Supporting Educators Effectively

An article by Krishna Kumar (Director, NCERT) published in The Indian Express. "Teacher is Walking Away" A Matter for Attention: “Teachers Are Leaving Their Jobs – A Bitter Truth” Because teachers are no longer being allowed to "teach" they’ve been turned into multi-purpose employees. Across the country’s schools/educational institutions today, a "silent revolution" is underway Teachers are exhausted, helpless, and disheartened. They are leaving their jobs some quietly, others emotionally withdrawing from their work. And the new generation? They no longer even want to become teachers. Why is this happening? 1. Teachers Trapped in Paperwork Teaching is no longer the priority. The daily routine has become — “Send photos,” “Provide proof,” “Upload reports.” "Provide Records." Their presence in classrooms is diminishing, while their presence in front of screens is increasing. 2. Excessive Emphasis on Technology Digital tools, apps, and smart boards are being forced upon every subject, every age group, every level. Teaching has turned into a mechanical process with hardly any human connection left. 3. Teachers Turned into Event Managers Every day now demands the celebration of some occasion Yoga Day, Mother Language Day, Environment Day... Instead of improving the quality of education, the new metric of performance has become How many events were organised? Both principals and teachers are trapped in this endless “show.” 4. The Plight of Rural Teachers Two or three teachers are responsible for hundreds of children. Apart from teaching, they must handle mid-day meals, scholarships, uniforms, bicycles, and endless government reporting. Education has taken a back seat *data collection* has become their main duty. 5. Mental Stress and Loss of Self-Respect Constant monitoring and the demand for “proof” have eroded trust. Dealing with students’ stress, and coping with parents’ unrealistic expectations these are emotionally draining teachers. 6. The Core Purpose of Education Is Lost Teachers face immense pressure to complete the syllabus. The number of subjects keeps rising. Schools/Institutions are no longer places for character building. Education today has turned into a “performance project.” The relationship between teacher and student once the soul of learning is now lost amid numbers and deadlines. Students now see teachers as service providers, not as guides or respected figures. Time to Attention The focus of education must be the student and the teacher not reports and statistics. If teachers are denied freedom, respect, and trust, then the education of the next generation will become lifeless. We must learn to trust our teachers again. Because if the teacher disappears the school/institution will remain, but education will not.

One thing I hear a lot - and it shows up in every engagement survey: "My organisation doesn’t provide enough learning and development opportunities." Oooof. 😑 If you’re a People & Culture leader, you’re probably thinking one of three things: "WTAF - we just ran a heap of training this year." 😵 "But you had learning budgets and no one used them." 🫠 "We’ve got this thing and no one’s even logged in." 🙃 Having been there…I feel that pain. 💡 So why does this happen? I think "not enough L&D" is rarely about the volume of opportunities. It’s about the perception of value. When learning feels disconnected from real work, people won’t prioritise it. "I don’t have time" is often code for "I don’t think this will help me right now." Here's what I've seen work: 1️⃣ Make it visible: If your leaders aren’t into learning and talking about it, why would their team be? Get managers to lead by example, talk about what they’re learning and show that continuous development is valued and recognised. If you only did one thing - it would be this. 2️⃣ Ask and listen: Don’t assume. Ask people what skills they actually want to build (or what problems/gaps they want to solve) and connect those to the goals of your organisation. 3️⃣ Make it the norm: Build it into regular team habits and workflows, so it becomes part of work not "ergh another thing to do". Regular nudges and reminders keep it top of mind and expected. I’ve seen full teams commit to small L&D actions that have literally changed their language and how they talk to each other about work. The learning compounds when everyone’s in it together. 4️⃣ Keep it practical: If someone can’t use it today, they probably won’t use it at all. Give the people some instant gratification. This was my big focus area when creating Learna. 5️⃣ Close the loop: After any training get feedback on what worked and what didn’t. Use this info to continuously iterate and improve what’s on offer. If learning feels valuable in the moment, people make time. Have you come up against this before? What have you seen work well? #learninganddevelopment #peopleandculture #engagementsurvey #learnforwork #worklife

Teachers don’t claim “Teaching is the hardest of all professions!” Nowhere have teachers said other jobs aren’t important. Nowhere have they said that being a doctor or an architect or a mechanic is easy. Nowhere have they tried to put down anybody else’s job. The thing people often don’t realise is how much harder teaching is than other jobs because it is almost NEVER acknowledged. How many people have you heard say “I don’t like my job, so maybe I’ll quit and just become a lawyer.” Nobody says that. Because nobody would ever put down the amount of work that goes into becoming a lawyer, or the difficulty of the job. Teachers, on the other hand, aren’t afforded the same courtesy. Everybody thinks they can be a teacher. Everybody has some suggestion for what teachers should be doing when they’ve never been inside a classroom. Teachers simply want people to understand that what they do in their classrooms every day is nothing short of an act of love. They give all of themselves every day to ensure the students leave classrooms better prepared for the world, and what they do in their classrooms every day is draining. In the post-pandemic school system, teachers are facing an amplified amount of mental health issues and students’ needs being unmet. Teachers are adapting to new and unseen learning environments that are changing quicker than they can keep up. They are simultaneously battling with and partnering with new technology like AI. They are expected to be teachers, counsellors, social workers, tech experts, coaches, and more each day. Teachers are drowning under a list of to-dos that they’ll never cross off, and all they really want to do is teach.

