ABSTRACT

The authors highlight the role of love and care as the ‘lifeblood of being-well’ for teachers in England. The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed unprecedented stressors on teachers. However, the article problematises and goes beyond the dominant narrative of ‘sudden crisis’ on the grounds that this may obscure the complex realities of a profession suffering mental health challenges well before the pandemic. The authors highlight their concerns about the predominant discourse surrounding teachers’ wellbeing, the inefficacy of tokenistic interventions, and offer a more holistic, context-sensitive conceptualisation of ‘being-well’, rooted in love and compassion for oneself and each other.

From the lens of positive sociology, the authors call for structurally contextualised wellbeing provision that recognises teachers’ pre-existing pressures and stressors and sustains cultures of care beyond the temporal boundaries of the pandemic. Drawing on the ethic of care, they advocate a shift from ‘the duty of care’ to ‘a duty to care’. Wellbeing and struggling are conceptualised here as interrelated and co-dependent phenomena influenced by theories of compassion, including Buddhist notions of Love Mode and Power Mode. The authors see love as connectedness and emphasise the importance of relationality in teachers’ sense of being-well as individuals who interconnect in a complex education system.

摘要

作者强调了爱和关怀作为英格兰教师“健康的命脉”的作用。COVID-19 大流行给教师带来了前所未有的压力。然而，这篇文章提出了问题，并超越了“突发危机”的主流叙述，理由是这可能会掩盖一个在大流行之前就遭受心理健康挑战的职业的复杂现实。作者强调了他们对围绕教师幸福的主要话语、象征性干预的无效性的担忧，并提供了一个更全面、更敏感的“幸福”概念化，植根于对自己和彼此的爱和同情。

从积极社会学的角度来看，作者呼吁提供结构化的福利供应，以承认教师预先存在的压力和压力，并在大流行的时间界限之外维持护理文化。借鉴伦理关怀，他们主张从“注意义务”到“责任的转变，以照顾”。幸福和挣扎在这里被概念化为受慈悲理论影响的相互关联和相互依赖的现象，包括佛教的爱模式和力量模式。作者将爱视为连通性，并强调了教师作为在复杂教育系统中相互联系的个体的存在感中关系性的重要性。