3.5 Managing Tensions and Transitions in the Middle
Years of Teaching: Teachers at the Crossroads
The discrepancies in the categorisation of‘mid-career’may have, to a greater or
lesser extent, contributed to two different researcher perspectives on teachers in this
phase. One tends to suggest that they are experiencing a relatively stable period in
their professional lives, with the lowest attrition rates, growing competence and
enhanced confidence, resilience and efficacy. Other studies, however, have charac-
terised teachers in mid-career as being at a transitional phase in which they expe-
rience new challenges and tensions. In his seminal work on the lives of teachers,
Huberman ( 1993 ) found that teachers with 11–19 years of experience in particular
tended to have a latent fear of stagnating. Many of these teachers reported moments
of reassessment or‘crisis’and attributed these to changes within the school system,
poor workplace environments, family events, difficult classes and heavy investments
in curriculum and pedagogical changes that had little or no beneficial effects.
Whilst mid-career may not be a distinctive phase of self-questioning or‘crisis’
for all teachers, for many it is an important watershed in their professional lives,
which presents, on the one hand, greater career progression opportunities, but on
the other, greater challenges to manage the tensions between two equally important
teaching and personal lives. This led Huberman and other scholars internationally to
argue that‘[While difficult moments can crop up at any phase of the career, there
are periods of greater vulnerability’(ibid. 1993: 255)]. We found that it is in this 8–
15-year phase of their professional lives when work–life tensions are most likely to
test their sense of resilience. However, it also suggested that where there is
appropriate personal and professional support from school leaders and colleagues,
many teachers are able to build upon their experience, energy and enthusiasm,
respond positively to their internal‘quest for stimulation, for new ideas, challenges
and engagement’(Huberman 1989 : 352) and continue to pursue a professional life
path in which they develop and deepen their capacity to teach to their best.
3.5.1 Professional Life Phase 8–15 Years—Defining
Work–Life Tensions
This professional life phase, described by some as being populated by‘the most over-
looked groupin the entire teaching profession’(Hargreaves and Fullan 2012 : 72), marks
a key watershed in teachers’professional development. Although they are likely to more
established, confident and competent, these teachers are beginning to face additional
tensions in managing change in both their professional and personal lives. The majority
of teachers in VITAE, for example, were struggling with work–life tensions. Most of
these teachers had additional (79%) out-of-classroom and out-of-school responsibilities
and had to place more focus upon their management roles. Heavy workloads also
worked against the continuing improvement of their classroom teaching.
44 Q. Gu