Where We Find + Make Light:

Lessons from the Wisconsin Sustainable Teaching & Learning Collaborative

I have long looked up to Cindy O’Donnel-Allen and admired her work on Sustainable Teaching. I actually was a bit of a fan girl. Several years ago, I found myself in a buffet line in front of her at a National Writing Project event and overheard her talking about wanting to start a network of sites that could pilot sustainable teaching institutes. One of my most honed skills is weaseling my way into things, and so I turned, holding my dinner tray to my chest, and offered that Greater Madison would love to be a pilot site. Cindy was kind and professional — as always — and said that she was still working out the details, but she would keep us in mind. You can imagine my thrill when she contacted me months later inviting us to join the budding network and begin our collaboration.

Let me backup a moment to say that my name is Bryn Orum and I am one of the site directors at the aforementioned Greater Madison Writing Project. Before working at the writing project full time, I was a high school English teacher and GMWP member. I love my job — I work with brilliant teachers and I get to work on a lot of projects that matter to me very much — civically engaged writing, source-based argument writing, and the like.

In professional development, classroom teachers are often asked to learn from folks who are no longer in the classroom. For teachers, professional development is also often a real drag. Taken together, these truths have made me quite conscientious of my status and attentive to how I engage with educators. Before I left my classroom, I promised myself I wouldn’t forget what it all felt like; a desperate attempt to hang on to my street cred and retain a level of relevancy. It has been eight years since I had a classroom of my own, and despite my best efforts, I am sure I don’t remember everything about what it feels like. Moreover, the world has changed a lot in the last eight years — what classroom teaching felt like for me is not the same as it feels today.

I love teaching. I loved teaching young people and I love teaching adults. Witnessing moments of learning is like seeing magic — but better. Being a part of skill building or transforming understanding feels like making magic. When teaching is good — it is like light is shining though you and your classroom community. My teaching “highs” are some of the best experiences I have had as a human on this planet.

And… teaching can be really fucking hard. A 2024 Department of Public Instruction of Wisconsin study found that in our state, about 40% of educators leave the profession within the first six years; special education teachers clock in at 50% leaving within the same time. No one can argue that a profession with these statistics is sustainable. The job is too often too hard and we rarely have enough to do it with. It isn’t our working conditions alone that create this reality — teacher culture rewards burnout behaviors and many of us prop up unhealthy and unsustainable ways of being in our profession. For someone who believes in education — these statistics are heartbreaking. They also cultivated a bit of panic — is sustainable teaching possible? Am I trying to get good people to stay in bad situations?

Could a Sustainable Teaching Institute crack the code? Could we craft a specific combination of personal and classroom practices that insulated us from the objectively un-sustainable conditions of our profession? I won’t lie — this is what I was wishing for. Could I use my role as someone out of the classroom to make life better for those in the classroom?

Any smart reader will know — this just isn’t how things work. If we want teachers to not only stay in the profession, but excel — creating excellent schools and classrooms, growing strong and independent learners, and building flourishing communities — there are many changes we need to make. I believe these changes are possible and are what Americans want for their children, schools, and communities.

But until then, how do we reconcile this gap? How do we maintain our profession and our personal wellness under unsustainable conditions? How do we use our power and privilege to push for something better? How do we model to our students a life and work that has passion and balance?

Our pilot site — Wisconsin Sustainable Teaching & Learning Collaborative — spent the year with the joy and challenge of these questions. As we come to the end of the year, I find myself wanting to release a sense of (self-inflicted) responsibility that it is my role to keep teachers in the classroom. The conditions for educators (and students) in schools are not sustainable, but something better is possible. And in the meantime, smart and dedicated educators can work together to build practices that give us hope and allow us to joyfully stay for as long as we are able.

As it is with learning, the working definition of sustainable teaching reads differently to me now than it did when I started, offering new gifts to carry forward:

Sustainable Teaching is the process of fostering self-compassion, healing, and renewal in educators who support the growth and development of students in turn. Sustainable Teaching puts educators first with the goal of creating an inclusive, reflective, collaborative community. Animated by a commitment to hope, educational justice, and advocacy, sustainable teaching offers an integrated approach to education where all participants can thrive.

Acknowledging the notion of process reminds me that there is no destination — our work is ongoing, iterative, and nonlinear. This is both frustrating (how great would it be to achieve the nirvana of sustainability?!) and thrilling (we get to keep growing and begin again as needed).

The notion of “educators first” in a field that is supposed to put students first makes many uncomfortable. However, the reality is that teachers are the foundation of any educational institution. Caring for educators first, creates the conditions under which students can be cared for.

Of all the richness held in this definition, for me: commitment to hope has been the most generative. It is easy for me — and probably many of us — to look around and see all of the challenges, feel frustrated / angry, and not so hopeful. But making a commitment to hope has changed me. Committing to hope doesn’t mean ignoring or accepting inequities and injustices and it doesn’t mean turning to toxic positivity or burying our heads in the sand. Instead committing to hope allows me to sit with the reality of our circumstances and also find points of light. Commitment to hope helps me care for myself and others so that we can continue to return to our work knowing that we are the ones who transform points of light into portals.

In this collection of blog posts, you will read about a range of experiences and learning. Hopefully they inspire you to try something that brings joy to your classroom practice or a sense of peace to your day-to-day life. I also hope these stories inspire change. We cannot expect America’s teachers to survive on passion instead of paychecks, we cannot constantly ask professionals to work harder and harder with less and less, our teachers and their students deserve better and it is possible. It is all of our responsibility to work for change — to advocate for schools, to vote for people who believe in what is possible and are willing to work for it.