emotional journeys

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Paper submitted to Teaching and Teacher Education. Please do NOT quote without the authors

permission.

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Emotional Journeys: Teacher Resilience Counts

Qing Gu and Christopher Day

Abstract

Drawing upon findings of a four-year national research project on variations in the work

and lives of teachers in England (AUTHORS, 2007), this paper will provide new empirical

evidence about the nature of resilience in teachers. Although resilience in children has

been well informed by research, among teachers, it remains an under researched area.

The paper thus seeks to contribute to understandings of the factors which influence

teacherscapacities to sustain their resilience in the often uncertain individual, relational

and organisational settings in which they engage their intellectual and emotional energy

with that of their students and colleagues.

Keywords: teacher resilience; teacher commitment; teacher effectiveness; self-efficacy


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Emotional Journeys: Teacher Resilience Counts

Introduction

To teach, and to teach at ones best over time, had always required resilience. However,

it is now, more than ever before, a necessary part of every teachers capacity for

commitment and effectiveness. Indeed, as successive and persisting government policy

reforms have increased teachers external accountabilities, work complexity and

workload, teaching in the 21st century has become rated as one of the most stressful

professions (PWC, 2001; Nash, 2005).

In an earlier publication (AUTHORS, 2007) we made three research informed conclusions

about teacher resilience: i) it is unrealistic to expect pupils to be resilient if their

teachers, who constitute a primary source of their role models, do not demonstrate

resilient qualities (Henderson and Milstein, 2003); ii) the ability to exercise resilience,

defined as the capacity to continue to bounce back, to recover strengths or spirit

quickly and efficiently in the face of adversity, is closely allied to a strong sense of

vocation, self-efficacy and motivation to teach which are fundamental to sustaining a

commitment to promoting achievement in all aspects of students lives; and iii) a shift in

research focus from teacher stress and burnout to resilience provides a promising

perspective to understand the ways that many teachers manage the intellectual and

emotional demands in their workplace and sustain their motivation and commitment and

the effectiveness of their contributions to the quality of their students learning and

achievements over a career.

Research generally suggests that resilience itself is as an unstable construct (Rutter,

1990; Cicchetti, 1993; Masten et al., 1999) involving psychological, behavioural and

cognitive (academically or professionally) functioning as well as emotional regulation

(Greenberg, 2006; Luthar and Brown, 2007) within a range of personal, professional and


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vulnerability (Kelchtermans, 1996). Research on these emotional arenas of teaching is,

therefore, important.

It is widely acknowledged that lack of job satisfaction, declining commitment and

burnout, all associated with diminished sense of resilience, negatively influence and

impact on turnover decisions among teachers (Dorman, 2003; Maslach, Schaufeli &

Leiter, 2001; Webb et al., 2004). Leithwood and Beatty (2008), among others, draw

upon a range of theoretical and empirical research which demonstrates how teachers

sense of emotional well being can affect their classroom performance. They highlight the

importance to success of schools which are managed by principals who lead with teacher

emotions in mind, emphasising the need to minimise stress, anxiety and burnout, and

maximise teachers job satisfaction, wellbeing, commitment and engagement. Research

has also identified important associations between teacher commitment and pupil

attainment (AUTHORS, 2007), and the importance of emotional understanding and care

to the wellbeing and capacities of teachers to teach well (Denzin, 1984; Goleman, 1996;

Noddings, 1992). As well as being concerned with recruitment and physical retention,

then, it is important that policy makers should focus upon retaining the commitment,

resilience and effectiveness of the existing majority of the more experienced teachers.

All students in all contexts, as Edwards (2007) argues, deserve to be taught by

enthusiastic, motivated individuals (2007: 11).

There is little in the educational literature which focuses upon associations between

teachers morale, motivation, self-efficacy and the factors which influence these, and

teacher resilience itself. Yet most teachers who survive the first four or five years in the

job remain for a further thirty; and during this period not only will they be subject, as all

are, to the vagaries of the aging process and unanticipated events which may affect the

course of their personal lives (marriage, divorce, illness, the loss of a close relative or

declining health), they will also need to adjust their professional lives as colleagues come

and go, motivations and the demands of students and the processes of working with


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them become more complex, and conditions of service change.

