“I am thinking of becoming a math teacher, mainly because I love learning,” says Sebastian Stone-Moore, a senior at The Academy of Seminole in Oklahoma. “And a big thing I hear a lot of teachers saying is they learn more teaching than they actually did as a student.”
Sebastian’s reflection is a reminder of why passionate, lifelong learners make great teachers: They are essential guides for a generation growing up in a rapidly changing world.
Whether through the opportunities brought by AI or the post-pandemic learning challenges, Gen Zers have seen the world transform many times over. With these shifts, it’s never been more critical to keep strong educators in the profession.
To understand what helps teachers stay in their roles, the Walton Family Foundation partnered with Gallup to hear from nearly 2,000 public K-12 teachers across the country. Teachers are motivated by more than financial considerations.
Key contributors to job satisfaction include opportunities for professional growth, collaboration with colleagues and the flexibility to shape their classrooms in ways that help students succeed.
About seven in ten teachers say they regularly collaborate with peers by sharing resources, ideas and best practices. Teacher engagement is stronger when this kind of collaboration thrives.
“Collaborating with other teachers, especially within my team, within the school, even within the district, has helped me find new strategies to keep students engaged or to help them learn a concept that they might be struggling with,” says Alexandra Hayes, a third-grade math and science teacher at Trousdale Elementary in Tennessee.
“I constantly reach out if I'm ever struggling or even if my students do something really well. I will go and kind of share what I did and what the results were, so that everybody has as many tips and tricks as they can to help students learn.”
When teachers feel supported, they inspire the next generation to join them, even in uncertain times. “Just being able to sort of share my knowledge really excites me,” Stone-Moore added about becoming a teacher.
That sense of purpose – whether just beginning to form or strengthened over decades – remains at the heart of what makes great teachers stay.
“The first thing you have to do is truly want to be with kids, and truly want to have that effect on their lives,” says David Woltz, an eighth-grade teacher at Magnolia Schools in California, who now in his 20th year as an educator.
“From that point forward, the rest sort of sorts itself out. But it has to start with an authentic desire to make a difference.”
