Australia’s classrooms are in crisis, with teacher shortages, rising workloads, and burnout pushing many educators to breaking point. Now, a surge in mental health-focused training aims to change that.
A pioneering unit at the Australian Catholic University – the nation’s largest provider of initial teacher education – has seen enrolments soar by 500% in just two years, equipping pre-service and early-career teachers with critical self-care strategies.
The ‘Teachers’ Mental Health: The First Five Years’ unit forms part of a broader push to embed wellbeing in teacher training, ensuring that those entering the profession have the tools to manage stress and avoid the burnout that is driving so many to leave.
The initiative was spearheaded by ACU education lecturer Dr Debra Phillips, a former secondary teacher for more than 30 years whose efforts have been driven by her own experiences with burnout and depression.
Teachers under siege, but compensation ‘minimal’
She said the ACU’s research showing how educators are struggling with serious occupational health and wellbeing crises mirrors that of studies conducted internationally.
“Violence against teachers by students and parents is increasing. Collegial bullying is being disclosed,” Dr Phillips told The Educator.
“While there have been efforts to compensate teachers for extra duties such as overnight field trips, or weekly rehearsals for school concerts, they have been minimal, and the additional demands still erode a teacher’s life outside of school.”
Dr Phillips said new extra duties such as ‘drop off and pick up’ supervision outside school hours also continue to be expected, adding more demands to the schedules of already time poor teachers.
“These place additional emotional and cognitive burden on teachers. Formal and informal surveillance of teachers by their colleagues, parents, and students creates a sense that teachers’ capacity to do their role is not trusted,” she said.
“Teachers are negatively critiqued in news and social media which erodes their professional self-efficacy.”
Teachers, beware the perfection trap
Recalling her own struggles while teaching, Dr Phillips said the relentless pursuit of perfection in teaching led to exhaustion, isolation, and self-doubt, ultimately forcing a difficult decision to step away from the profession.
“In my attempts to be the perfect person doing the teacher role perfectly, I came undone,” Dr Phillips said.
“As our schools moved to produce an outcomes-based education and to align good schooling with superbly excellent academic scores I gave more and more time – inclusive of evenings weekends and holidays – to preparation of lessons, marking papers and crafting precise reports.”
Dr Phillips said she not only became mentally and physically fatigued, but socially withdrawn, emotionally tired and “spiritually drained”.
“I could not see any worthwhile results for my labour. Rather, the criticisms that occurred about my not-so-perfect performance weakened my sense of self-efficacy. I left teaching. Yet, my closest colleagues and teaching friends were the ones who carried me through this time,” she said.
“I returned to artmaking, joined the community choir and the local knitting group, and took regular walks in the local native reserve. These were, as my research indicates, the best restorative strategies for anyone’s mental health.”
Preventing teacher burnout from day one
To ensure other teachers avoid the debilitating health and wellbeing issues she experienced, Dr Phillips said the ACU’s new 12-week subject carefully examines the most relevant and easy-to-identify factors that build or erode the mental health for an early career teacher.
“A focus on supportive collegial relationships with mature and mentor teachers is stressed, weighing up what aspects of administrative load can be prioritised, and using the natural supports of the school site and community,” she said.
“Examples are walking the school’s perimeter during lunchtime for air and sun and joining local recreational groups [bushwalking, choir, etc].”
Dr Phillips said the assessments are designed to be overtly useful for their school experience.
“This could include crafting a song about their strengths as a teacher and developing a mental health care action plan that includes an activity from the social, physical, spiritual, cognitive, and recreational domains.”
Plans are now underway to provide education graduates with access to short courses to help them navigate the challenges faced by early career teachers, Dr Phillips said.
“While ACU offers the undergraduate subject and a robust wellbeing strand within the Master of Education, we want to complement this with a short course for our teachers who have just graduated and are seeking to build their professional development portfolio,” she said.
The short course will be a 5–10-hour, self-paced course that encourages reflecting about and using some of the school day’s routines and practices to develop a teaching approach that builds their sense of professional efficacy.
“For example, to feel a sense of accomplishment that they remember and use each student’s name during the day,” Dr Phillips said.
“We will also include short podcasts of top tips from our newly graduated Alumni.”