The presence, forms and relative strength of resilience may vary from person to person

and fluctuate over time, according to the scenarios they meet and their capacities to

manage these successfully within present life and work contexts. Thus, understandings

of the central role of work conditions in supporting and enabling teachers to manage the

interactions between work and life over the course of a career and in different contexts

are likely to provide a better understanding of the factors that enable or do not enable

teachers to sustain their hope, optimism and sense of effectiveness in the profession;

and through these contribute to knowledge of reasons for variations in teacher quality,

retention and effectiveness.

There is, therefore, an urgent need for research which investigates whether external and

internal demands and challenges for teachers working in different contexts and in

different professional life phases have dimmed their sense of commitment, if so, how,

and, more importantly, the ways in which their resilience, and ultimately their long term

commitment and effectiveness, may be nurtured, developed and sustained over time

and in different contexts.

Resilience: Advances in Understandings

Interest in resilience originated in the disciplines of psychiatry and developmental

psychology as a result of a burgeoning attention to personal characteristics or traits that

enabled some children, having been classified as being at risk of having negative life

outcomes, to adapt positively and thrive (Howard et al., 1999; Waller, 2001). Although

resilience among children has been well studied by researchers from multiple disciplines,

there remains little consensus about its definitions, particularly in terms of measurement

of its key constructs and its operationalization (Luthar et al., 2000). From a chronological

perspective, the decade of 1980s marked a paradigmatic change to the concept of

resilience, from one which focussed upon understanding the pain, struggle and suffering


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involved in the adaptation process in the face of adversity, to one which focused more on

understanding positive qualities and strengths (Gore and Eckenrode, 1994, Henderson

and Milstein, 2003). In the first decade of this century, the focus of resilience research in

the disciplines of social and behavioural sciences has shifted from identifying personal

traits and protective factors to investigating how understanding such factors may

contribute to positive outcomes (Luthar et al., 2000). Since the turn of this century,

also, groundbreaking advances in biology research have provided powerful evidence of

the robust effects of early caregiving environments and thus promising and compelling

arguments for the kinds of interventions which are likely to make a difference (Luthar

and Brown, 2007; see also Curtis and Cicchetti, 2003; Cicchetti and Valentino, 2006).

Despite this diversity in approaches to researching resilience, a critical overview of

empirical findings from different disciplines over time suggests that there are indeed

shared core considerations in the way resilience is conceptualised. First and foremost,

resilience presupposes the presence of threat to the status quo. It is a positive response

to conditions of significant adversity (Masten and Garmezy, 1985; Masten et al., 1990;

Cicchetti & Garmezy, 1993; Luthar et al., 2000). Secondly, resilience is not a quality that

is innate or fixed. Rather, it can be learned and acquired (Higgins, 1994). Associated

with this is that third consideration that the personal characteristics, competences and

positive influences of the social environment in which the individual works and lives,

independently and together interact to contribute to the process of resilience building

(Gordon et al., 2000; Rutter, 2006; Zucker, 2006). Indeed, Luthar et al. (2000) assert

that the term resilienceshould always be used when referring to a dynamicprocess or

phenomenon of competence which encompassespositive adaptation within the context

of significant adversity (2000: 554). There is compelling research evidence, for

example, which suggests that children with positive adaptational profiles are able to

maintain long-term high functioning in life (Wener 1994; Egeland et al., 1993; Cowen et

al., 1997; Luthar et al., 2000). This process involves a developmental progression, such

that new vulnerabilities and/or strengths often emerge with changing life circumstances


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(Luthar et al., 2000: 544).

