Why Military Veterans Make Good Teachers

Voices from the trenches: The transfer of teaching and leadership skills from the military environment as veterans enter the teaching profession that affect grit and resilience in underrepresented male students.

The need for interdisciplinary team work is increasing as a result of a number of factors, including the association of professional development with collegiality (Sandholtz, 2000). By transferring teaching and leadership skills from the military environment to the educational environment, a true interdisciplinary approach to education can be achieved (Ballard, 2005; White, 1997). Moreover, veterans of military service are able to apply leadership and organizational skills to the educational environment that can elevate the environment to a new level of rigorousness and accountability, indicating that veterans can improve the educational environment by supporting colleagues and interdisciplinary teams by incorporating previously learned skills from the prior career in the military (Bolles & Patrizio, 2016).

Resilience and Grit

Resilience. Resilience is defined as the quality or characteristic that allows people to continue to pursue goals in a rigourous or rough situation. In academics, many students come from various backgrounds and their ability to use personal resources to overcome and learn the curriculum is a determining factor in their success (Bondy, Ross, Gallingane & Hambacher, 2007).

Grit. Grit is defined as the determination if not ability to overcome obstacles despite the adverse circumstances that one faces in one’s current environment. Tough (2013) describes grit as a characteristic of one’s hidden character that emerges when times are tough and motivates one to buckle down and apply oneself to a difficult task in spite of the pressure all around one. Grit allows one to have long-term success even if the short-term struggles seem hard. Knowledge are skills are not always the issues for students—sometimes a lack of grit is the real issue: “When kindergarten teachers are surveyed about their students, they say that the biggest problem they face is not children who don’t know their letters and numbers; it is kids who don’t know how to manage their tempers or calm themselves down after a provocation” (Tough, 2013, p. 17). As Perkins-Gough (2013) notes, “grit predicts success over and beyond talent. When you consider individuals of equal talent, the grittier ones do better” (p. 16).

How we measure resilience and grit. Resilience and grit are two characteristics and qualities of self-efficacy (Cassidy, 2015). Self-efficacy is the goal at the top of Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs model that serves as the nexus of motivation theory. Resilience and grit can thus be measured by determining the individual’s needs within the motivation theoretical framework: individuals who demonstrate a need for basic or essential things like food, shelter, warmth, and affection will have less grit and resilience than individuals who demonstrate self-efficacy. Perkins-Gough (2013) shows that grit can be measured using questionnaires that are designed to sample a particular individual’s psychological profile: the profile will reveal the level of grit that the individual possesses. Perkins-Gough (2013) used such a questionnaire to measure the grit of West Point cadets and to assess it as a predictor of success. The researcher found that grit was a better predictor of success than any other variable.

Robertson-Kraft and Duckworth (2014) conducted research to examine the extent to which teachers’ long term commitment to education was based on grit. To measure grit, they used “a psychological framework to explore how biographical data on grit, a disposition toward perseverance and passion for long-term goals, explains variance in novice teachers’ effectiveness and retention” (p. 1).

Difference between grit and resilience. The difference between grit and resilience is that grit essentially refers to mental toughness and an ability to maintain focus and consistency with respect to one’s goals and objectives (Robertson-Kraft & Duckworth, 2014)—which is why there is overlap with resilience, which also contains in its definition a quality of endurance. However, resilience does not necessarily mean grit: resilience means that one can weather a variety of storms and stressors without crumbling or changing one’s disposition; there is an element of equanimity and composure that is related to the concept of resilience that is not necessarily part of the definition of grit. Grit means that even as one is being resilient, one is also buckling down and engaging with one’s environment in a pro-active manner in order to continue towards the objective that one identified as the aim before the pursuit became difficult. Resilience is less assertive in quality in the sense that the main characteristic of resilience is the sense of persevering to the end; grit is active in quality and refers to the concept that a person is going to not only persevere but actually take the necessary steps to achieving the goal and accomplishing the task at hand. As Robertson-Kraft and Duckworth (2014) show in their measurement of teacher success, “grittier teachers outperformed their less gritty colleagues and were less likely to leave their classrooms mid-year. Notably, no other variables in our analysis predicted either effectiveness or retention. These findings contribute to a better understanding of what leads some novice teachers to outperform others and remain committed to the profession” (p. 1). Grit can predict teachers’ effectiveness as it pertains the actual goal of teaching—reaching students and instructing them, whereas resilience simply refers to one’s ability to persevere in the face of all adversity.

