author?" or "What do I need to do next to support her growth?" I would capture these contemplations in a one-pager. That one-pager was exactly that, one page, and its content was reflective of my immediate classroom experience. During our small group meetings, every teacher researcher brought her one-pager, shared her contemplations, and elicited response from her team. We met weekly for one and a half hours. We took our work and time together seriously, because we had an internal charge to grow.

Diversity is essential in creating strong and dynamic teacher research teams. Each year our six- to eight-member group spanned across ages, gender, years of experience, grades, and content areas. Difference expanded the vocabulary of the room. As we heard our fellow researchers use new words and frameworks to discuss their experiences, we began to internalize those new ways of thinking, and thus pushed our own understandings of who and how we teach. Coming to know students as individuals and opening spaces for them to grow in their own directions is difficult work. Teachers' voices and contemplations need support. That is what teacher research teams do; they provide a place to lean and space to explore and expand.

The Best Tools

I have three primary tools that I use as a teacher researcher:

• My first tool is my spiral notebook. Here I jot notes while I conference with students, tape in samples of their work, and record insights and observations. Each evening, I reflect on my notes and use them to plan for tomorrow.
• My second tool is my iPhone. Throughout the day, I take pictures and videos of my students' writing samples, projects, and engineering feats. I often interview them as they share their innovative thinking. These visuals sometimes go in my spiral notebook, sometimes in my Evernote app, and often on my blog to parents. I also use them when I share my students' thinking and creations at our research team meetings and when I present at conferences or write about my practice. The visuals serve as an outward product of our classroom's evolution.
• My third and most important tool is my teacher research team. These colleagues focus me and serve as a sounding board and support network for my contemplations in the classroom.

Tapping Into the Power

The initial power of being a teacher researcher illuminates as you live the classroom life beside your students and realize that they have much to teach you. As you start to listen and record their thinking, you are amazed at the work that is happening in your room. Because of your amazement, you begin to more purposely structure your classroom to meet your students' needs. And because of that new structure, your students' learning is intensified, and their talk and work starts to surpass your own expectations. That power of being a teacher researcher is then clarified and intensified as you sit and discuss your observations and insights with your own teacher research team and receive their response.

Today, I am a classroom teacher and the research coach for our Saints Action Research team, part of our school's Center for the Study of Boys . In that role, I lead a team of seven teacher researchers who teach across grade levels and content areas, researching the work that gets done in their classroom, on the field, and in the studio.

This year I challenge you to join (or perhaps start) a teacher research team. Invite the experiences in your classroom, the questions in your head, and the support of your team to become your most powerful professional development. After all, the most effective curriculum is the one that follows the students, and the most successful professional development is the one that grows from the questions in your classroom.

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Study Asks Teachers To Rate Their Job Satisfaction—And It’s Not Good

Here’s why 3 in 10 teachers say they’ll be looking for a new job this year, and what parents can do to help keep them in the classroom.

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Being a teacher today is more challenging than ever.

Staffing shortages, political battles over curriculum, poverty, absenteeism, and social-emotional behaviors are just some of the reasons why. According to a new Pew Research study, there appears to be a widespread sense of pessimism among educators.

Researchers asked more than 2,500 national K-12 teachers to reflect on their experiences with teaching today. The results paint a grim picture, with a staggering 82% expressing a negative view of the current state of education, citing a decline over the past five years.  

“We weren’t necessarily surprised by any of the findings,” Luona Lin , a Pew Research Associate tells Parents . “But the shares of teachers expressing negative feelings about their day-to-day experiences were striking.”

Disparities in satisfaction were also evident across student age and poverty levels, with high-poverty schools facing greater challenges in curriculum implementation. Overall, 77% say they frequently find their job stressful and 68% say it’s overwhelming.

“When we asked teachers themselves what they’d want the public to know about teaching, the main theme that emerged was that teaching is a hard job,” says Lin. 

COVID-19 and Ongoing Classroom Challenges

Nearly half of the teachers surveyed expressed concerns about both academic performance and student behavior in schools, a sentiment likely exacerbated by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and virtual learning .