Thus, resilience is now acknowledged to be a relative, multidimensional and

developmental construct (Rutter, 1990, Howard et al., 1999, Luthar et al., 2000). It is a

phenomenon which is influenced by individual circumstance, situation and environment

and which involves far more complex components than specific personal accounts of

internal traits or assets alone claim. It is not a static state because there is no question

that all individuals resilient or otherwise show fluctuations over time within particular

adjustment domains (Luthar et al., 2000: 551). The nature and extent of resilience is

best understood, then, as a dynamic within a social system of interrelationships (Benard,

1995; Luthar et al., 2000) and this is particularly relevant to understandings of resilience

among adults over their work and life span.

In their review of multi-disciplinary research on maximizing resilience, Luthar and Brown

(2007) critiqued the existing research on resilience in adults and identified five key

issues for consideration in future research:

Firstly, definitions of adultsresilience should be expanded to consider significantothers judgments of their competence and responsiveness in major life roles

(2007: 941). Whether the person is doing well should be defined and judged by

the individuals themselves as well as by others.

Secondly, in line with the developmental theories for childrens resilience, adultresilience should also be conceptualised as (a) sustained positive adjustment

following traumas and (b) recovery displayed after initial maladjustment following

negative life events(2007: 948).

Thirdly, it is inaccurate to imply that resilience resides largely within the personor personal attributes, as claimed in the adult literature. The impact of external

assets, such as supportive relationships, on the strength and sustainability of

resilience is too important to miss in conceptualising resilience in adults.


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Fourthly, the adult literature on resilience needs to be more cautious aboutoffering claims about the prevalence or rates of resilience because this depends

on the criteria used to define resilience.

Finally, more attention should be paid to contextual influences in resilienceresearch among adults.

They further suggest that future research on resilience among both children and adults

must

move beyond just adding to an already long list of protective factors or

processes, including psychological attributes such as positive emotions,

optimism, cognitive flexibility, and locus of control and now biological

processes The need of the day is to focus, in a concerted way, on

pinpointing risk modifiers that could have the most far-reaching impact on

only on their own (i.e., with relatively substantial effect sizes), but also with

the potential to generate other protective process (as secure attachments

promote feelings of efficacy, internal locus of control, and even intellectual

and academic competence)

(2007: 947)

The research with teachers on which this paper is based takes account of these

considerations through adopting multi-perspective approaches.

Mapping the Territory: Building Resilience in Three Interrelated Settings

Teacherswork takes place in individual, relational and organisational settings. The

nature of these and the ways in which they interact, together with those of the wider

social and cultural structures in which these settings are located, influence who teachers

are (i.e. their identities) and the ways in which they work. Resilience in teachers is at

least in part influenced positively and negatively by organisational culture and, within


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this, the quality of relationships in classrooms and staffrooms. We have written about

this in more detail elsewhere (AUTHORS, 2007). Thus, a change in the nature of the

work context (e.g. a change of principal, colleagues or class member(s)) may have

profound positive or negative effects on the characteristics of the work environments

which either promote or impair teachers professional competence to maintain

effectiveness in the classroom and the school. For example, persisting challenges in

meeting externally imposed standards of attainment for students will require greater

capacity to maintain resilience than where these challenges are temporary (e.g. perhaps

because of the difference in ability between one group or another). Teachers working in

schools in socio-economically disadvantaged communities may be at higher risk of

suffering from stress and vulnerability than their peers in less challenging circumstances.

It is clear, then, that teachers resilience, commitment and wellbeing must be examined

and understood in terms of particular school and classroom contexts and cultures.

Provision of professional and personal support from school leaders and collegial

relationships among the staff are shown to play a critical role in fostering their sense of

vocation, commitment and competence and enabling them to continue to do the best

they can for their students (AUTHORS, 2007). It is, therefore, important to examine the

nature and expression of teacher resilience within these settings and through these,

explore associations between their capacity to be resilient and their perceived

effectiveness in the profession.

The study

The empirical data which provide illustrations of the three interactional aspects of

resilience individual, relational and organisational are drawn from a four-year large

scale mixed methods research project involving 300 teachers in 100 primary and

secondary schools in England (AUTHORS, 2006). The key aim of the project was to

investigate variations in teachers work, lives and effectiveness and identify factors that

contribute to the variations. The research recognised that effectiveness involves both


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teachers perceptions of their own effectiveness and their impact on students progress

and attainments.

