Teacher Resilience In The Profession

Malcom (2007), who sought to ascertain how teachers developed resilience and if their ability to be resilient impacted their retention in the profession, studied 14 beginning teachers (3 males, 11 females) in three experience ranges of one, three, and five years. Interview results revealed the most important attributes of resilient teachers uttered by interviewees. These ideas included bouncing back (11 times), being flexible (9), keep going (7), keeping a positive attitude (14), understanding oneself (8), learning from challenges (8), and overcoming adversities (14). The major components of resilience included: the personal resilient attributes of building relationships and a sense of purpose; a positive, supportive environment; a feeling of always having a choice (agency); the ability to see difficulties as challenges; and the sense of having had excellent preparation.
Interestingly, despite a range of understandings about resilience, there are limited explanations of how teachers view resilience in the context of their profession or at particular experience stages. Questions remain about how teacher resilience may be perceived by males and females, by early career teachers and by more experienced teachers. The purpose of this paper is to make a unique contribution to the teacher resilience literature by providing insights into how male and female low-experienced, medium-experienced, and high-experienced teachers view teacher resilience. The paper further aims to raise awareness of some possible implications of these insights for preservice teacher education and professional development of