“This survey paints a stark picture of the stress and strain on teachers dedicated to helping children under trying circumstances,” says Randi Weingarten , President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). “The trauma and anxiety post-COVID, the non-stop paperwork and administrative tasks, and the political culture wars have only added insult to injury.”

Lin emphasizes that the survey paints a gloomy picture of teachers' sentiments regarding students' academic performance and behavior, highlighting the myriad of challenges they encounter in managing classroom dynamics, particularly related to behavioral issues.

Teachers cited challenges in enforcing school policies on student cellphone use and reported instances of verbal abuse, with 40% experiencing physical violence from students.

High school teachers particularly also note issues of chronic absenteeism , anxiety, and depression. One in five high school teachers identified bullying as a major problem in their schools, with many highlighting only mild school disciplinary practices.

Teachers Are Dealing with Burnout

A majority of teachers surveyed expressed difficulty in achieving work-life balance, citing burnout from heavy workloads, coupled with staffing shortages. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 300,000 public school teachers left the profession between February 2020 and May 2022. Seven in 10 public K-12 teachers reported that their school is understaffed.

The Pew study found that 3 in 10 teachers are considering seeking a new job this school year, with 40% of them considering positions outside of education. Pessimism about the future of the profession is widespread among teachers, with many believing it will deteriorate further in the coming years.  

Data from the National Center for Educational Statistics shows a major decline in college students studying to become teachers. The number of bachelor’s degrees in education plummeted by 50% since 1970. Alarmingly, half of the teachers surveyed in the Pew study said they would not recommend teaching as a career to young people.

“It’s frankly demoralizing—but this is perhaps the clearest indication yet that the smears, the disrespect, and the distrust have started to shrink the teacher pipeline when we should be growing it,” says Weingarten.

Feelings of disrespect and undervaluation were reported by 17% of respondents, while a similar percentage felt they were significantly underpaid, with their salaries not reflecting the effort and dedication they put into their students' education. Many also talked about working long hours, beyond those they’re contracted for.

Weingarten proposes that if schools want to recruit and retain high-quality educators, they need to offer fair wages and adequate working conditions. “Teachers love their kids, but right now they’re running on empty, and they know their beloved profession is becoming simply unsustainable,” she said. 

How Parents Can Help Teachers

A majority of teachers say parents are not holding their children accountable for their behavior in school, and are also falling short in assisting with schoolwork and ensuring regular attendance. The study shows this strain in the parent-teacher relationship underscores the importance of parental involvement in a child's education, which significantly impacts their overall social and emotional development .

“Teachers and parents are in this together. I would urge parents to get more involved with their school and their district and to actively support and engage with teachers. We need you,” says Weingarten. “That teamwork will lead to a better appreciation of what educators need to help kids and create a better learning environment for everyone.”

While the top response from teachers in the open-ended question is that they want the public to know that teaching is a hard job. Most Americans already see it that way: the study found two-thirds of U.S. adults say being a public K-12 teacher is harder than most other jobs.

Teachers are not only calling for support from parents but also from the government, their administrators, other key stakeholders, as well as the general public.

“We know there’s a direct link between adequate staffing, pay, teacher well-being, and student success—so it’s imperative we expand, not cut, the resources necessary to get us there,” says Weingarten.

Given the important role teachers play in our communities,  Becky Pringle , President of the National Education Association (NEA), says it is imperative that we recognize and honor the dedication of educators.

“It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that our public schools and education professionals receive the necessary support needed to create welcoming learning environments where all students can thrive,” she says. “Regardless of their background or circumstances, every student deserves access to competent and compassionate educators who are committed to fostering their love for learning, nurturing their aspirations, and unlocking their full potential.”

What Public K-12 Teachers Want Americans to Know About Teaching . Pew Research Center . April 4. 2024.

What It's Like to be a Teacher in America Today . Pew Research Center . April 4, 2024.

Impact of COVID-19 on the academic performance and mental health of HBCU pharmacy students . Curr Pharm Teach Learn . 2023.

Bachelor's degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by field of study: Selected academic years, 1970-71 through 2020-21 . National Center for Education Statistics . 2022.

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