The main data concerning perceived effectiveness were collected through twice yearly

semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with all the teachers. These were supplemented

at various stages of the research by document analysis and interviews with school

leaders and groups of students. Measures of teachers relative effectiveness as

expressed through improvements in students progress and attainment were collected

through matching baseline test results at the beginning of the year with students

national curriculum results at the end. This enabled differences in the relative value

added to be analysed, using multi-level statistical techniques that included adjustment

for individual background factors as well as prior attainment. Detailed holistic portraits of

teachers work and lives over time were constructed to see whether patterns emerged

over a 3-year period in terms of perceived and relative effectiveness vary and, if so,

why.

In this work teachers were found to have common characteristics and concerns

according to six phases of their professional lives 0-3, 4-7, 8-15, 16-23, 24-30 and

31+ years of teaching. Within each of these groupings there were those whose perceived

commitment was being sustained and others whose commitment was declining. Self-

efficacy and a sense of agency were found to be fundamental to motivation and

commitment. The research suggested that these can be adversely affected not only by

external change demands but also personal and school-specific factors. Both in teachers

minds, and in the measured progress and attainment of their pupils, commitment was

shown to be closely associated with teachers resilience, wellbeing and effectiveness

(AUTHORS, 2006 and 2007).

Of the 300 teachers in the study, 218 (73%) were able to sustain relatively positive

identities across all professional life phases over the three-year period of the fieldwork.


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However, in each phase there were a number who did not. Comments relating to their

professional, situated and personal scenarios suggest that many teachers were working

under considerable persistent and negative pressures and that, depending upon

professional life phase and school context, these were largely connected to relationships

with school leadership and colleagues, deteriorating pupil behaviour and attitudes, lack

of parental support, the effects of government policies and unanticipated life events.

For those who managed to sustain their positive professional identities and commitment,

staff collegiality was reported as the most important contributing factor. Around 75% or

more of highly committed teachers in each of the six professional life phases rated

supportive relationships with their colleagues as a positive critical influence on their

capacity to maintain positive emotions and a sense of vocation (AUTHORS, 2010).

Additionally, leadership recognition and support was also shown as a key influence.

Between 58% and 93% of highly committed teachers across the six professional life

phases emphasised the important contribution of professional and personal leadership

support to their positive wellbeing and effectiveness (AUTHORS, 2010).

What follows is an illustration of the ways through which one mid career teacher

managed to maintain her ability to sustain her self-efficacy, commitment and sense of

effectiveness in the face of setbacks and challenges. Whilst the experiences of this

teacher are not representative of the whole sample, her profile is typical of the teachers

within her professional life phase, of the key individual, relational and organisational

factors that impacted on their work and lives, and of the ways they managed these in

order to sustain their motivation and commitment in the face of adversity.

Portrait of a Resilient Teacher: Sustaining resilience, commitment and

effectiveness against the odds

Katherine, 37 years old, was Head of English in an 11-16 medium size comprehensive

school. Her school was situated in an urban community of socio-economic disadvantage


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which had a well above average proportion (23%) of pupils on the special educational

needs register. She had been teaching in this school for three years, having previously

worked in two others. She was eight months pregnant when she had begun the job, and

inherited a Department that had been without a leader for two years.

Individual resilience

Katherine came from a teaching family. She entered teaching because she found it

stimulating. She had a deep interest in her subject and also loved the opportunity to be

able to help children learn. Having been in teaching for 14 years, she felt that such

passion for teaching still applied.

She described herself as a career-driven person. Her motivation was very high when

she first joined her current school. She enjoyed her responsibilities as Head of English,

her new baby and new house, and appreciated the support of her partner who gave her

space to do work at home. However, there was times when her workload volume and

complexity became too intense: as when her school was undergoing a national

inspection. An external inspection of the school worked against her effectiveness and

confidence as a teacher. She was exhausted and overloaded and experienced a crisis of

confidence. She felt a loss of control and as a result she lamented that she did not really

feel that good as a teacher.

