ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the need to flip the ways in which teacher wellbeing is considered in the education system. Teachers are becoming increasingly frustrated and are flipping their lids. Australians are not exempt from the teacher wellbeing crisis. Like all caring professions that work with vulnerable people, the nature of teachers’ work makes educators perpetually susceptible to illbeing. Teachers invariably encounter students who suffer or have exceptional needs. Knowledge and awareness of children’s needs has developed, expectations have risen, educational goals have broadened and deepened, and yet teachers are still inundated with external initiatives. Threats to teacher wellbeing also arise when teachers have to implement high stakes assessments they do not believe in. In collective autonomy, educators have more independence from top-down bureaucratic authority but less independence from each other. Solidarity builds relationships and strengthens teacher communities, but the conversations and interactions that make up these communities need something else as well.
