• Systemic stress and burnout exist for educators because most interventions focus on individual resilience, not the structural causes like lack of autonomy and recognition that leave them unsupported by their environments.
• Restoring autonomy empowers teachers by involving them in decision-making and goal-setting, increasing intrinsic motivation and engagement within their profession.
• Recognition and consistent feedback boost morale by fostering a culture where teachers feel appreciated and motivated to innovate.

While there has long been a fight for teachers to receive better compensation and support to improve satisfaction and retention, the situation has only gotten worse. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers faced unprecedented workloads, shifting expectations, and blurred boundaries between work and home, causing many teachers to burn out and quit. In America, there are half a million fewer educators in the public school system. There has been a 60% increase in sick days used by elementary school teachers over the last decade in Ontario,¹ and in America, 30% of teachers were found to be chronically absent.² Moreover, recent budget cuts in the education sector in North America over the past few years have increased the burden on those continuing the profession, and removing critical support needed to help them navigate challenges. 

So what is leading to these frightening statistics? According to a 2022 study, teachers are twice as likely to be stressed as other working adults. According to a study from the American Educational Research Association, they are 40% more likely to suffer from anxiety compared to healthcare workers.² This stress and anxiety lead to burnout, which in turn leads to absenteeism and high turnover rates. The disproportionate stress that teachers experience is partially because they take on so many responsibilities beyond the classroom, such as preparing for lessons or spending hours grading, which aren’t adequately compensated for. Additionally, they take on the emotional labor of helping to manage student behavior and challenges—29% of teachers say this is a major stressor in their classrooms.³ 

Often, interventions to support educators are aimed at the individual level, such as stress-management training or mindfulness workshops. However, these interventions misdiagnose the problem. Burnout isn’t a sign that teachers lack resilience—it’s a sign that the environment is designed in a way that creates too much stress. These approaches also shift blame onto the teacher and require them to complete additional training when they are already struggling to achieve work-life balance. We must shift our narrative from “fix the teacher” to “fix the system,” addressing the structural barriers that contribute to burnout.

Teachers often face barriers to their professional autonomy in the classroom. Education, especially in North America, prioritizes standardized testing and performance metrics, causing leadership to implement a top-down approach. This approach ensures that teachers are checking boxes rather than helping them cultivate their professional judgment and innovative teaching methods.

Teachers report that they have little to no control over their schedule, school policies, or the curriculum taught.  They are often left out of decision-making rooms, which erodes their sense of authority. Often, if teachers want to make a change to the prescribed curriculum or method of teaching, they must follow a rigorous and time-consuming approval process. As you can imagine, this has several negative consequences.

A lack of autonomy can lead to a decline in intrinsic motivation. According to the Self-Determination Theory,  autonomy is one of our core psychological needs and is required for intrinsic motivation. While many educators chose their profession to follow a passion for helping shape young minds, when they are told what and how to teach, this passion can quickly dwindle. Teachers are expected to care deeply and perform emotional labor, yet they are denied the authority to act on that care. 

A lack of autonomy can also lower job satisfaction and negatively impact mental health. A study conducted in China surveying 810 primary and secondary school teachers found that teacher autonomy indirectly influenced mental health through three pathways: teaching efficacy, job satisfaction, and the chain-mediating effect of teaching efficacy and job satisfaction. Teachers who reported higher autonomy also reported higher scores in these three areas. This demonstrates that not only does a lack of autonomy negatively impact teachers, but since it affects the quality of their teaching, students suffer as well.⁴ 

Unfortunately, teachers are also often underpaid—in the U.S., they earn 20% less than other professionals with similar education and experience⁵—which only places more importance on intrinsic motivation without the promise of a high external reward. According to a McKinsey report, 48% of educators are planning on leaving the field due to compensation, and 42% have already left for that reason. 

However, the same report revealed that 58% stay because of meaningful work.² By providing educators with greater autonomy, they can continue to find the work meaningful and restore their sense of intrinsic motivation, which can improve job satisfaction and retention.

While oversight and consistency are important within the education system, there are ways to restore teachers’ sense of autonomy without granting them complete freedom. By ensuring there are opportunities for teachers to make meaningful choices, and feel trusted to use their professional judgment, we can help to boost intrinsic motivation and improve job satisfaction and well-being.