My motivation has never wavered, but my effectiveness has. Despite being

totally overworked, I am now feeling positive about September. My confidence

as a classroom teacher, however, is low at the moment. . I need time to

consolidate and need a personal confidence boost from somewhere.

Katherine suffered from serious tensions at home such that she even considered moving

to part-time work. She realised that with two children and a full-time job, her social life

had gone completely out the window. Working all weekend and during holiday times


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was, for her, a reality. Nonetheless, her commitment to teaching had remained high.

Over time she learned to use a variety of strategies to manage, cope and maintain her

sense of effectiveness at work.

Relational resilience

Katherine described pupils in her current school as a breath of fresh air. She established

good relationships and felt that her positive attitude towards them helped her teaching.

However, she lamented that the parents did not have high enough expectations oftheir

children.

When she first took over the role as Head of Department, Katherine felt that there was

not a team. This was because prior to her arrival, there had been an acting Head of

Department and over this time there had also been curriculum changes. She was

ambitious to foster team spirit through modelling and sharing good practice but wished

that she had more time to pull everyone together. Nevertheless, she enjoyed good

relationships with her colleagues which were particularly important to her during the

school inspection. Support from her colleagues also helped her to restore her self

confidence.

Organisational resilience: sustaining commitment and effectiveness in her current school

When Katherine first joined her current school, she was full of enthusiasm and felt that

her effectiveness rose rapidly. Her job satisfaction fluctuated over the year but she

concluded that that was mainly because she was still a newcomer to the school.

Katherine felt that the structure and the senior leadership of the school made an

important contribution in helping her survive and succeed, particularly during her early

period in the school. If something is passed on through the system, it will be dealt with

very quickly. So you know youve got back up. She greatly appreciated the professional

and personal support she received from the principal which helped her survive through


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and achieve a good result from the school inspection. She had been expecting her

second child during that period and commented that I think if it hadnt been for the

intervention of the head and his support, I think I probably would have had a nervous

breakdown. The person-centred school culture also helped in that it brought the whole

staff together as a team.

The inspection which had caused so much concern to Katherine had resulted in highly

positive results in the end and this had boosted her confidence, pride and added

motivation. Katherine felt that that she had been recovering since then and had

successfully rebuilt her confidence and reinforced her positive relationships with

colleagues. After having recovered from a dip in her sense of effectiveness during those

difficult times, then, she was now considering taking on management training to prepare

herself for further promotion.

Discussion

Individual resilience: teachers vocational selves

Palmer (1998) proposed three important interwoven paths in the inner landscape of the

teaching self: intellectual, emotional and spiritual. He explained that the teachers inner

quest to help pupils learn, their feelings and emotions which promote or hinder the

relationships between them and their pupils and their hearts longing to be connected

with the work of teaching form the essence of their inner terrain. In developing his view,

we argue that a key notion that connects the three paths of the teachers inner world is

that of vocation or calling. The testimony of the four teachers in Hansens classic study

(1995) suggests that teaching as a vocation presupposes many of the meanings

characteristically associated with helping others learn and improve themselves

intellectually and morally (1995: 15).

Like Katherine, many VITAE teachers had a strong calling to teach and continued to

enjoy working with children and watching them grow. In her study of American high


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school teachers, Nieto (2003) found that to be able to learn and develop in a learning

community serves as an important incentive that keeps teachers going in the

contemporary contexts of teaching. Margolis (2008) also concluded in a study which

sought to make sense of the complexities of teachers careers in light of changes in

social and economic forces, that opportunities which promote teachers learning and

enable them to share their gifts with others in the profession keep good teachers

teaching (2008: 160-161). Teachers inner vocational drive, as Hansen (1995) observes,

turns the focus of perception in such a way that the challenges and the complexities in

teaching become sources of interestin the work, rather than barriers or frustrating

obstacles to be overcome (1995: 144).