Why Students Drop Out

Students drop out for a variety of factors but grit, as Perkins-Gough (2013) demonstrated in her study of student achievement and success is the number one variable with the most predictive power of student success. Tough’s (2013) assessment of student achievement also supports this conclusion: grit is the biggest factor that determines a student’s success because it is the quality that represents mental toughness and the ability of the student to engage with and overcome obstacles. Grit will determine the student’s ability to be an active learner.

Cabus and De White (2016) state that students drop out for reasons of motivation and opportunity costs as well. However, Koedinger, Kim, Jia, McLaughlin and Bier (2015) state that students who drop out do so because their educational experience is too passive: learning successfully depends upon doing—i.e., engaging in active learning, which is where grit comes into play.

Resilience facilitators. Social supports help to facilitate resilience among people, but so too do notions of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-efficacy (Theron, Liebenberg & Ungar, 2015). Tempski et al. (2015) finds that “as a set of personal characteristics, resilience encompasses confidence (self-efficacy), coordination (planning), control, composure (low anxiety) and commitment (persistence), that can facilitate persons moving on in a positive way from negative, traumatic or stressful experiences.” Self-efficacy, coordination, control, composure and commitment all are qualities that facilitate resilience. When these facilitators are not in place, students do not persevere. Tempski et al. (2015) add that “resilience has been considered as a process, where an individual, to be considered resilient, must have those personal characteristics tested in an objective or subjective adversity”—which means that if students are not being tested in terms of resilience, their ability to persevere when times do become difficult will be weak, and at the first sign of trouble, they will drop out. This problem is not specifically personal either, as it can also be systemic: “as a system, resilience is defined as the result of the interaction among the individual, his/her social support environment and the adversity, including his/her subject values, cultural, social and ethical influences” (Tempski et al., 2015). Students must be supported by their school in terms of developing resilience—i.e., they must have a model of what it looks like so they can emulate it. That is where teachers come into play.

How Do Teachers Impact Grit And Resilience?

Teachers impact grit and resilience by serving as a model for students, by directing them through directed learning, by using discipline in the classroom, and by educating their character (Kohlberg, 1963; Lickona, 1993; Jensen, 2005; Grusec, 2006; Knight, 2008; Kristjansson, 2014). As Grit and resilience are part of character formation Tough, 2013) it is important that teachers have both grit and resilience within themselves and that these qualities are impressed upon their own characters so that they can impact students who lack these qualities and help them to obtain them.

Academic growth. Academic growth and success is predicated on the ability of the individual to be gritty and resilient (Perkins-Gough, 2013; Robertson-Kraft & Duckworth, 2014). Grit and resilience help to establish the individual’s character and supply it with the characteristics needed to engage with the struggles that accompany academic growth.

Facilitators of academic growth. Self-control is the biggest facilitator of academic growth (Wu, Kung, Chen & Kim, 2017). Self-control allows one to moderate one’s emotions, one’s mental focus, and to achieve a balance of proportions in demeanor, attitude, dedication, and drive. Mindset is also a facilitator of academic growth: a mind that is engaged and actively responsive to cues and to development will be one that supports academic pursuits and facilitates the achievement of academic goals and objectives (Claro, Paunesku & Dweck, 2016).

Academic growth from effective teachers. Effective teachers facilitate academic growth by providing students with a number of different pathways to learning, including the ability to tap into their potential. Today’s teachers follow mainly the standards and pathways provided by the common core. However, the positives of the common core curriculum are not enough to make up for the limitations of the curriculum. The positives are that 1) it is common, so everyone is on the same page; but of course this could easily be listed as a limitation, too—for while everyone may be on the same “curriculum” page, everyone still remains different, with diverse abilities and talents, and so some will be stifled by the curriculum and others helped; the idea that it can serve as a catch-all is ridiculous. Positive no. 2) is that it promotes specific goals that can be measured by testing—but, this is also a limitation as too much time is spent preparing for “tests” and the soul of education is neglected in the process—the idea that teachers should educate students on how to want to learn, should inspire in them a desire to learn on their own and give them the capacity to learn more deeply as well. Positive no. 3) is that it standardizes the classroom and gives clear parameters to teachers—however, this can also be viewed as a limitation because for teachers who have the ability to really shine and provide deep-down education such parameters can be extremely negative (Bleiberg & West, 2014). The major limitation of the common curriculum however is that it simply is not challenging when compared to curriculums of 100 years or 200 years ago. It is no wonder that students in this country have a difficult time succeeding—they are not challenged the way they should be; true, some will fall, unable to meet the challenge—but that just shows that education is not for everyone.

