Blog post
The ice road effect: Rustout as a silent threat to teacher educators’ wellbeing
Be careful which rut you choose to drive in. Image credit: Sabrina Fitzsimons.
There is a road sign in Alaska that reads: ‘Driver, choose carefully which rut you drive in – you’ll be in it for the next 20 miles’. At first, the rut feels shallow, harmless – it’s just part of the road. But as the miles pass, you realise it isn’t temporary. The rut becomes the road, and the longer you stay in it, the harder it is to climb out. That’s rustout: it’s quiet, unassuming, but persistent. Rustout feels like a slow drift, one you don’t notice until you’re already stuck. It can erode confidence and creativity. For some teacher educators (TEs), this quiet loss of professional purpose is a reality.
Traditionally, has dominated conversations about workplace stress, but its lesser-known cousin, rustout, remains largely overlooked. However, its impact on wellbeing and professional satisfaction may be just as significant as burnout. To be clear, rustout is not the same as temporary boredom. It’s not about quiet quitting, and it’s not about lazy individuals who need more pressure applied to be productive. Rustout is a deeper misalignment that emerges as a result of too little positive stress and challenge over a prolonged period of time (Clouston, 2015).
, I explored rustout among higher education-based teacher educators in Ireland and the UK. I examined how rustout differs from burnout and why it deserves equal attention (Fitzsimons & Smith, 2025a). Through surveys (n = 154) and interviews (n = 14), three dominant themes emerged that point to the related factors contributing to rustout in higher education institutions (HEIs).
Administrative overload and erosion of autonomy
It’s probably no surprise that many TEs report growing administrative demands overshadowing their core academic work. Tasks once seen as peripheral, such as upskilling in logistical and technical knowledge for the latest reporting system and responding to a constant stream of email queries, now serve to , leaving little room for creativity or engagement with the more meaningful aspects of the job (Fitzsimons & Smith, 2025b; Wood & Quickfall, 2024). Initial teacher education inspections, reaccreditation processes … need I say more? As one teacher educator reported: ‘I see myself now as a highly paid administrator and not a lecturer or teacher educator’; and another shared: ‘A good 70 per cent of my workload now is almost just admin, which is very depressing.’ Indeed, much of this work is invisible to those outside of academia.
A ‘safe pair of hands’
‘Many talented, brilliant colleagues “are left in that comfort zone rather than being challenged or invited to try something that might stimulate or get the creative juices flowing”’.
Many teacher educators enter academia with a vision of shaping future teachers through research-informed practice (Goodwin et al., 2014; Tuinamuana, 2016). In this study, those experiencing rustout noted they found themselves constrained by rigid structures and repetitive duties that fail to reflect their expertise. Their compliance and ‘safe pair of hands’ led them to feel confined and leaned upon time and time again for unchallenging and uninspiring duties. One teacher educator reflecting on the phenomenon of rustout observed that many talented, brilliant colleagues ‘are left in that comfort zone rather than being challenged or invited to try something that might stimulate or get the creative juices flowing’.
Systemic barriers to growth
Those experiencing rustout reported that institutional policies and procedures often prioritise compliance over innovation. As one teacher educator noted, ‘often the more satisfying academic work has to be put to the side in the knowledge that the longer you spend on that, the longer the list of emails grows’. However, this work is obligatory as it serves ‘to get people in and out of the system’. However, these systemic barriers lead to feelings of disillusionment and professional dissatisfaction: ‘I often feel I have produced nothing at the end of the week.’
Exiting the rut
Rustout absolutely exists in teacher education, and silence around its existence allows it to thrive. In order to address rustout, to tackle it in a meaningful way, we need both systemic change and proactive strategies. As a starting point, rustout should be part of conversations about wellbeing in higher education. Name it. Discuss it. Add rustout to the agenda in your organisation, so it is treated as a legitimate occupational risk rather than an individual failing.
Rustout thrives when job demands rise without corresponding resources, such as adequate support and additional investment. In the era of tightened belts, funding extra resources and support may be a hard ask … but they are necessary if the retention of committed teacher educators is a priority.
A credible response from HEIs requires a 360-degree approach to employee wellbeing, just as we see in Big Tech companies. We aren’t talking ball-pits or but meaningful opportunities for supporting professional fulfilment to stave off rustout. Creating space for supporting intellectual growth, creativity and innovation, and empowering teacher educators to shape their roles, can reignite purpose and motivation.
Rustout is not inevitable. By rethinking organisational structures and actively valuing professional agency, HEIs can protect teacher educators’ occupational wellbeing.
Crucially, this can help colleagues change track before the rut becomes the road.
References
Clouston, T. J. (2015). Challenging stress, burnout and rust-out: Finding balance in busy lives. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Fitzsimons, S., & Smith, D. S. (2025a). I’m not burning out, I’m rusting out: Investigating the causes of rustout in teacher educators in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12(1), 1–8.
Fitzsimons, S., & Smith, D. S. (2025b). Just plough on and pretend it’s not happening: Understanding burnout in teacher educators in Ireland and the United Kingdom. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 9, 100491.
Goodwin, A. L., Smith, L., Souto-Manning, M., Cheruvu, R., Tan, M. Y., Reed, R., & Taveras, L. (2014). What should teacher educators know and be able to do? Perspectives from practicing teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(4), 284–302.
Tuinamuana, K. (2016). The work of the teacher-educator in Australia: Reconstructing the ‘superhero’ performer/academic in an audit culture. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 44(4), 333–347.
Wood, P., & Quickfall, A. (2024). Was 2021–2022 an annus horribilis for teacher educators? Reflections on a survey of teacher educators. British Educational Research Journal, 50(5), 2172–2197.