The Primary Misunderstanding about Teacher Attrition: Separating the Canary from the Coal Mine

Right now, thousands of educators are quietly deciding if they should stay in education or look for something less stressful and fulfilling.

This problem of retention and attrition in many parts of the country has reached crisis levels, with the demand for teachers far outstripping the availability. For example, many districts are hiring teachers in high-needs areas who have substandard credentials and permits, relying on underprepared teachers. In addition, a study done in the spring of 2021 (CDC Foundation, 2021) found that 27% of teachers self-reported symptoms consistent with clinical depression, and 37% self-reported symptoms consistent with generalized anxiety. As we all know, without quality teachers in the classroom or quality leaders working to improve our schools and districts, the quality of education will continue to deteriorate especially impacting areas of high poverty and students of color.

However, as well-intentioned people think about potential solutions to this problem, are we separating the canary from the coal mine?

Who to Blame? The Canary or the Coal Mine

Recently, I read a book called The Burnout Challenge, which explores how people relate to their jobs and the epidemic of stress and burnout in various industries, including education. In this book, the author used an interesting analogy to help explain stress and burnout: the canary and the coal mine.

For those unfamiliar with the canary and the coal mine story, in the early days of mining, miners took a canary down into the mines to check the air quality. If the canary died, the air was unsafe, and people took action to fix the air so that workers wouldn't die. The canary wasn't blamed or threatened, or incentivized to do better. Nor did people try and evaluate the canary or build a more robust and resilient canary or buy the canary a gym membership so they would breathe better. The miners tried none of these after-the-fact solutions. If the canary died, the work was stopped until the environment was fixed. Workers blamed the environment or work conditions, not the canary.

What's most interesting about this early method of gauging air quality is that it serves as an interesting analogy for not only stress and burnout but also for educator retention and attrition. Every day our educators—the canaries—go to work facing not bad air quality (in most cases) but workplace demands that can lead to excess stress, burnout, and eventual attrition.

Yet to extend the metaphor, we tend to place almost the entirety of the blame in schools on the educator/canary. In the US today, we believe if we build a stronger, more resilient educator/canary, we never have to worry about or question the coal mine/work environment.

We think by offering a higher salary by itself, the coal mine doesn't matter. We believe that by offering a gym membership by itself, the coal mine doesn't matter. We believe that by telling educators to develop more resiliency or use more self-care, the coal mine doesn't matter. Not that any of these ideas are bad or can't help the issue of attrition and retention.

However, even if you were offered a huge salary to teach, but you knew the coal mine was poisonous, more than likely, you wouldn't accept. The safety of the coal mine matters, and it matters a lot. The same thing applies for schools. The mental, emotional, and physical safety of our educators matters, and it matters a lot.

Demands Versus Resources

So how might we go about making schools safer? First, we must stop blaming the canary and focus more on the coal mine. Second, an interesting framework exists, which we believe can be used to better understand the coal mine and the impact of the work in schools on educators called the Job Demands-Resources theory (JD-R).

The JD-R theory offers a lens through which to view educator dissatisfaction and well-being. As a result, this theory has emerged as one of the most influential for "interpreting and explaining factors affecting employees' well-being in the workplace" (Granziera, et al., 2021; Mazzitti et al., 2021). The central idea in this theory is that energy is necessary to do productive work, and workers require balance so as not to run out of energy, similar to the canary not running out of clean air to breathe.

Job demands require an investment of physical and mental effort. Unfortunately, too many demands drain the educator's energy and ongoing, high demands deplete a teacher's physical and psychological reserves. Over time, this ongoing energy loss 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 their work's physical and psychological costs. These resources act like oxygen to keep the canary alive. 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.

In sum, we have the knowledge and the science to make the coal mine safer for the canary. But if we continue to blame the canary, we will soon run out of canaries. So it may be time to better understand the coal mine instead.