As Zhao (2015) shows, Asian schools are superior and succeed because they challenge more. And as Haynes (2009) notes, character does not come from curriculum but from people—and in the US, people are afraid to have an educational system in which persons can fail. In order to improve education for all students what is really needed now and in the near future are brave teachers who are not afraid to leave some students behind. Education should not be reduced so as to allow even the slowest or most behind students to be part of the fold; it should be made harder, so that those who are best suited to succeeding will develop the skills they will need to make it in the academic world. Slower students, if they seek some education, should have their own classes (Haynes, 2009).

Long-term effects of resilience and grit. The long terms effects of resilience and grit are self-determination, self-efficacy, academic success, confidence, social capital, and the accomplishment of long-term goals and objectives (Robertson-Kraft & Duckworth, 2014; Von Culin, Tsukayama & Duckworth, 2014; Blalock, Young & Kleiman, 2015).

Research

Ample research has been conducted on how grit and resilience can shape a student’s academic life as well as how grit can mediate adverse circumstances in an individual’s life (Perkins-Gough, 2013; Tough, 2013; Robertson-Kraft & Duckworth, 2014; Blalock et al., 2015; Cassidy, 2015). Gershenson, Holt and Papageorge (2016) have shown that student-teacher demographic match is also important in terms of providing models of behavior, motivation, and character formation.

Gap

In terms of how male students are underrepresented in the classroom by male teachers, or specifically by male teachers who have served in the military and embody traditionally masculine qualities such as grit and resilience, no studies have been conducted. Haynes (2009) shows that “the character of a nation is determined by the character of its people” and it is the classroom where half of one’s character is formed, the other half being formed outside the classroom: if the masculine or male side of a nation is being underrepresented in the classroom, this could have a negative effect on the ability of male students to develop the grit and resilience needed to succeed. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2018), 76% of public school teachers are female, which means that male students are considerably underrepresented among faculty in the classroom. As Gershenson et al. (2016) point out, when demographics of student-teacher matches are not well correlated there can be negative fallout—yet as of today there are no studies about this subject in terms of how veterans of the military could provide a positive impact on this issue.

Lack of research. The lack of research on how the transfer of teaching and leadership skills from the military environment by veterans entering the teaching profession shows that a gap exists in this area of study: how this transference affects the grit and resilience in underrepresented male students in the classroom is an area of focus that could benefit from research.

Lack of male role models. A lack of male role models in American educational institutions and organizations has been discussed by various researchers (Tarrant et al., 2015; Kimmel, 2017; Wilson, 2017). Male role models can provide an example of leadership and character education that young persons need (Gershenson et al., 2016). The leadership role of teachers is important because teachers are literally at the head of the class and in front of young, impressionable students every day. They are role models, whether they like it or not, and have to demonstrate how to be a good person by way of example. To do this, they must have strong leadership abilities: they must be able to listen effectively, communicate, understand all the different ways that people communicate (both verbally and non-verbally), and be able to motivate and inspire with a vision and a sense of why it is important to achieve the goals that are set out for the students according to the curriculum. Without leadership, the teacher is only doing half the job. Presenting information is only one part of teaching; the other part is taking the time to give support to students, to help them, encourage them, and give them the incentives they need to become self-actualizing (Tough, 2013).

Leading is also one of the most difficult tasks because it requires a lot of concentration, effort and focus (Bondy et al., 2007). It is like trying to wear two hats at once: on the one hand, a teacher must want to educate and want the student to put forth the effort required. On the other hand, the teacher must know that the student is going to require some guidance, some demonstration of how they should summon that effort, that strength, that enthusiasm—so the teacher is constantly having to put himself in the students’ shoes as well. The teacher has to think of himself as a teacher and also as a student. Yet this is the duty of the vocation, as Benne (2003) calls it—the role that the educator is expected to fill, by virtue of the nature of the calling. Those who are called to teach will naturally find it within themselves to be both a leader and an educator, and will understand what it means to lead by serving the needs of the students. For male students, no better role model exists than the male teacher.

TTT

Troops to Teachers (TTT) is helping to provide the kind of high quality teaching and role modeling that the underrepresented male student needs in today’s classroom environment where 3 out of every 4 teachers is a female (Owings, Kaplan, Khrabrova & Chappell, 2015). The aim of TTT is to “assist eligible military personnel to transition to a new career as public school teachers” (Mahoney, 2016).

Historical background. Established in 1993 to help veterans begin a career as a K-12 school teacher, Troops to Teachers offers “counseling and referral services for participants to help them meet education and licensing requirements to teach and subsequently helps them secure a teaching position. Since 1993, more than 20,000 veterans have successfully transitioned to a career in education” (Troops to Teachers, 2018). The TTT Program Office is located within the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES), a wing of the Defense Human Resources Activity (DHRA). The TTT Program Office oversees day-to-day operations and management of the program to facilitate veterans in their new pathway to becoming teachers.

