In the Staffroom

Hypothesis 2

There is a correlation between experience years and ability to teach despite diversity, where passion cannot compensate for lack of experience.

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Amongst passionate teachers in low-resource settings, those with more years of experience were more successful in maintaining teaching effectiveness during the pandemic.

Patterns

Teachers in Government schools already work with limited (sometimes absent) infrastructure, especially in rural India. Despite this, some teachers were still able to teach effectively during the pandemic.

These teachers belonged to the Catalysts persona. They were able to deliver high quality learning to their students despite lack of access to resources because of their internal dispositions:

They had a deeply reflective mindset, shaped by years of navigating real classroom challenges.

They were intrinsically motivated, driven by a strong sense of purpose and belief in the power of education to create social change.

For them, resource constraints were not unusual as they had built their practice around working through such barriers.

By contrast, Advocates, who are newer to the system, share similar intent but struggled more during the pandemic. Their passion didn’t seem enough to salvage the situation. While they have the potential to build resilience, they are still forming the stamina and system-level perspective that experienced Catalysts have developed over time.

Insights

This pattern shows us that while intent is important to deliver effective teaching under adversity, it needs to be combined with years of experience that season a teacher to stay resilient in such situations.

Ruminations

We wonder if Advocates and newer teachers in the public schooling ecosystem will be more effective teachers if they are supported to process systemic challenges and reframe their failure through various interventions.

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