Katherines story illustrates that to maintain their individual resilience, teachers

need an enduring optimistic sense of personal efficacy (Bandura, 1989: 1176).

Rutter (1990) describes self-efficacy as one of the very robust predictors of

resilience. Hoy and Spero (2005) locate teachers sense of efficacy in their

confidence about their abilities to promote students learning (2005: 343). These

self-judgements and beliefs affect the effort teachers invest in teaching, their level

of aspiration, the goals they set (Hoy and Spero, 2005: 345). Bandura (1997) also

argues thatpeople must have a robust sense of personal efficacy to sustain the

perseverant effort needed to succeed (1989: 1176).

When faced with obstacles, setbacks, and failures, those who doubt their

capabilities slacken their efforts, give up, or settle for mediocre solutions.

Those who have a strong belief in their capabilities redouble their effort to

master the challenges.

(Bandura, 2000: 120)

Relational resilience: drawing strength from each other

In positive psychology, particular attention has been given to the importance of


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relationship-based assets and their contribution to resilience (Masten, 2001; Gorman,

2005; Luthans et al., 2007). Luthar (2006) posits that Resilience rests, fundamentally,

on relationships (2006: 780).

Relationships lie at the roots of resilience: when everyday relationships

reflect ongoing abuse, rancor, and insecurity, this profoundly threatens

resilience as well as the personal attributes that might otherwise have

fostered it. Conversely, the present of support, love, and security fosters

resilience in part, by reinforcing peoples innate strengths (such as self-

efficacy, positive emotions and emotion regulation) with these personally

attributes measured biologically and/or behaviourally.

(Luthar and Brown, 2007: 947)

Neuroscientists discovery of the social brain reveals that we are wired to connect

(Goleman, 2007: 4). This revelation provides a biological basis for understanding the

nature and confirming the importance of good quality relationships in maintaining a

sense of positive identity, well being and effectiveness in our daily work and lives:

Surely much of what makes life worth living comes down to our feelings of

well-being our happiness and sense of fulfilment. And good quality

relationships are one of the strongest sources of such feelings. In a

sense, resonant relationships are like emotional vitamins, sustaining us

through tough times and nourishing us daily.

(Goleman, 2007: 312)

We use the term relational resilience in order to acknowledge and emphasise that

teachers capacity to perform effectively in the face of adversity can be sustained and

supported through individual professional relationships, groups and networks in their

workplaces. Relational resilience resonates with the central thesis of social capital, that,


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relationships matter (Field, 2008: 1). Goodwin (2005), from a psychological

perspective, also, maintains that close relationships act as important social glue,

helping people deal with the uncertainties of their changing world (2005: 615, cited in

Edwards, 2007: 8). Trusting and open networks may function as a valuable asset, or

capital, which enable them to build a sense of belonging in the school community, but

also provide intellectual, spiritual and emotional resources for teachers professional

development.

Moreover, Bryk and Schneider (2002) argue that teachers interpersonal worlds are

organised around distinct sets of role relationships: teachers with students, teachers

with other teachers, teachers with parents and with their school principal (2002: 20). A

trusting relationship between teachers in particular, was found to be of vital importance

in building teachers collective sense of resilience and contribute to strong associations

between positive relationships, trust and pupil attainment in elementary schools.

Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), also, found the obverse, that a lack of social support from

colleagues could lead to teachers emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. For

Katherine, team spirit which encouraged peer support and sharing of good practice was

an important contributing influence on her positive professional outlook, particularly

when pressures at work combined with personal circumstances began to pose a serious

threat to her capacity to maintain her effectiveness in the classroom and her

department.