Purpose. The goals of the TTT program are to:

· Reduce veteran unemployment

· Improve American education by providing motivated, experienced, and dedicated personnel for the nation's classrooms

· Increase the number of male and minority teachers in today’s classrooms

· Address teacher shortage issues in K-12 schools that serve low-income families and in the critical subjects - math, science, special education, foreign language, and career-technical education (Troops to Teachers, 2018)

The TTT program thus helps male students receive more male teachers to provide demographic match and appropriate role modeling while at the same time helping veterans to find meaningful careers in the civilian sector.

Theories and Concepts

Schlossberg’s transition theory. Griffin and Gilbert (2015) note that “Scholssberg’s transition theory is used to frame qualitative analysis of narratives from veterans, administrators, and student affairs professionals, examining whether and how institutions can influence veterans' transitions to higher education. Findings suggest how institutional structures assist students in developing navigational strategies, as well institutional actions and policies that pose transitional challenges.” Points that affect the transition include:

· Personal and demographic characteristics affect how an individual views life, such as socioeconomic status, gender, age, stage of life, state of health, and ethnicity.

· Psychological resources include ego development, outlook, and commitment and values.

Duckworth’s theory of grit. Duckworth provides the theory that grit is a determining factor in how well one achieves one’s goals. Grit also serves as a predictive variable in determining retention in the workplace as well as in the military or even in one’s marriage (Eskreis-Winkler, Duckworth, Shulman & Beal, 2014). According to Eskreis-Winkler et al. (2014) “grittier students [are] more likely to graduate from high school” (p. 36). Eskries-Winkler et al. (2014) show that “military dropout, workplace turnover, high school dropout and divorce are typically studied in isolation of one another, an uncoordinated approach that would seem profitable insofar as the determinants of dropout differ by context. However in addition to domain-specific factors, personality traits that capture general dispositions may also be relevant” (p. 36). The theory of grit posits that “the tendency to sustain passion and perseverance for long-term goals, is a domain-general trait that promotes ‘showing up’ across diverse life contexts” (Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014, p. 37).

Social learning theory. Social learning theory states that “children are socialized to accept the standards and values of their society” (Grusec, 2006, p. 785). By demonstrating what is good for students, teachers can teach them the values that they should embody. This concept of learning by seeing is partially supported by the theory of behaviorism, which holds that people learn behaviors through external reinforcement. Thus, in light of this theory, teachers should keep in mind that rewarding students for good behavior and punishing them for bad behavior is part of the process. It is perfectly acceptable to merge all of these theories and methods together, for as Koonce (2016) shows, constructivism and objectivism, applied to education, allow teachers to build their own meaning by absorbing ideas and utilizing those that work to produce a positive goal. For teachers transitioning from the military, they can provide an optimal experience for underrepresented males in the classroom by way of giving a new standard and set of values to them in the classroom.

Humanism, behaviorism and the Socratic method. Through humanism, which respects the personal experience, and through behaviorism which seeks to promote positive or right behavior through the application of external reinforcements, as well as through positive examples on the part of the teacher so that students can learn by seeing, the virtues that they need for a solid character formation can be promoted in the classroom. The Socratic method can be used here to promote the work of the mind in order to strengthen the reasoning faculties of the students. It can be used to promote their own individual senses of self so that they can become familiar with looking inward and asking questions while respecting the guidance of the teacher who prods them along by constantly asking them to refine their thoughts and explanations so that they are more and more in line with truth. Of all teaching methods, the Socratic method is one of the most helpful because it is the most engaging and the most stimulating for students. It challenges students to be active learners instead of passive learners. Education should be an active pursuit—not a passive practice (Duckworth, 2016). Students learn more deeply when they are actively engaged and the Socratic method is a strategy that can actively engage students in a strong way. As Jensen (2005) states, active learning helps students to analyze, synthesize and critically evaluate ideas, concepts, or anything else given them (Jensen, 2005). Socrates was a major supporter of active learning because he never stopped challenging people to think wherever he went. Whether it was Euthyphro on his way to the court to take part in the trial against his father, or whether it was a dinner party where Socrates wanted the guests to discuss the concept of love, active engagement and active learning were always top priorities. No good could be attained without active engagement.