A 2025 study of over 800 teachers in the U.S. found that autonomy made other types of support even more effective. When teachers felt they had control over their work, they viewed administrative support more positively and reported higher job satisfaction, making them less likely to feel burned out.⁶ 

To provide teachers with greater autonomy, they can be involved in scheduling decisions, assessment design, or curriculum adaptation. Additionally, instead of leaders prescribing goals based on student performance, educators can be engaged to help develop a shared set of goals. This helps dismantle the top-down management structure and recognize the value that educators bring to the table. When educators are actively involved in the creation of objectives, they gain a sense of ownership and engagement, which in turn, improves job satisfaction. 

In Finland, teacher autonomy is of the utmost priority. The government doesn’t administer standardized tests until grade 10 and no school inspections are conducted. Although a national curriculum is set, teachers have the freedom to make decisions on methods of teaching, textbooks, and other materials to be used in the classroom. This demonstrates that leaders have trust in their teachers’ expertise and don’t feel the need to prescribe pedagogy. While it may seem that this would require teachers to do more work, a 2018 TALIS survey revealed that teachers work 33 hours/week on average, compared to 53 hours/week in the U.S. It has a significant impact on teacher well-being—according to the same survey, only 14% of teachers in Finland reported feeling “a lot” of stress at work, compared to 26% in the U.S. Finland consistently ranks high in student performance as well as teacher satisfaction, suggesting that giving teachers more autonomy can also have positive effects on students.⁷

When educators are empowered to use their professional judgment and participate meaningfully in decision-making, they feel valued and, therefore, motivated to do their best work. By shifting toward collaborative leadership and shared goal-setting, schools can create environments where teachers feel supported yet free to innovate. 

Educators often feel underappreciated in their profession, largely because of a societal undervaluation of emotional labor. Much of what teachers do—such as mentoring students, managing a wide range of personalities and behaviors within their classroom, and supporting children through personal and family challenges—often goes unseen and unrecognized by the public.

However, even within the school system, there are few recognition mechanisms that help to show appreciation for educators. Most teachers are evaluated based on their average class performance in standardized tests, once again ignoring the many other responsibilities they take on. According to a 2024 Gallup survey, 70% of teachers report that they have not recently been acknowledged or praised for their work, and 40% said they did not feel personally valued.⁸ 

A lack of recognition erodes an educator’s sense of self-esteem, which undermines motivation and confidence and makes it harder for educators to face challenges at work. When teachers doubt their own value or abilities, they are less likely to believe that positive change is possible—sometimes leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of stagnation. As a result, teachers with low self-esteem may struggle to envision improvements in their workplace, increasing the likelihood that they will disengage or leave the profession.

When teachers are operating in an environment with little feedback or encouragement, it can also be difficult for them to assess their performance. They may not know which elements are effectively supporting their students, which can also diminish motivation to try new, creative methods. In a 2020 Teaching and Learning International Survey sampling 200 schools in each of 24 countries, 75% of teachers said that they would not receive any recognition or praise for being more innovative.  On average, 13% reported never receiving appraisals, while others say that they receive feedback only once per year. Continuous feedback has been shown to be an important aspect of employee motivation, but school systems are not implementing this tool.⁹

To increase motivation and ensure that educators feel supported, recognition programs and feedback loops must be implemented so that teachers feel seen and valued. The education system must move beyond standardized outcomes and celebrate other elements. Small intentional gestures can help to restore a teacher’s sense of purpose and belonging, which in turn improves retention rates and job satisfaction. 

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, people need to feel appreciated and respected to find purpose in their lives and achieve their full potential. Recognition is a key tool through which to help teachers feel appreciated and supported. Recognition also creates a sense of loyalty and community, making it easier for educators to navigate day-to-day challenges. By developing continuous feedback loops and recognition programs, we can improve educator satisfaction and morale. 

According to workplace research, there are five key elements of professional recognition that make it meaningful and lead to a positive impact on morale and performance: fulfilling, authentic, equitable, embedded in the culture, and personalized.⁸ The UK Thank a Teacher campaign, and Indiana’s Honored Schools program, are examples of recognition programs that fulfill these five characteristics. 