In contrast to teachers individual resilient qualities, relational resilience is developed

through the many and varied interactions which characterise their work. The presence,

quality and range of opportunities which promote relationships of trust and shared

values and visions amongst the staff can foster the strength of a collective capacity for

joint work. The importance of building collective strength and confidence in communities

of teachers in the reality of teaching is that they are able to interact knowledgeably and

assertively with the bearers of innovation and reform (Hargreaves, 1994: 195). For


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teachers working in schools in socio-economically challenging circumstances in

particular, staff collegiality and mutual trust and support are of profound importance in

sustaining their morale, sense of efficacy, well-being and effectiveness (AUTHORS, 2007;

also Peterson, et al., 2008). As Katherines case shows, positive relational bonds in such

circumstances help create an optimal condition for building collective efficacy beliefs

amongst teachers. Goddard et al. (2004) argue that such robust sense of group

capabilityestablishes expectations (cultural norms) for success which encourage

organisational members to work resiliently toward desired ends (2004: 8). In

education, these desired ends have to be related to students progress and achievement.

Organisational resilience: leadership matters

In contrast to the nature of individual and relational resilience, organisational resilience

places an importance on the effectiveness of the organisational context, structure and

system, on how the system functions as a whole to create a supportive environment for

individuals professional learning and development; build a trusting relationship amongst

its staff; foster a collective sense of efficacy and resilience and, through this, manage to

sustain its continuous improvement. The concept of organisational resilience has been

developed largely outside education. Hamel and Vlikangas (2003), writing in the

context of business, define organisational resilience as the ability to reinvent strategies

dynamically in response to changes in circumstances. They describe a truly resilient

organisation as a workplace that is filled with excitement and argue that strategic

renewal, i.e. creative reconstruction, must be the natural consequence of an

organisations innate resilience (2003: 2-3).

Horne and Orr (1998) proposed seven Cs to describe key features of resilient

organisations: community, competence, connections, commitment, communication,

coordination and consideration. These characteristics are also used in the educational

research literature to portray schools which are learning communities in which both

pupils and teachers are likely to experience enriched relationships with others, enhanced


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efficacy and commitment and increased job fulfilment (Stoll and Louis, 2007). At a time

when the contemporary landscape of teaching is littered with successive and persisting

government policy reforms that have increased teachers external accountabilities, work

complexity and emotional workload, as the portrait of Katherine shows, such learning

communities are those which implicitly illustrate organisational resilience a necessary

condition for schools and their teachers to sustain their identities and continue to work

for improvement. In the case of Katherine, the organisational structure in her school

which clearly defined patterns of roles and responsibilities and which encouraged flows of

information and communication played a critical part in helping her survive and succeed

in her school and in the profession. In addition, strong leadership support provided her

with strength, confidence and a sense of belonging which enabled her to recover from

short-term setbacks and continue to make a difference to the learning and achievement

of the pupils.

Yes, supportive organisational communities do not happy by chance. They require good

leadership. Knoop (2007) argues that Considering the present pace of sociocultural

change, it is difficult to imagine a time in history when good leadership was more

important than it is today, and when the lack of it was more dangerous (2007: 223).

Thus:

Leaders are the stewards of organisational energy [Resilience]they

inspire or demoralise others, first by how effectively they manage their

own energy and next by how well they manage, focus, invest and renew

the collective energy [Resilience] of those they lead.

(Loehr and Schwartz, 2003: 5)

Similarly, Henry and Milstein (2006) found that,

Teachers, students, parents, support personnel are the fabric of the school.


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Leaders are weavers of the fabric of resiliency initiatives.

(Henry and Milstein, 2006: 8)

Examples of such leadership may be found reported in international longitudinal, multi-

perspective research on successful school principals and their staff (Day and Leithwood,

2007). In North America, Corrie Giles (2006) reports on research on the resilience of two

urban secondary schools in New York State and Ontario, Canada, which had

experienced, successive waves of increasingly standardised reform, yet which were

characterised, like the English school, by an enduring internal architecture of personal,

group and organisational characteristics as well as external contextual conditions that

provide long term nurturing and support (Giles, April 2007, unpublished: 29). In these

North American schools, the internal conditions and the ability of the principals to buffer

the effects of external changes had created conditions for self-renewal. Committed and

trustworthy leaders at all levels are at the heart of organisational resilience.