I keep seeing posts like this one circulating in teacher training programmes and from professional communities on social media. Despite being widely debunked, the idea that students learn best when instruction matches a preferred “style” (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, etc.) still finds its way into classrooms. This is not just outdated, it’s harmful. It encourages teachers to pigeonhole students, distracts from proven strategies that actually work, and wastes valuable time on ineffective methods. Clearly researched and peer reviewed evidence shows that matching teaching to “learning styles” does not improve outcomes: Pashler et al. (2008) – No credible evidence supports learning styles improving achievement. Coffield et al. (2004) – Found over 70 models of learning styles, most lacking validity or reliability. Brown, Roediger & McDaniel (2014) – Emphasise strategies like retrieval practice and spaced repetition. Hattie (2012) – Focus on visible learning and teacher clarity, not style-matching. Howard-Jones (2014) – Labels like these promote “neuromyths” with no scientific backing. Great Teaching Toolkit (2020) – Prioritise high-impact instruction over learning style theory. We owe it to our students, and to the profession, to move on from feel-good myths and focus on what works. We should base our practice on research, not repetition of outdated myths.

Training and coaching programmes in many workplaces are often seen as one-size-fits-all solutions. Its time for that to change, especially when it comes to leadership development. Too often, learning and development initiatives are decided without involving the people who are not actually taking part in them. Organizations make huge investment into programmes, without effective research into people's needs. They don't ask people what they want or need. They presume everyone's needs are the same. There are times where this might be ok....specific technical skills for example or simple standard work practices. But leadership development requires a different approach. To be honest, I used to deliver one-day trainings on leadership skills here and there. But I never felt good about it. I felt like I wasn't adding real value to anyone. I knew most people were likely to forget everything they learned. It seems like such a waste of time and money. Now, I largely provide a blend of training and coaching programmes. They include an assessment of participant needs. They have a measure of individual development over time. Each person's coaching programme is tailored to what they need. I communicate with my programme participant's managers, to support the continuation of coaching long after their initial coaching programme ends. I always think I can do better so I gather feedback from every participant and improve my programmes all the time. These are the best practices guidelines I follow and teach: 1️⃣ Assess participant needs and customize programmes 2️⃣ Clarify the measures of effectiveness that will be used. 3️⃣ Personalize learning paths- this is possible through blending training with 1:1 coaching programmes 4️⃣ Foster a culture of continuous learning where coaching and training is part of what people regularly give and receive. Ensure all managers have effective coaching skills 5️⃣ Evaluate and adjust all training and coaching programmes. Make improvements based on feedback and measures. ❓What else would you add to ensure training and coaching programmes are highly effective? #learninganddevelopment #employeedevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #traininganddevelopment #training #learning #coaching

The noise in education feels deafening at times. Everywhere I look, educators are setting their own standards, each arriving with the confidence of revelation. Every voice is louder than the previous one; every post, panel, or paper positions itself as the sharper, cleaner, more definitive answer. “Best practice” now often means “my practice, packaged,” and the algorithm rewards certainty more than nuance. We are benchmarking ourselves against self-authored criteria, awarding ourselves gold stars for ideals we just coined, and moving on before those ideals meet the slow, stubborn reality of our classrooms. What unsettles me is the velocity. New models, new lenses, new taxonomies appear faster than the time it takes to test their claims beyond a workshop or a pilot. We circulate insights that look fully formed but are rarely longitudinal. Dissent reads as ignorance; hesitation looks like incompetence. There’s a competitive intimacy to it: we all want to help, but the cadence of the field can make help sound like a pitch. Evidence is invoked, but the evidence that travels best is the kind that compresses well into a slide. And then, layered on top of this, come the sudden directives from the government. One season it’s art integration, the next it’s experiential learning, then perhaps a new pedagogical technique. Each is introduced as though it is the long-awaited breakthrough. Teachers are expected to adapt almost instantly - learn the new vocabulary, adjust lesson plans, tick the new compliance boxes - while still managing the endless rhythm of everyday teaching and administration. For the common teacher, this does not create clarity. It creates fatigue. It feels less like growth and more like a bombardment - an endless stream of frameworks, slogans, and expectations that rarely come with the time or support to truly make sense of them or probably reject them. This is the paradox of our moment: never before have we had so many ideas in education, and yet never before possibly, has it been so difficult for teachers to know which ones truly matter. Amidst the noise, the teacher’s voice often risks being drowned out. And that's the reality we probably cherish! #education #teachers #noise #research #schools #priyankeducator

