Teacher morale is an important issue in private and public schools. Low morale reduces engagement with colleagues and students, reduces productivity, reduces student learning, and breeds cynicism. On the other hand, when morale is high and faculty culture is healthy, students excel socially and academically, teachers are productive and collaborative, and the school environment is dynamic and engaging. Given the important role that teacher morale plays, schools must continuously work to improve teacher morale.
The most important factors affecting morale are school leadership, workload, compensation, student behavior and career development. Effective and supportive leaders are key contributors to high morale, while weak leaders and low morale go hand in hand. Of course, the classes are intense, unrelenting, and intellectually, emotionally, and physically demanding. Besides teaching, teachers have many other responsibilities such as: B. Curriculum development, supervision of breaks, extracurricular activities, marketing, fundraising and administrative paperwork. Feeling overburdened with so many responsibilities contributes to low morale. Of course, being overworked and underpaid is a recipe for moral disaster. Student behavior problems are another important reason for low teacher morale, especially when teachers do not have the resources to address the problems. Finally, access to professional development plays an important role in determining morale.
Principal: School leaders have extremely demanding and complex tasks. Many enter managerial positions without proper training. Even with excellent training and experience, school leaders face extremely complicated challenges on a daily basis. Ongoing leadership training, leadership coaching and professional development are critical to enable school leaders to provide strong leadership and ensure high faculty morale.
Workload of teachers: It may be inevitable that a teacher’s workload is heavy. However, when the faculty pulls together, hard work becomes a lot more fun. In fact, in my experience as a principal, when the faculty was deeply engaged in important initiatives that required significant work, teacher morale was at the top of the list. Involving teachers in decision-making, planning and problem-solving, and forming collaborative teams to share the workload go a long way in promoting high morale.
Compensation: Competitive compensation is important. However, the key to compensation, as it affects morale, is the system for determining salaries and raises. If teachers find the system unfair, compensation, whatever the amount, will hurt morale. Fairness is judged largely by the perceived congruence between an individual’s value to the school and that individual’s remuneration. To compensate fairly, schools need to abandon traditional “tier” systems and adopt systems that link reward and performance.
Student behavior: Teachers are faced with increasingly complex requirements when it comes to meeting the needs of their students in both private and public schools. From antisocial behavior to special needs to apathy across the socioeconomic spectrum, teachers increasingly struggle with behavior management. Two major school initiatives will help address this issue. First, it’s important to offer behavior management training to teachers who struggle with discipline. Second, faculty and staff across the school must work together as a team to address behavioral issues.
Professional development: Professional development is directly related to student performance and teacher satisfaction is directly related to student performance. Teachers and schools that value professional development or adult education set the stage for students to value learning as well. When students make excellent academic and social progress, teachers feel the rewards of their profession. Providing teachers with meaningful and effective professional development is fundamental to successful schools and high teacher morale.
Thanks to Daniel Hollinger, Ph.D | #improve #teacher #morale #school
