Teacher Shortage – What’s Going On?

I hear from just about everyone how “no one wants to work these days.” People cite a plethora of reasons, the most popular being COVID and the option for virtual work, but sometimes that isn’t the case. Sometimes jobs are just hard to do and, in some cases, getting harder as time passes. That’s what’s happening with teachers, particularly teachers of young children.

In much of the mainstream discourse I’ve read, headlines tend to point at low wages as the culprit behind the teacher shortage. Countless news articles incorporate the phrase “overworked and underpaid” into their reports on the teacher shortage, drilling the latter. If you look at alternative sources, many are stressing the former instead.

As I tell you from where my information found me, I can hear the sighs and see the eye rolls. I, as a simple young girl, do spend some time on Tiktok, where I receive some information about the current goings-on in the world. A few short days ago, a video about the teacher shortage graced my phone and it piqued my interest! I started scrolling through the topic, and as I lounged I listened to many teachers tell their stories.

Across the board, teachers were reporting spikes in behavioral issues in children. They stated that behavioral issues were both more common and more extreme. It seems every time someone posts a video addressing increased behavioral issues in classrooms it gains traction. Other teachers who found the video flood the comments with agreement and support. Instead of seeing one or two children with conduct problems in a class, many teachers say that they average three or four nowadays. Many say they spend as much time addressing behavior as they do actually teaching.

Why this sudden spike? I haven’t heard the official word on the precise catalyst, but the teachers of social media seem to agree that internet access may play a key role in it. I saw at least four videos from teachers who relayed the same information that they had each found in parent-teacher conferences. Overwhelmingly, when the teachers asked the parents of children with behavior issues what their internet access looked like at home, the parents said that their children have nearly unlimited if not entirely unlimited access to the internet. Once again in each of these videos, the comments sections were filled with hundreds of teachers sharing that they had the same experience and found the same results.

Of course, this isn’t a scientifically sound study and should be taken skeptically, but the ‘unofficial’ correlation is certainly present. Children present with behavior issues for a multitude of reasons, so it’s important to also view the issue on a case-by-case basis, but the conversation surrounding internet access and conduct issues is certainly an interesting one to be had.

Lucy M.

Undergraduate Intern 2023

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