How school system design shapes autonomy, care and joy.

Cynicism or burnout is often the place we end up when we think about initiative churn or change fatigue in schools. Yes, this is one cost of working in a misaligned system, but I think there is something else that happens before that (or it did in my case): a slow erosion of autonomy, joy and meaning in the every day work of teaching and leading.

Research (Ryan & Deci, 2000) tells us that autonomy is a core psychological need. But it’s not just about independence. Autonomy is interdependent, connected to people and purpose.

When I was working in a system that demanded standardised academic outcomes, while also holding me accountable for developing human capabilities, I often found myself holding two lists in my head.

One one list: everything I believed mattered for students and the world they were walking into. On the other? What the system was asking of me. The more those lists diverged, the more my sense of meaning eroded.

And, it’s worth acknowledging that we often hold teachers fully accountable for outcomes, even though major decisions like policies, pacing, and sometimes even content are beyond their control.

For instance, I could pour hours into making content interesting or giving feedback on drafts, but ultimately, I couldn’t control whether a student chose to show interest, what they did outside of class, or the pace at which they matured.

Over time, carrying responsibility without real autonomy isn’t just exhausting. It changes what the work means.

Unsurprisingly, studies (Wang, Yang, Chen & Zheng, 2024) confirm that when teachers have more autonomy, they experience less emotional exhaustion.

And it’s worth pointing out that autonomy in teaching and school leadership isn’t about chaos or the rejection of structure and quality.

It’s about creating systems where people have the freedom and authority to act responsibly within the parts of the work they can genuinely shape, guided by a shared, human-centric purpose.

And when a school system is aligned around what matters for young people, autonomy at every level allows people, regardless of role, to act with integrity and impact.

Loss of joy.
Erosion of joy and meaning.
Cynicism and burnout.

These aren’t individual faults or personal failures. These are system signals.

The question is: what are they signalling?