Teacher retention is at an all-time low and school leaders are wondering how to engage their teams effectively. EdWeek reports that 33% of teachers are “very likely” to leave the profession in the next two years. We simply don’t have enough professionals in the pipeline to solve the dilemma.

While this article is not about remuneration, I am a huge proponent of compensating teachers fairly for their professional and heroic work in educating our children. However, often there is only so much control we have over the pay scale system.

So what can we do to animate our teachers and spur them forward?

At times like these, it is easy to get distracted by the tactical fray and the pressures of the day. It is human nature to let up or even lower expectations.

Yet, at crucial moments, particularly when the pressure is high, we must lead forward with the rich significance of our work. We must galvanize our teams around the great moral purposes of education.

Moral Purpose #1 – Dignity of Every Child

To offer dignity to every child, regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, gender, or ability, is our moral purpose. The policy documents call it “Duty of Care,” the moral and legal obligation as professional educators aligned with any reasonable person. This is so much more than teaching and learning, assessment, and reporting.

I learned this when I sent my firstborn off to school. With his head lolling, his arms flailing, and his fits and starts of speech, my son, with the label “cerebral palsy with a hearing impairment” bravely walked through the big doors of the school to Kindergarten. It may have been the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever done. I still feel it now, two decades later, like a lump in my throat that cuts off my breath. All any parent wants is for you to love their child.

Moral Purpose #2 – Equity for All

Possibly the grandest challenge of our era is to achieve equity for all. The process includes unraveling systemic power structures subverting people groups and also ironically destroying our planet. I am not sure how this will happen, but I know it will include passionate and devoted educators.

In her book The Person You Mean to Be, Dolly Chugh calls us to act as allies or ‘tempered radicals.’ The call is to move from the identity of a believer [in equity for all] to the skills of a builder. She encourages us to be “catalysts for change by challenging the status quo in small, cautious ways” such that our daily efforts lead to true change.

I can’t imagine what this will look like in your life or community. Allow me to offer some examples. One radical act I am making often is simply to cross the room and strike up a conversation with a person of color. When I write it down, it sounds too insignificant. I am humbled.

Additionally, I am delving deep into the literature of anti-racism, indigenous perspectives, and education’s role in the work of equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Finally, I am boldly and imperfectly volunteering to sustain the literacy equity work of Niteo, the charity I founded in 2007.

Moral Purpose #3 – Community

In an era of polarization, racial reckoning, and pandemic policing, cultivating community is more fraught than ever! Indeed, landmines are everywhere. Yet, when my coaching colleagues and I listen to the hearts of school leaders across the continent, we hear the hunger for community. Ultimately, everyone wants to create a sense of ‘together’ for the sake of the children.

One way I’ve learned to call people together is to focus on what matters most. Truly, we have to discover and discuss what creates unity.

Learn Forward™ articulates what matters most with the heart of drawing people together. With a heart of invitation, we call the five most important journeys of a child: faith, worthiness, selfhood, belonging, and changemaking. We all weave through these five journeys throughout life, as we are being and becoming. We’re all on these journeys and so here, we are all together. This language draws us together in community.

In Application

Ultimately, it is a bold purpose of education to facilitate learning and growth in a personal way, for every learner, championing the extraordinary potential of each one. Inherent in this purpose is the grand challenge of equitable access to an excellent education. Ironically, ‘community’ is the way and intrinsic to the very word is ‘unity.’ We create unity around these moral purposes.

What is the center point, the bold purpose, the moral cause for your school?  How do you articulate it uniquely?  What is your school’s ‘Soul Story’?  

If your community can articulate these powerful purposes, you will animate your team of teachers. Then, one year from now, you will have a stronger and happier team.

For the sake of the children,

Karine Veldhoen

P.S. For your very own resource on how to define your school’s unique purposes and craft your ‘Soul Story,’ check out our Learn Forward™ Manifesto Playbook and Video Course here.