If you feel like you’re sprinting through the curriculum you’re not alone. 🏃♂️ But here’s the catch: Cognitive science says fast teaching doesn’t equal deep learning. Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988) reminds us that the brain’s working memory is limited. When we overload it, learning stalls no matter how great the content is. This isn’t just about students. It’s about teacher sustainability too. So many of us are under pressure to “cover everything.” But here’s the truth: Trying to do too much leads to shallow learning and teacher burnout. What works better? Teaching with the brain in mind: • Chunking content into manageable parts (Miller, 1956; 7±2 rule) • Using worked examples to reduce extraneous load (Sweller, 2006) • Providing pause time so students can consolidate and process • Eliminating distractions—less “busywork,” more focus • Building schemas through repetition, connection, and reflection • Focusing on one learning intention at a time As Willingham (2009) puts it: “Memory is the residue of thought.” We must give students time to think deeply not rush to the next thing. Slow learning is strong learning. Let’s ditch the overload and create space for what really matters: Clarity. Connection. Purpose. And yes - our own wellbeing too. #CognitiveLoadTheory #EvidenceBasedTeaching #TeacherWellbeing #DeepLearning #PrimaryTeaching #CurriculumDesign #BrainBasedLearning #EducationResearch #NeuroaffirmingPractice #LessIsMore

If you’re in Learning and Development… And you’re optimising for "checking the boxes" on training programs… IMO, we’re missing a trick. The likelihood of driving real behaviour change through surface-level programs is low. But when we focus on how people actually learn and grow? Game-changer. So, what should we be optimising for? ✅ Optimise for brain-friendly learning. Understand how the brain processes and retains information. Use spaced repetition, storytelling, and active engagement to make learning stick. ✅ Optimise for emotional engagement. People don’t learn well when they’re stressed or disengaged. Create safe, inspiring environments that spark curiosity and connection. ✅ Optimise for growth, not perfection. Shift the focus from “getting it right” to embracing mistakes as opportunities. Build a culture where learning is continuous, not a one-and-done event. ✅ Optimise for relevance. Every brain asks the same question: “Why does this matter to me?” Design programs that are actionable, personalised, and tied to real-world challenges. ✅ Optimise for habits, not just skills. Skills fade if they aren’t reinforced. Help people build habits that embed what they’ve learned into their daily work. AND DON’T FORGET… 🎉 Optimise for your own development. L&D professionals often pour into others but forget themselves. Stay curious. Seek out trends. Connect with peers who challenge and inspire you. CLO100 If you treat your role as a learning journey—for both yourself and your organisation—then the impact you create will be exponential.

The latest CIPD Learning at Work 2023 Report has some eye-opening insights 👀 There is a growing misalignment of L&D strategies with organisational and people priorities. The most surprising part? Leaders are less likely to recognise the impact L&D can have, with only 67% agreeing. And yet despite this, the budget and funding for employees' L&D continue to increase. What a paradox! The evidence is clear that when L&D strategies are aligned with specific business objectives and tailored to the unique needs of the audience, the outcomes are transformative. But here's the kicker 🤯 Less than a quarter of L&D teams feel skilled at designing and delivering such learning interventions. Only 55% have a process for using feedback to improve continually, and a mere 7% strongly agree they have a process for supporting learning transfer. It's troubling, isn't it? These statistics are not just numbers; they're a call to action. From my experience, this misalignment stems from several factors: ➡️ Understanding Business Priorities: A lack of a deep understanding of the organisation's real priorities and how they translate to development needs  ➡️ Skills Gap: Inadequate skills within L&D teams to design and deliver effective learning experiences. ➡️ Demonstrating ROI: The struggle to showcase the clear financial return on L&D investments. ➡️ Clarity with Business Leaders: A lack of clarity among business leaders about how L&D can effectively help achieve strategic objectives. How can we bridge this gap and make L&D truly impactful? ➡️ Strategic Alignment: Align your L&D strategy with the company's core objectives. Ensure every learning initiative contributes directly to business outcomes. ➡️ Skill Development: Invest in upskilling your L&D team in instructional design, delivery, and feedback analysis. ➡️ Data-Driven Improvement: Implement a robust feedback loop to improve your learning interventions continually. ➡️ Transfer Support: Develop processes to facilitate applying learned skills in the workplace. 💡 It's also time to rethink the role L&D plays in your organisation - they are your strategic partners! There must be active collaboration between L&D and business leaders to effectively surface people's development priorities, decide on the development strategy, measure real business outcomes, and create a conducive learning environment. This cannot be done in silo! Now is the time to be ruthlessly focused on organisational outcomes and to prioritise only the activities that contribute to those outcomes. Every dollar and minute spent on L&D must translate into measurable value. Interested in exploring how I can help reshape your Learning and Development strategy and align it more with your organisation's objectives? Let's connect and chat! 🌟 Together, we can find a path towards enhancing the impact of L&D within your organisation. #learning #leadership #change #transformation #performance Lily Woi Coaching Limited T/A Lily Woi