Inspiring Teachers: How the Gottman Research Changed the Way I Show Up in the Classroom
I love teaching. It is not just a job for me, it is a calling. But it is not easy being a teacher these days, and being an educator asks us to be present in ways that are both deeply meaningful and genuinely exhausting.
Before the first lesson begins, I am already thinking about the student who struggled yesterday, the parent email that needs a response, the meeting later that afternoon, and everything I hope to accomplish before the bell rings. All day long we teach, redirect, encourage, problem-solve, listen, and make hundreds of small decisions, most of them in a matter of seconds. Then we go home and sometimes we keep going, replaying the day and asking ourselves whether we missed something, whether we could have handled that moment differently, whether that one student is okay.
If that sounds familiar, the research says we are in good company. The RAND Corporation's State of the American Teacher survey found that 55 percent of teachers reported frequent job-related stress this year, compared with 34 percent of other college-educated working adults, and that roughly one in five said they were likely to leave their position by the end of the school year. Teacher fatigue is not a character flaw and it is not a sign that we chose the wrong profession. It is the predictable cost of a job that is built almost entirely out of relationships.
And relationships really are the job. The longer I work with students, the more I understand that the relationship is not the thing that happens around the learning, it is the thing that makes the learning possible. When Debora Roorda and her colleagues pulled together nearly a hundred studies on teacher-student relationships, they found that warm, connected relationships were tied to substantially stronger student engagement, and more modestly to stronger achievement, while strained, conflicted relationships pulled both of those down, with our youngest students affected most of all. Jantine Spilt and her colleagues took it a step further and argued that this works in both directions, because the quality of our relationships with students shapes our own wellbeing as teachers, not just theirs.
That is the part I did not expect. Learning to turn toward my students has not only been good for them, it has been good for me.
Recognizing the Bid
In Gottman-informed work, a bid for connection is any attempt, verbal or nonverbal, to receive attention, support, or acknowledgment from another person. We can turn toward the bid by engaging with it, turn away from it by missing it or ignoring it, or turn against it by responding with irritation or dismissal.
The Gottman research on couples found that in relationships that were thriving, partners were turning toward each other's bids 86 percent of the time, while in relationships that were heading toward dissolution partners were turning toward each other only 33 percent of the time. I think about that contrast constantly now, because students make bids all day long.
Sometimes they are easy to recognize. "Can I talk to you?" is not subtle. Other times a bid looks like lingering after class, asking a question the student already knows the answer to, becoming unusually quiet, or repeatedly seeking our attention in ways that land as disruptive. This perspective challenges me to become curious before I react. Instead of asking what is wrong with this student, I try to ask what this student is communicating.
Those questions do not excuse inappropriate behavior. Empathy and accountability are not opposites. I can hold a boundary and protect a student's dignity at the same time, and I can correct a behavior without making a child feel rejected. Sometimes a simple "I can tell something is off today, what's going on?" changes the entire direction of an interaction, and it costs almost nothing.
When Our Capacity Is Low
Turning toward sounds simple until we are exhausted. Teacher fatigue is real, and when we spend our days being constantly emotionally available to other people, our own capacity eventually runs thin. Burnout can show up as irritability, detachment, reduced patience, or simply the feeling that we have nothing left to give. We will miss bids. We will have interactions we wish we could redo.
That brings me to another Gottman-informed principle I have come to value just as much, which is repair. Repair is the decision to reconnect after a difficult moment, and the Gottman research is clear that the healthiest relationships are not the ones without rupture, they are the ones where rupture gets repaired. In the classroom, repair might mean going back to a student and saying, "I stand by the expectation, but I could have communicated it differently."
That one sentence teaches something no lesson plan can. It says that accountability does not require defensiveness, that authority does not require perfection, and that a relationship can hold tension and still be safe. Our students need to see that modeled, because for some of them we are the first adult who has ever shown them what it looks like.
Teachers Need Connection, Too
Perhaps the harder lesson has been recognizing when I need to turn toward myself. There is always more we could do. Another email, another lesson adjustment, another student concern. But constantly giving beyond our capacity is not sustainable, and it is not actually generous either, because a depleted teacher has less to offer the very students she is depleting herself for. A boundary is not a lack of commitment. Rest is not indifference. Asking for support is not failure. We can care deeply without carrying everything.
I am learning that being an effective educator is not about responding perfectly to every student on every day. It is about being willing to notice, listen, reflect, repair, and return. Some days we will leave feeling accomplished, and other days simply making it through while preserving our humanity is enough.
And perhaps that is the reminder worth carrying with us:
notice the bid,
choose curiosity,
hold the boundary,
repair the relationship,
protect your capacity,
and then give yourself permission to begin again tomorrow.
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Steiner, E. D., Levine, P. R., & Doan, S. (2026). Teacher well-being, pay, and intentions to leave in 2026: Selected findings from the 2026 State of the American Teacher Survey (RR-A4404-2). RAND Corporation.https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA4404-2
Used for: 55% of K-12 public school teachers reported frequent job-related stress in 2026 (down from 62% in 2025), compared with 34% of similar college-educated working adults; 18% said they were likely to leave their position by the end of the 2025-26 school year. Press summary:https://www.rand.org/news/press/2026/06/teachers-stress-burnout-continue-to-outpace-those-of.html
Teacher-student relationships and student outcomes
Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Spilt, J. L., & Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher-student relationships on students' school engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81(4), 493-529.https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654311421793
Used for: the meta-analysis of 99 studies finding medium to large associations between positive teacher-student relationships and engagement, smaller associations with achievement, and negative associations where relationships were conflicted, with negative-relationship effects strongest in primary school.
Roorda, D. L., Jak, S., Zee, M., Oort, F. J., & Koomen, H. M. Y. (2017). Affective teacher-student relationships and students' engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic update and test of the mediating role of engagement. School Psychology Review, 46(3), 239-261.https://doi.org/10.17105/SPR-2017-0035.V46-3