The qualities of school principals and the contextually sensitive strategies which they

enact over time (Leithwood and Day, 2007) are key to building and retaining the

commitment, engagement and collective loyalty of teachers. Examples of such

contextually sensitive leadership may also be found in a mixed-methods national study

of the impact of school leadership on pupil outcomes which is, to date, the largest and

most extensive study of contemporary school leadership to be conducted in England

(Authors et al., 2009). Principals professional values and leadership practices were

shown to have had a profound influence upon the development of individual, relational

and organisational capacity and trust in a group of effective and improved primary and

secondary schools, which led to the growth of confidence and self-efficacy in the staff

and achievement of the students (Authors et al., 2009). Interactions, structures and

strategies which secured consistency with values and vision in the school were identified

as fundamental to establishing and sustaining relationships within the school community

a key contributory factor in teachers sense of individual, relational and organisational


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resilience.

Conclusions: Sustaining Resilience, Commitment and Effectiveness in Times of

Change

It is clear, then, that resilience is a multi-faceted and dynamic construct (see also

Oswald et al., 2003). It encompasses the competence to function well generally over

time despite the experience of initial, brief spikes and to recover effectively from severe

disruptions in functioning (Luthar and Brown, 2007: 941). It is not a static state and is

closely related to the quality of relationships in the environments in which individuals

work and live. The nature and sustainability of resilience in teachers over the course of

their professional lives will be determined by their management of the interaction

between the strength of their vocational selves, those whom they meet as part of their

daily work and the collective sense of resilience within the organisational system.

Teachers capacities to manage unanticipated as well as anticipated events effectively

will be mediated by these. It is essential, then, to the health of the organisation and all

those within it that its importance to quality (of teaching, for example) is acknowledged

and nurtured.

Our portrait of Katherine suggests that for teachers, resilience is necessary on a daily

basis to: i) meet the often unpredictable challenges posed by students who may not

always be highly motivated to learn, and whose problems outside the school are likely to

form part of their behaviour in school; ii) manage the tensions inherent in meeting

externally identified narrowly defined sets of academic standards whilst simultaneously

caring for the personal and citizenship needs of students; iii) respond to changes in the

curriculum; iv) maintain the physical, psychological and emotional energy needed to

engage others in learning for sustained periods of time; and v) collaborate with

colleagues in planning and evaluating in order to improve. In the case of Katherine and

many teachers in the VITAE project, leadership of her school principal, supportive school

culture, staff collegiality and positive teacher-pupil relationships were found to be


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contributing influences on their ability to gather intellectual and emotional strengths in

the face of setbacks and challenges (e.g. work life tensions and external school

inspection), and through these, sustain their sense of efficacy, commitment and

perceived effectiveness in the profession and continue to fulfil their passion for teaching.

People need one another and, above all, they need encouragement, but

that encouragement is best when it is personal, taking account of their

unique history and hopes, coming from somebody who inspires trust.

(Zeldin, 2004: 36-38 op cit)

It is the complexities and subtleties of the emotions that many teachers endure in their

every ordinary school day including, in schools in England, teaching increasing

numbers of those who have behavioural problems, those who find it difficult to engage in

learning and those who are emotionally anxious and troubled because of unhappy family

relationships at home that makes what they do unique. It is the ongoing demands on

their intellectual energy, competence and capacity to connect self and subject and

students in the fabric of life (Palmer, 1998: 11) that distinguishes their teaching selves

from the selves of other professionals. At a time when organisational and professional

change is inevitable in order to meet new local and national social and economic

challenges, it is those who manage to connect their educational values, beliefs and

deepest callings with those of their colleagues and organisations who are most likely to

overcome setbacks in different work settings and enjoy the happiness, joy and fulfilment

derived from the differences that they make to the lives of their pupils and through

them, the wellbeing of tomorrows society. Thus, the central task for all concerned with

enhancing quality and standards in schools is not only to have a better understanding of

what influences teachersmotivation, commitment and their capacity to teach well over

the course of a career, but also the means by which the resilience necessary for these to

be sustained may be nurtured and developed.


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