Leaders: Stop Asking Teachers Their “Why.” Ask What You Can Help Them Reclaim.

Teachers have long been prompted by well-intentioned leaders to remember their "why," especially at professional learning sessions and faculty meetings. But that question just isn't appropriate anymore. Since the pandemic, teachers keep being asked to do more with less. On top of ever-shifting mandates, overemphasis on testing, constant meetings, increasingly challenging student behaviors, school safety issues, and exacerbated gaps in student learning, teachers should not be asked to prove their commitment to this profession. INSTEAD... teachers need to be asked what their leaders can do to help them recover and reclaim what's been lost by the noise of education. Teachers haven’t lost their “why.” They’ve lost the space to live it out. This is what teachers need from their leaders...

1. Help Teachers Reclaim Autonomy

What’s been lost: Professional trust. Freedom to design lessons that inspire curiosity and critical thinking.

Leaders can:

• Invite teachers to co-design curriculum and assessment frameworks.

• Replace “fidelity to program” with “flexibility for purpose.”

• Celebrate innovation, not compliance.

🕯️ When teachers feel trusted to teach in ways that reflect their expertise, their light returns to the classroom.

2. Help Teachers Reclaim Time

What’s been lost: Protected time to plan, think, and meaningfully connect.

Leaders can:

• Protect weekly collaborative planning time.

• Make PLCs teacher-driven, flexible, and unscripted.

• Encourage professional reflection over "data digs" and spreadsheets.

🕯️ Teacher collaboration and connection, driven by teachers, should never be micromanaged.

3. Help Teachers Reclaim Their Voice

What’s been lost: Influence in decisions that shape their daily work.

Leaders can:

• Build teacher advisory councils with real decision-making power.

• Ask for feedback AND act on it.

• Amplify teacher stories as insight, not complaint.

🕯️ Teachers don’t need another survey; they need to see their ideas shape action. Too often, when teachers speak honestly about their challenges, their words are framed as negativity rather than expertise. Leaders can shift this narrative by sharing teacher perspectives as evidence of what’s working and what needs to change.

4. Help Teachers Reclaim Joy

What’s been lost: The freedom to find wonder and fulfillment in teaching. The system’s constant urgency has turned classrooms into places of pressure instead of possibility.

Leaders can:

• Build in time for project-based learning, interdisciplinary days, or curiosity-driven inquiry.

• Celebrate meaning, not metrics. At meetings, regularly honor teachers' stories of caring, growth, and connection, the moments that test scores can’t measure.

• Consistently show teachers that joy and balance are leadership priorities. Ask teachers what they would consistently like to see and hear from their leaders.

🕯️ Joy doesn't distract from rigor; it sustains it.

Teachers don’t need another motivational slogan or day to wear jeans (although we love it). They need leaders who clear the path back to purpose, who act as their advocate and protect what’s sacred in teaching. Because leadership, at its best, doesn’t demand light from others; it creates the conditions for others to shine.