The Education Ministry seems not to have learned a lesson from the severe shortage of qualified teachers at all levels in the school system and the plans of many of them to quit and go into another profession. Those educators who remain are overburdened – especially as a result of the Gaza war.
A new study conducted by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) and the University of Haifa during the Israel-Hamas war reveals that a teacher’s subjective sense of stress and helplessness is a far stronger predictor of burnout than their actual physical exposure to war-related events.
By surveying 329 Jewish and Arab educators, the research identified “cognitive reappraisal” – the ability to mentally reframe difficult situations, as a vital protective factor that lessens the impact of war exposure on professional exhaustion. These findings suggest that personal resilience can be strengthened through targeted workshops, helping teachers maintain their mental health and efficacy during chronic national crises.
It was led by doctoral student Demetria Hila Neustadter with Prof. Dana Lassri and her doctoral student Dana Rose Cohen from HUJI’s Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare and Prof. Noga Cohen and Dr. Joy Benatov from the special education department and the Edmond Safra Brain Research Center at the University of Haifa, which focuses on the unique developmental challenges and opportunities faced by Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking children and adults.
It has just been published in the journal Psychiatry Research entitled “The effects of war on teachers’ burnout: The moderating role of emotion regulation.”
Dealing with burnout
THE CONCEPT of burnout was first introduced in the 1970s, It stems from excessive job demands, a need for constant control, and over-commitment to both work and clients. Teachers feel exhausted, cynical, and be less effective because of feelings of exhaustion, a sense of detachment from work or a cynical attitude, and a sense of professional inefficiency.
This exhaustion can show up as various physical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms, such as increased irritability and frustration, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, cardiovascular diseases, and mental illness. Teachers with existing mental health issues, such as depression or anxiety, are more susceptible to burnout, which is one of the biggest crises in the education profession. It has been reported that large numbers of both new and veteran teachers have plans to leave the profession, said Lassri, a psychologist who completed all her degrees at Ben-Gurion University and did post-doctoral work at University College London.
The teaching profession presents a variety of challenges, with multiple factors contributing to teacher burnout; these include excessive workload, time pressure, student behavioral and discipline challenges, pressures from parents, and insufficient administrative and colleague support. Beyond the lesson plans and grading, teachers during the war had to manage war-related stress that often goes unnoticed but deeply affects their ability to stay in the profession.
“We have to invest in teachers. We can help them personally with counselling, discussing their feelings – for example, what about their profession is hardest for them – and trying to ease these feelings helps them. Talking about their achievements such as how much they helped individual students also bolsters them,” said the HUJI psychologist. “We asked teachers about their exposure to the war, and 47% of them reported clinical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. There is teacher burnout around the world, but Israel has added stresses.”
Asked whether bringing calm, loving dogs into classrooms eases the tension of both students and teachers, Lassri – who has two rescue dogs of her own – was very enthusiastic. Dogs are already used to calm terror victims, cheer up hospital patients, and even to give prisoners a sense of purpose that can change their lives. “It’s an idea that can be brought to the Education Ministry,” she commented.
They studied 329 Israeli high-school teachers, both Jewish and Arab, most of them women; 83.9% identified as Jewish, 6.7% Muslim, 5.2% Druze, 2.1% Christian, and 2.1% others. Teaching seniority ranged from one to 44 years.
Conducted eight months into the war, the study investigated how the educators are navigating the threat of professional burnout in light of the war crisis and why some educators remain resilient while others feel their professional efficacy slipping away under the weight of chronic crisis.
THE FINDINGS reveal a nuanced picture of emotional resilience, suggesting that it isn’t necessarily the objective number of war-related events a teacher experiences, such as evacuation or knowing someone injured, that leads to burnout – but rather the subjective emotional distress and sense of helplessness those events trigger.
This distinction, they wrote, is vital for education decisionmakers, as it shifts the focus from simply tracking a teacher’s exposure to stressful events, to actively addressing their internal emotional state. “Our findings emphasize that during these times of enduring stress, it’s the subjective experience of war-related stress that truly predicts burnout, rather than the objective exposure to war events,” explained Lassri. “This suggests that to support our educators, we must look beyond their external circumstances and address the emotional weight they carry into the classroom every day.”
By promoting simple yet effective strategies like cognitive reappraisal through professional development and workshops, Neustadter added, “we can provide teachers with the tools they need to maintain their resilience and continue supporting their students even in the face of ongoing conflict. This is particularly important given that teachers’ burnout has critical implications not only for their own mental health, but also for the psychological well-being of the students who depend on them.
“For the education system, the message is clear – investing in an emotional toolkit for teachers is not just a matter of wellness, but a necessary strategy for maintaining the stability of the entire educational infrastructure during times of national crisis.”
Equipping educators with effective tools for managing stress may not only reduce burnout but also strengthen their capacity to adapt in times of adversity, Neustadter concluded. “Future studies should adopt long-term and intervention-based programs to evaluate the sustained use of cognitive reappraisal on teachers’ well-being.”