A Better Way to Understand the Coal Mine

Even if the air is good in the coal mine, does the canary enjoy working there? Or are there other conditions that prevent the canary from thriving?

On our blog, we have been using the analogy of the canary in the coal mine to try and better understand the nature of teacher attrition and retention. With teacher shortages impacting schools this year and more anticipated turnover on the horizon, various initiatives to create a larger pipeline have emerged. However, even with a larger pipeline, without understanding the causes of teacher attrition, we may face the same problem. Sending more canaries into a bad environment, even with good air, may not be enough to make them thrive. Because of the ongoing discussions on how to attract and retain more teachers across the US, it may be time to start actually using what we know from science to make schools better places to work.

We need to shed a more focused light on the coal mine or the environment of our schools so we can better understand the occupational experiences of our educators and the factors for why they stay or go. As of today, we understand the basic supply and demand of the teacher labor market, but the overarching reasons for turnover are only now becoming more broadly examined. Most educators do not leave on a whim but experience a long-term pattern of issues that eventually forces them out the door.

Even though there may be plenty of oxygen, something else may be happening. We need a better understanding of these factors to guide our interventions.

A Practical Theory

Lewin’s maxim that there is nothing as practical as a good theory lies at the heart of understanding the nature of teacher attrition. While some theorize that salary alone may be the way to attract more teachers and keep them in the profession, this theory, while well-intentioned and necessary, is akin to only checking if the air is good enough for the canary while ignoring all of the other environmental issues.

A theory called Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) offers an alternative way we can begin to better understand the factors that influence teacher turnover and attrition. While educators oftentimes criticize theory as not practical, this theory, in particular, gives a more comprehensive lens through which we can view what happens to teachers to cause their dissatisfaction. Without a better, in-depth framework from which we can analyze the problem, we get mired in the mindset of our typical solutions.

The central and most alluring idea in this theory is that energy is necessary to do the productive work of teaching, and teachers require balance in how much energy they expend and how much they can regenerate daily, weekly, and over a school year. In the context of the JD-R theory, that balance derives from educators' working conditions, expressed in the terms of educators’ job demands and the availability of necessary job resources to meet the demands of their jobs.

More specifically, job demands require an investment of physical and/or mental effort. Excessive demands deplete a teacher’s physical and psychological energy and, over time, can lead to higher levels of emotional exhaustion, greater stress, lower organizational commitment, lower engagement, and a higher motivation to leave the school or profession (Granziera et al., 2021).

In contrast, job resources allow educators to work productively by meeting goals, managing job demands (including the physical and psychological costs of work), and growing and developing in their roles (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). Job resources may include tangible items like people, money, or materials, but they also include personal resources such as social and emotional competencies, and social support within a school or workplace.

We believe the Job Demands-Resources theory is an essential lens for understanding how the demands and resources given to teachers influence their well-being and their trajectory toward staying in the profession or eventually leaving, because it can show that multiple contexts within one organization can impact the job satisfaction of workers such as teachers.

The Biggest Question

Given the practical nature of the JD-R theory, the biggest question is how to better understand the demands and resources in schools across the US. While we generally know the types of demands placed on teachers over the past few years, these may differ across urban and rural contexts, elementary and secondary contexts, and well-supported and not-so-supported contexts. Our work is just beginning, but it is high time we better understand the depths of the coal mine before it’s too late.