Emotion work at the frontline of STEM teaching: Burning out and turning away

Attrition of teachers within the first five years in the profession is an internationally recognized problem (e.g., Ingersoll, Merrill and Stuckey, 2014) that often gains media attention, as illustrated from the above newspaper quote. Emotions such as fear, worthlessness and being sick in the stomach are not uncommon and some teachers have begun collecting undesirable experiences in web-logs . Public disclosures about traumatic circumstances of teachers’ work reveal the highly emotional nature of the job. They may also represent a call for help from the outside or a call to action within the teaching community. It is unsurprising then that such experiences lead to burnout and ultimately to teachers leaving their jobs. Although there are ample contrary cases of productive and pleasant teaching experiences, our focus in this chapter is on understanding the emotional nature of the job, how this may interrelate with teacher attrition, and how we can attend to the problem through teacher education.