In 2013, the Teaching Awards Trust, a charity founded to celebrate excellence in education, created National Thank a Teacher Day, which recognizes all staff working in the education sector, including school leaders, teachers, and support staff. Via their website, anyone can send an e-gift card to a teacher who has made a significant impact throughout the year, but the national day of recognition brings extra attention. Often, celebrities get involved and teachers are recognized on social media, TV, and radio. As educators often feel undervalued, this public recognition can boost their self-esteem and improve their morale.¹⁰ 

In 2021, 16 schools in D.C. and Indiana developed and implemented a teacher recognition program called Honored Schools. Students and families were able to submit an “Honor Story” describing how a teacher had impacted their lives. A total of 1,600 Honor Stories were submitted during the program, and four teachers received a $5,000 Honored Transformative Teacher Award at the end of the year. While the promise of a monetary award itself can act as a motivator, the stories submitted were also shared with teachers throughout the course of the program, serving as a powerful reminder that their hard work was being noticed. The stories were personal, helping them to feel authentic, and affirmed their value.⁸ It also helped to create a sense of community between teachers, students, and families while fostering a culture of recognition within the community.

Regular feedback can also help to provide support to educators throughout the year. Currently, most teachers receive feedback annually with a focus on meeting a set of predetermined requirements, such as the average performance of their class. This places the focus on compliance rather than innovation, which also contributes to a lack of autonomy. However, if a strengths-first approach to teacher feedback and evaluation is designed with regular touchpoints, the evaluations are reframed as learning conversations where educators and leaders work collaboratively to explore how to build on what is working well. It focuses on competence rather than performance gaps, which according to Self-Determination Theory, helps to build intrinsic motivation.

As part of a wider education reform in New Zealand, a pilot was conducted with a group of teachers and leaders. They engaged in appraisal conversations, where in their first meeting, they were asked to choose an area of their profession that made them feel the most alive. Teachers reported that this question helped put them into an appreciative headspace, which can be powerful for teachers who experience a lot of day-to-day stress and challenges related to their profession. After the pilot, participants reported that their evaluation felt more collaborative, strengths-focused, and growth-oriented, which all contributed to a sense of motivation.¹¹ 

By embedding appreciation into the education system, we can shift from a daunting model of surveillance and evaluation that adds additional stress for educators to an environment of support, collaboration, and care. When recognition is continuous, authentic, and shared among peers, it restores educators’ sense of purpose, competence, and belonging—the very foundations of motivation and well-being.

While research suggests that autonomy, recognition, and feedback can meaningfully improve teacher well-being and motivation, they can be difficult to apply without buy-in from the wider educational system. Standardized tests, rigid curricula, and political oversight limit the amount of autonomy teachers can have. 

Additionally, they are unlikely to completely mitigate the effects of unfair compensation, long work hours, and the emotional labor of teaching. While the opportunities suggested can help teachers to feel more valued and respected, they do not address some of these root causes that contribute to burnout and turnover. 

Throughout this article, we've explored how diminished authority due to standardization and lack of recognition takes an emotional toll on educators, leaving them feeling disengaged, burned out, and chronically stressed. However, we've also seen how adjusting a top-down management approach and building in recognition and feedback loops can help teachers to feel valued and motivated, which ultimately will not only benefit our teachers, but our children's learning as well.

These behaviorally informed interventions are part of a much larger conversation of reimagining education on a global scale. To ensure the long-term health of our education system, school boards, principals, and district leaders must collaborate to develop approaches that recognize the complexity and importance of educators’ work. By fostering cultures that value both the visible and invisible labor teachers perform every day, we can increase job satisfaction and improve retention rates.

At The Decision Lab, we specialize in education, using behavioral science to unlock every classroom's potential. By partnering with educators, administrators, and policymakers, we can design and implement evidence-based solutions that support teacher well-being, drive innovation, and ultimately improve outcomes for students. Connect with us and join the effort to build a more supportive, sustainable future for educators everywhere.

Unpacking the Pandemic: The Lasting Impact of Education Learning Gaps

The pandemic didn’t just add extra burden for teachers—it completely transformed the way children had to learn. Almost overnight, teaching shifted online, requiring children to learn in a new space with new technologies. It also reduced their peer-to-peer interactions. In this article, Nicole Torres explores some of the learning gaps caused by the pandemic and what needs to be done now to help address them. 

How Might Behavioral Science Transform Education?

Understanding the way people think and make decisions is crucial for developing innovative solutions in any people-centered sector, but the integration of behavioral science in education lags behind other sectors like finance and health. In this article, two of our senior consultants, Jayden Rae and Marielle Montenegro, discuss the unique solutions that behavioral science lends to education and explore how simple interventions that have demonstrated effectiveness could be adapted to transform the education system.

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