Editorial

EDITORIAL Teacher Morale Recently I was involved in writing up the final report for a study investigating changing perspectives on the meaning and the implementation of the Least Restrictive Environment requirements of Public Law 94-142 in relation to educational placement and provision of services to deaf children. Twenty-eight programs were included in the study, serving children in residential, separate class, resource room, and integrated settings across the United States. As might be expected by educators of the deaf, the results reflected a complicated situation; there was a great deal of variation across and within categories. In one area, however, the findings were consistently negative: the morale of teachers of the deaf appeared to be well below published norms for general education teachers. Regardless of the teaching environment, teacher satisfaction ratings were uniformly low. Whether functioning as itinerant teachers, resource room teachers, teachers in self-contained public school classes, or teachers in residential schools, all showed greater dissatisfaction than regular classroom teachers. Preliminary analysis suggests that this dissatisfaction exists in teachers of the deaf regardless of hearing status, ethnic background, or gender. These results are in sharp contrast to findings in the same study suggesting that the self-concept of American deaf children in various types of educational settings is similar to that of hearing norms, and to encouraging data indicating that parents seem to be adjusting to the presence of deaf children in the family and learning to communicate more effectively than they have in the past. The low morale of teachers of the deaf is especially troubling, as the information was gathered from a well-educated and well-trained sample. The education of deaf children has always placed additional strains on teachers, because most deaf children do not start school with the same English language—or any other language— skills thathearing children bring to the educational process. As a result, much of the curriculum is devoted to closing the English and related communication gap between deaf children and their hearing peers. Teachers of the deaf typically deal with a situation in which their children have normal intellectual potential but academic progress is constrained by limited English and other communication skills. Teachers may see only small incremental growth in standardized test scores from year to year and may— mistakenly in my opinion—hold themselves responsible for what they perceive to be an unsatisfactory rate of progress. Low morale among teachers of the deaf apparently is caused by a number of factors and is more complex than simply dissatisfaction with mastery of English skills by their students. Our results show that the greatest difference between teachers of the deaf and teachers in general is related to feelings about the workload, with teachers of the deaf expressing much greater dissatisfaction. Perhaps teachers of the deaf work harder than teachers in general. This itself is an area in need of study. Another area in which there were great differences lay in the fact that teachers of the deaf felt much greater pressure from community expectations. Possibly, teachers of the deaf believe that the expectations of others for the progress of deaf children are unrealistic, or maybe they believe that the responsibility for fulfilling those expectations falls disproportionately on teachers. Perhaps the situation is not as grim as the results suggest. However, with 213 participants from across the country, there is every reason to believe that the results are valid. In any case, future research is called for to ascertain the validity and generalizability of the findings. If morale is low, this maybe one explanation for the greater turnover among teachers of the deaf that has been documented for more than a decade. If so, it may be necessary to explore the causes of low morale in depth. It is highly likely that preservice training procedures should be modified extensively and that professional in-service training should concentrate much more comprehensively on teacher morale . Last, but certainly not least, we should be paying attention to the environments—physical and otherwise— in which teachers of the deaf function. Donald F. Moores Editor Vol. 136, No. 3 AAD 243 ...