Experience

The reason to teach. The teacher is important because he is the one who must apply these concepts and theories in a practical way, because applicability is the whole point, as the founders of Western philosophical thought all taught. The ancient Greek philosophers, for instance, focused on teaching their students to use reason to transform their characters and their behaviors to be in conformity with the natural law—the highest law. This law would lead to happiness and its way was one of virtue. Even from the traditions of Western religion, this concept has a connection: for example, Christ taught essentially the same thing but in more explicit terms by defining the two main precepts that people should follow: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mk 12:30-31). As Christ has served as a male role model for Western man for two thousand years, the veteran soldier turned teacher could also emulate this principle in order to provide a powerful role model figure for male students (Kristjansson, 2014). Socrates never sought to offend—and that is an important aspect of humanism that can be valued: it seeks to promote respect for humanity and the ideals that make humankind special—particularly those ideals that can make people more perfect in understanding and intelligence. Socrates always engaged with people because he respected them, not because he sought to humiliate them with his superior intellect. He wanted them to evaluate their own lives in the light of the good that he himself moved towards. That is a principle that teachers can apply as they seek to make character education and formation the basis of their curriculum (Kristjansson, 2014). Socrates also showed just how the teacher- learner relationship should proceed. Socrates was deeply involved in the lives and hearts of his students: he made home visits, which has been a recommended practice among teachers of students—especially new students or students who are in need of extra support for whatever reason (Stetson, Stetson, Sinclair, Nix, 2012).

How resilience is affected by teacher quality. Teachers and leaders will need to know different technical skills in order to work in their specific roles effectively; however, both share a lot of common skills and will be viewed by people as having a lot in common. Teachers should be like leaders for students, and leaders should be like teachers for followers. If a teacher is not really like a leader, it might be hard for the teacher to make a big impact on many students, and if a leader lacks the ability to instruct, he or she may have less impact on followers than a leader who can teach (Mitchell et al., 2015). Teachers who are able to demonstrate good leadership because of the background training they have received, for example in the military, will be able to impress high levels of resilience upon their students.

What is an effective teacher. Teachers have to have a lot of specific training in how to be an educator that leaders in other industries may not necessarily need. This is because teaching is a highly specialized process, almost like brain surgery: you need to know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. Leaders on the other hand do not need to know how to do every single job; they just need to have a vision, know how to communicate, be good at inspiring others, be supportive and be a good motivator. However, there is a lot of overlap among the two, as their places of responsibility can intersect in certain ways, as Benne (2003) points out: no two places of responsibility are wholly isolated from one another. Listening and communicating are great skills for both leaders and teachers. A teacher who does not listen or communicate effectively will essentially be useless in the classroom and a leader who does neither will never develop a following or have a positive impact on a team. As Benne (2003) notes teachers are like leaders in that they are communicating a vision to their students.

Why teacher retention has its benefits. Teacher retention can be supported by TTT as Eskries-Winkler et al. (2014) have shown. The benefits of teacher retention are that it provides consistency for students and for faculty and administration. The more consistency that exists in a school the more stable it is felt to be and the more that students and teachers are likely to form lasting bonds both inside and outside the classroom. This can have its benefits because bonds serve as the foundation for character formation: the teacher becomes or serves as a role model for the student—but if teachers are constantly burning out and leaving the school, students can become disillusioned and disconnected. The more stable that teachers are in their careers, the more likely students will have a chance to succeed academically.

Why MVs stay. Military veterans tend to stay in their careers as teachers because they make the transition smoothly and effectively (Ballard, 2005; Bolles & Patrizio, 2016). They come from a culture that supports them and they in turn impress the values of that culture in their careers as teachers. Culture is the expression of values and morality and it is informed by their background—their race, their ethnicity, their language, the customs that they participate in their families and so on. These are all good points about what goes in to informing one’s culture. Culture is always changing and is always taking on new forms and expressions. It is never static and for that reason military veterans are taught through the TTT program to embrace the values and principles of the schools where they will be teaching so that their military values do not clash with the school’s values. Their military training will help them to practice commitment to the mission of the school, and their TTT training can help them to transition effectively so that they can become long-term teachers for schools and ensure greater stability.

Teacher retention also saves money and time in training. As Papay and Kraft (2016) show, teacher turnover results in high costs for schools because they must routinely hire new teachers, train them, and invest in them if they are losing teachers every year. Moreover, high turnover rates affect student morale and faculty morale, and can have a negative snowball effect in terms of resulting in degenerating school performance. As students perform poorly because of higher turnover rates of teachers, test schools reflect low school quality, and schools can thus miss out on state funds that are important for school growth and development and that are tied to incentive packages—i.e., students performing well on tests (Papay & Kraft, 2016). Thus, if teachers are not being retained, schools are going to suffer in a variety of ways—and that is why it important that teacher retention be a goal of schools. The more that teachers are retained for the long-term, the more likely it is that students will stay in school and graduate.