This evocative autoethnography is an exploration of learning and perseverance during a particularly dark time in my personal and professional life. In a period of just over 3 years, my spouse and I dealt with the need for several surgeries, the COVID-19-Delta pandemic and subsequent isolation, social unrest, an insurrection in the U.S., and the…

In this autoethnography I present three narratives exploring how I understood and experienced my identity as a gay beginning teacher working in a rural Australian secondary school, where my sexuality was generally not accepted. Reading these narratives through a phenomenological lens highlights how my subjectivity as a gay man was entangled in my…

Workplace bullying is a known issue in society, and is most prevalent in education. Nevertheless, teacher-on-teacher bullying is a taboo topic of discussion. Bullying is repeated acts or verbal comments made to the victim as a way of controlling and demonstrating power over the individual. These acts could cause a multitude of psychological or…

This essay examines teaching failure in the context of COVID-19. It uses autoethnography to convey and explore the impact the pandemic has on teaching, as situated against and within my life-long dream to be a teacher. I explore four performances as a teacher that resulted from the transition at my institution from on the ground to fully remote…

In October 2020, the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF/FCE) released the "Canadian Teachers Responding to Coronavirus (COVID-19) -- Pandemic Research Study. National Summary Report. Overview" (ED610460). That document is an important baseline for understanding the impacts of teaching during a pandemic, and supports needed for teacher…

Teacher stress can be conceptualized as an imbalance between risk and protective factors. Stress emanates from risk factors at the personal, interpersonal, and organizational levels. When risk factors exceed protective factors, teacher ability to cope with adversity is inhibited, likely resulting in stress and pernicious consequences. In this…

For those who believe in the promise of public education, here's an antidote to the many negative messages that educators have been receiving. In doing research for her new book, "Why Teachers Teach Now" (Teachers College Press, 2014), Sonia Nieto contacted teacher educators from across the United States and asked each to nominate a…

This article focuses on indirect complaining in teacher education. The phenomenon of complaining in educational situations has not been examined as a process before. In this study complaining was examined in naturally occurring learning group sessions, which were videotaped and analysed through Conversation Analysis (CA). The purpose of this study…

With shifts and changes in the social and professional context of 21st century education, beginning teachers are especially challenged by conflicts between their personal beliefs and the reality of teaching, in addition to the struggles first-year teachers often encounter. While there is an established body of literature in teacher education that…

To expect an "easy life" as a professor of special education is to expect what never was nor never will be. But when the playing field is uneven for minorities, or even worse, when it is not even recognized that the playing field is uneven, there is cause for action. For example, Bonner (2004) stated that minority faculty face tremendous…

This article examines the ways African American educators experience themselves as raced individuals in their school settings and explores their perceptions of racial discrimination, subordination, and isolation. For this study, five African American educators participated in in-depth phenomenological interviews. Qualitative data analysis of their…

Emotional intelligence (intrapersonal and interpersonal) and general teacher self-efficacy were assessed to represent personal resources facilitating active and passive coping in a sample of 273 Chinese prospective and in-service teachers in Hong Kong. Intrapersonal emotional intelligence and interpersonal emotional intelligence were found to…

There is a teacher retention crisis in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions: What contributes to teachers leaving the field? How has "No Child Left Behind" affected teacher retention? What can be done to retain good teachers? What impact do school administrators have on teacher retention?…

In this article, Tina Axup, an educational psychologist working in Southend-on-Sea, and Irvine Gersch, director of educational and child psychology programmes at the University of East London, describe a small-scale study of teachers' attitudes regarding the impact of student behaviour on their professional lives. Anecdotal evidence within a local…

Mrs. Donohue, a middle school teacher of students with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD), emphasizes that her job is extremely challenging. Her biggest issue is lack of administrative support. Mr. Clark, a teacher for students with EBD at an alternative school, had similar experiences with administrators in the past. He says, "The current…