Fall ’23 | Winter ’24 - 320 Washington St. - The BIg Question

How Do We Support Teachers Post-Pandemic?

by Professor Elizabeth Stringer Keefe

Newly appointed Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies Elizabeth Stringer Keefe has more than 20 years of experience in education, with expertise in teacher preparation programs. Last year, she received the College’s Outstanding Faculty Service Leadership Award. We asked Stringer Keefe to share her thoughts on the state of the teaching profession pre- and post-pandemic and how teacher preparation programs can help.

We know that the pandemic changed how teachers have to teach. Can you talk about this in more depth?

For many years before the pandemic, U.S. teachers’ central duties extended well beyond planning, instruction and assessment, as schools have grappled with divisive issues such as accountability demands, testing mandates, lack of resources and school violence. When COVID-19 forced abrupt closures at universities, colleges and schools, uncertainty and crisis erupted across the teaching profession. The highly politicized return to in-person learning was heralded as a step toward "normalcy," yet teachers were operating in a significantly changed education landscape with the added responsibility of masks, gloves, social distancing, health concerns, new instructional arrangements, pedagogical shifts, new technology and rapidly changing educational contexts.

How is this affecting the profession? 

Prior to the pandemic, high attrition rates and dwindling interest in the teaching profession were exacerbating a long-standing teacher shortage in the U.S. Post-pandemic, teaching vacancies in the U.S. are at an all-time high, related to increasingly stressful work environments, mercurial public support, tensions over professional jurisdiction and poor compensation. Teacher burn-out and attrition from the profession have emerged as significant consequences, stemming from lack of support, resources, new demands, lack of respite and shifting responsibilities. The pandemic created personal, educational, health and financial crises for teachers in the U.S., which have affected their commitments to their professional roles.

The highly politicized return to in-person learning was heralded as a step toward ‘normalcy,’ yet teachers were operating in a significantly changed education landscape…

Knowing this about burnout and attrition, what is needed to support teachers who have remained in the profession?

One central issue for teachers post-pandemic is that they are tasked with managing, responding to and solving problems that they may not have been prepared for within the context of their teacher preparation programs, such as student mental health crises. While there’s been widespread acknowledgment about the mental health crisis plaguing school-age children following the pandemic, there’s been little to no focus on teachers’ mental health. Now more than ever, the demands of the post-pandemic classroom require that teachers develop clear work boundaries, which are essential to protecting their own mental health and can prevent premature attrition from the profession. This can help future teachers to develop and keep clear classroom structures, recognize when they are overloaded, protect personal space, take time for respite without guilt and model these skills for their students.

How then do we help prepare new teachers?

It’s clear that U.S. teachers’ evolved roles are simply not sustainable in the long term. Teacher preparation programs will need to shift their curricula to address the realities of classrooms and schools when preparing new teachers. While teachers will always be primarily responsible for planning, instruction and assessment, these duties cannot be separated from new obligations caused by the aftershock of the pandemic. Teacher preparation programs must evolve to support pre-service teachers for these realities, by creating intentional learning opportunities for non-academic content. For example, in the graduate teacher preparation programs at Stonehill, teacher candidates read leadership books and practice evidence-based mindfulness and stress-reduction techniques, all of which they can implement in their own classrooms.

Is there more that can be done? 

Sustained change requires teacher preparation programs to partner in intentional ways with school partners to create increased practical opportunities. One straightforward way is to require more practice prior to entering the field as a teacher of record. Many programs have historically required teacher candidates to complete a clinical experience equivalent to one semester during their preparation program. Is this sufficient to be prepared for the academic, social-emotional and sociocultural pressures that teachers encounter in classrooms and schools post-pandemic? To ensure Stonehill’s graduate teacher education programs were fully preparing new teachers, we shifted to a clinical experience which spans a full year, supported by our strong network of partner schools, who pair our teacher candidates with veteran mentors.

Any final thoughts?

Bolstering the teaching profession will also require sustained attention to the way teachers are prepared, compensated and regarded, which will require an overhaul of teacher preparation, reconsideration of the way schools are structured and federal intervention to help bolster teachers’ salaries and offset costs and debt they may have incurred in their training programs, which are often not commensurate with their salaries. This is essential to the health and longevity of the U.S. teacher.

Stonehill Alumni Magazine

Fall ’23 | Winter ’24 | 75th Anniversary Issue

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