On Teacher Hope, Sense of Calling, and Commitment to Teaching.

Teacher motivation long has been topic of interest to researchers (Ames & Ames, 1984; Sylvia & Hutchison, 1985). It is widely recognized that motivations residing behind teachers' actions profoundly shape nature and quality of actions and their effects on young people. Surprisingly, while often recognized especially by teachers as an important motivating factor, sense of teacher's or has received remarkably little research attention, and been object of but very few empirical studies. Hansen (1995) describes possession of sense of vocation or calling as involving a hopeful, outward-looking sentiment, feeling of wanting to engage world in some substantive (p. 5). On Hansen's view, there are strong links among teacher's sense of calling and teacher hopefulness and commitment to teaching. Day, Elliot, and Kington (2005) take similar position and point toward importance of greater understanding of these aspects of teacher motivation when they write: challenge for policy-makers and school leaders concerned with issues of recruitment, retention and sustaining of high-quality teachers and teaching, is to create contexts in which teachers can make connections between priorities of school and their individual personal, professional and collective identity and commitment. (p. 575) As Day et al., suggest, efforts designed to improve quality of schooling that ignore teacher well-being and values that bring teachers to and keep them engaged in their work are certain to fail. Our purpose in this study is to begin examining teachers' sense of being to teach in relationship to their hopefulness and commitment to teaching, each, we believe, being critical element to developing quality school programs. Background Calling Rooted in traditions of ministry, notion of calling has long and intimate association with work of (Mattingly, 1975). To be called means responding to summoning, sources of which are variously experienced as internal or external. Palmer (1998) describes call as coming from the voice of teacher within, voice that invites me to honor nature of my true self (p. 29). In his studies, Serow (1994) found that responses by preservice teachers to single question, I feel that is my calling in life, revealed significant differences in basic orientations to teaching (p. 70). What he discovered was distinctive and deep service ethic among reporting being to teach (Serow, Eaker, & Forrest, 1994). Compared to their peers who said they were not to teach, those who view as their calling in life display significantly greater enthusiasm and commitment to idea of teacher career, are more mindful of its potential impact on other people, are less concerned about sacrifices that such career might entail, and are more willing to accept extra duties that often accompany teacher's role (Serow, 1994, p. 70). How common sense of calling is among teachers is unclear, but it appears to be more common than generally recognized in research literature. In large study of teachers in Australia, New Zealand, and England, Dinham and Scott (2000), for example, report that 49% of Australian, 45% of English, and 46% of New Zealander teachers stated they always wanted to become teacher, statement strongly indicative of calling to teach (p. 284). Additionally, studies consistently report that teachers find most satisfaction in matters intrinsic to work of teaching--working with and caring for young--which lends additional support to conclusion that sense of calling is common among teachers (see Richardson & Watt, 2006). Hope Interest in place of hope in and learning has grown recently. Edgoose (2010), for example, explores hope narratives as way for arguing for power of philosopher Hannah Arendt's conception of hopefulness for work of educators. …