How Teacher Fatigue Is Creating Education Inertia

(For the video companion to this article, click here.)

Let me first start by saying that I am a lifelong educator. Education is where I have found my passion and education is where I see myself in the years to come. I have been a classroom teacher, instructional coach, curriculum writer, dean of students, assistant principal, and principal. I have worked in urban, rural, online, charter, and public schools in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Vermont. I have taught students of different economic backgrounds, language proficiency, and learning needs. Needless to say, I have been around the education block more than once and have seen it from multiple perspectives (including as a parent of a rambunctious 1st grader).

I have seen many different trends come and go, but the one thing that has remained a constant is teacher stress. The vast majority of educators I have worked with have been competent, passionate, and student-focused. Many have arrived early, left late, and been more than generous with donating their personal time to help support students and the overall school community. They have also been consistently open to feedback and professional growth. This has been a constant that often has been overlooked by misguided education reformers who appear to have ulterior motives, particularly centered around finding ways to cut educational funding. 

At the same time there has also been a rather sharp observation made that some of the best teachers have at times made some of the most difficult students, particularly when it comes to professional development sessions. While this might seem to be critical of professional educators, viewing it this way would be a tremendous simplification. Teachers are not resisting PD out of spite. Rather, Hauge and Wan (2019) write, “Teachers often resist professional development because they perceive it as being disconnected from their classroom realities, leading to a lack of ownership and a subsequent failure to implement the proposed changes” (p. 7). 

Ironically, this perceived disconnect is nothing earth shattering. It has been voiced by teachers for years and discussed in professional circles ad nauseum, yet paradoxically is both heard by education administrators and lawmakers while also not being acted upon in any meaningful or measurable way. 

The Struggle for Teachers

One prominent objection is that teachers frequently complain that professional developments are created in isolation and bear very little relevance to the daily needs that they face. Hauge and Wan (2019) note that resistance is frequently a reaction to formal, "one-size-fits-all" PD programs that offer few opportunities for teachers to be active participants in their own learning process. It is not uncommon to hear teachers voice this common sentiment, “This is all well and good but how does it apply to me? I teach [insert subject or grade] and have students who [insert behavioral or academic need].” The fact that this sentiment can be applied so easily to any teacher in any setting speaks to how disconnected PDs can be.

In addition to this, teachers have also argued for years that in the era of high-stakes testing there has been an increasing loss of autonomy. Education reformers and curriculum developers alike have made a strong push towards practices that are meant to “teacher-proof” the instruction so that anyone can essentially follow a script that leads to measurable results (often derived from performance on benchmark assessments). Glazer (2025) notes that teachers often feel a loss of autonomy due to "standard-driven policies within regimes of testing and accountability," which makes them feel like "robots" and prevents them from implementing creative or deep-learning strategies. In doing this the art of teaching and the value of the teacher’s role in student education is being highly diminished. 

Perhaps the most common complaint that teachers share is an overall lack of resources and support to meaningfully implement strategies that they are being taught, particularly in terms of time, consistent feedback, and coaching. Ehlert et al. (2025) write that common hurdles include a lack of time, insufficient material resources, and a "general tendency towards negative interpretation" when faced with the uncertainty of change. After all, many of the strategies being pushed on educators constitute a major shift away from practices that they have adopted over the years and have worked for them. Without the adequate time and extended coaching, many professional developments end up communicating to teachers (either intentionally or unintentionally), “Start doing things this way. If you have problems, figure it out.”

The Struggles for Administrators

By this point the unassuming reader might conclude that I am opposed to professional development. This could not be further from the truth. I am a huge believer in lifelong learning, having a growth mindset, and that the best teachers are the ones who are always gaining new skills and strategies. It should also be noted that I have spearheaded numerous PDs over the years, and I have committed many of the same mistakes described here multiple times. 

So what struggles cause me and other administrators to make this mistake repeatedly? The honest answer is that the same issues that prevent teachers from implementing professional development are the ones that often prevent administrators from developing and supporting it: a lack of resources, particularly time. When educators are constantly being inundated with “the next big thing” in education and are asked to upend established practices and procedures every few years, they lack the ability to become content experts in any one specific practice. 

Furthermore, it becomes increasingly difficult for administrators to plan the meaningful implementation of any kind of new strategy when they are frequently being pulled in a number of different directions and needing to address the day-to-day operations of the school. Furthermore, culture change typically takes about 5 years, while most strategies are being abandoned far sooner than that for “the next big thing.”

Moving Beyond Just Admiring the Problem

As mentioned earlier, none of what is being written here is novel. Teachers have been voicing these concerns for years. By the same token, none of these concerns have been acted upon making one wonder if there is a feasible solution. More often than not it seems as if people move into two equally untenable positions; one side argues for the complete removal of PDs claiming they will never be useful to teachers, while the other side simply dismisses the concerns of the teachers and asserts that no matter what changes they make teachers will never be happy. 

Both of these sides completely dismiss the notion that professional development for teachers can and should be impactful; furthermore, they ignore the fact that there is a sensible middle ground: solicit the support from the teachers. What instructors find meaningful in PD has already been established. Bayar (2015) writes that teachers want the following from their trainings:

• Active Engagement: Teachers want concrete skills and strategies that they can practice during the session and apply to their classrooms quickly
• Extended Practice: Single-session PDs are rarely impactful. Instead of multiple short sessions scattered throughout the year, teachers want professional development that is focused and extended throughout the year. This allows continued coaching and support to ensure that the strategies are being implemented well.
• Collective Participation: This ties directly into the concept of professional learning communities. Teachers require time to work with colleagues to create a shared implementation of the practices and to be able to learn from one another.
• Content Relevance: Rarely has “one-size-fits-all” ever worked in education. Teachers desire PDs that are narrow and deep as opposed to shallow and wide to incorporate everybody. (p. 325)

When looking at these specific needs, it becomes clearly apparent that these are not unreasonable steps. From an implementation side, it does not require an increase in resources but rather a shift in how time and personnel are allocated. This can be achieved by administrators and teachers working together to form a professional development guiding coalition, agreeing to one or two specific strategies to focus on during the school year, designating time for teacher teams to meet to discuss implementation, and performing walkthrough observations that are targeted to the specific strategies’ implementation.

Although adopting such a mindset might be uncomfortable for those implementing PD sessions, is this not what is being asked of teachers currently? By incorporating teacher feedback and making them true partners in professional learning, professional development can finally break that decades long inertia and effect meaningful change where administrators, teachers, and most importantly, students win.

References

Bayar, A. (2014). The components of effective professional development activities: in-service teachers’ perspectives. International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 6(2), 319–327. https://doi.org/10.15345/iojes.2014.02.004

Ehlert, M., Adloff, M., & Souvignier, E. (2025). It’s about time! Teachers’ perspectives on supportive and hindering contextual conditions for implementing innovations in schools. Education Inquiry, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2025.2454083

Glazer, J. (2025). Regress instead of progress: influences on teacher change. Journal of Education for Teaching, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2025.2469126

Hauge, K., & Wan, P. (2019). Teachers’ collective professional development in school: A review study. Cogent Education, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2019.1619223