The following post is designed to explain why I personally burnt out teaching. I have read a fair amount of articles that reference many points for why other teachers burn out, but they don’t get to the heart of it for me personally (except one which I’ll link to). Hence, this post. Part of me is curious to see if other teachers connect with it at all. In the end, I think I have a positive story to tell from it. Also, to be clear, my hope is that I don’t come off like I’m whining, rather, telling it like it is. If you connect to any of it, or want to add your thoughts, please feel free to do so in the comments at the end.
I’ve been putting this post off for far too long. In truth, I’ve been avoiding it. Part of me just doesn’t want to revisit the place I landed when I decided I needed to get out of teaching. I was spiraling downward mentally, physically and emotionally.
There was the sensation that I was throwing away my identity of being an elementary teacher. It felt as though I was abandoning my co-workers, students, and their families as well.
I had absolutely no succession plan, but I knew I just needed out. And out I went.
On the other hand, I also want to write this post while I can still go back to that place. In this way, I can make it a more accurate portrayal of why I decided to take a year off.
Then, I got this magazine (pictured below) delivered to my home and I decided to take it as a sign. One thing I like about this article is how it addresses the fact that this crisis “predates the pandemic.” That’s certainly true for me as well..
In the end, I can look back and know I made the right decision. I also feel as though I have a much better plan going forward as well.
My new plan, that I devised this year, is to have the option to retire early. This, along with a few other ideas I explore on this site, have given me a lot of hope for my future in the profession.
But for now, I want to try and show you why I burnt out and see if any of it resonates with you. I said this in the intro, but I really don’t feel like many of the articles I’ve read on teacher burnout really get to the heart of it for me personally.
In addition, I want to mention that this is coming from my perspective as an elementary educator. I know teaching in different grade levels, districts, etc. can come with varying challenges as well. I can only speak to my experience, so that’s what I’ll do. It’ll be interesting to see how much of it connects with your experience.
I see the teacher burnout rates rising across the country and I have to imagine that some of those casualties of the profession have similar reasoning to me. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts about the matter at the end…
In the Interest of Fairness
It would be disingenuous if I said that teaching was the only reason that I burnt out. Two major events also added to the equation as well.
First off, we bought a fixer upper house 5 years ago and I have put A LOT of time and energy into getting it just so. This has, most likely, drained my energy stores and left me more vulnerable on the job.
Secondly, we had our first kid 3 years ago. What a wonderful event, but it’s no secret that kids demand a lot of your time and energy as well. I happily give this , but if we are being truthful, this event probably also gave me less bandwidth for the job.
Looking back, I think I was always walking along the edge of teacher burnout. The two aforementioned factors above are probably what tipped me over the edge.
On the plus side, I spent the first 5 months of this year doing all the major renovations I had hanging over my head for the house. This is now off of my plate and puts me in a more favorable spot as I resume my job next year.
But only time will tell how much that helps. If I’m being honest, there’s still a lingering fear/concern that I’m going fall back into that place. I plan to resist and change some of these factors, but I don’t know how it will actually go until I go back.
Building a Case
For some reason I feel like I’m putting myself on trial here.
“So, Mr. D, you say you burnt out?” the prosecutor might ask while I’m on the stand. “Interesting… Please, if you would, tell the court these ‘horrible conditions’ you ‘endured’ that led to your ‘burnout’. Please tell us how a job with summers off and holiday breaks and week-long vacations interspersed throughout was so darn horrible for you. Really, tell us. We’re all dying to know…”
Well geez, when you put it that way, it makes it harder to explain doesn’t it?
Nevertheless, I’m going to give it a go and let you decide the verdict in the end. Section by section, I’m going to build the case for myself and we’ll see if it adds up to a reasonable cause for seeking other options.
What I hope to prove is not that any one item I present is the culprit. What I hope to convey is that the totality of everything that is put on the teacher’s plate accumulates and makes the teacher’s workload completely unsustainable.
This unsustainable workload is what ultimately got me.
Let’s see how I do…
Core Teacher Responsibilities
At the very core, in my mind, the teacher has 3 major responsibilities on the job. These are preparing lessons, teaching the lessons and giving feedback on student work.
Woven into these core responsibilities is the necessity of creating a classroom environment for all students to succeed. These students are coming from varying backgrounds with different skill levels and differing views of the world. Having them all interact in a way that is conducive to learning is no small task.
Back to the prep. It is often said that the ratio of time to prepare a lesson and teach it is 1:1. In other words, if a Science block is 45 minutes long, you can expect that that prep will be 45 minutes as well.
So, right off the bat, with a daily Writing, Reading, Science/Social Studies, Math, and social emotional lesson, you are, in theory, looking at about 4 hours of preparation for any given day.
Then, it’s often said, for a student to crystalize the learning, you must provide timely and impactful feedback on their work. If you have 24 students and do a mere 5 minutes per student, that’s another 2 hours per day as well.
Add in the fact that each student needs to be met at their developmental “just-right” level, and you are looking at lesson plans within the grander plans designed to meet kids where they are at. This is a 3X multiplier for each plan (easy, medium and challenging) which could as much as triple your prep time.
Obviously, teachers probably don’t spend 6-12 hours per day on prep and feedback alone. But, just putting the numbers out there will help put my case in perspective. Whatever the actual numbers are, we can all agree that you have to tackle these 3 core parts of the job in order to feel successful.
Any teacher has probably learned the hard way that if you show up unprepared for a day/lesson your likelihood of getting eaten alive goes up exponentially.
As a result, you need to put in those requisite hours just as a baseline so that you can get through a given day relatively unscathed.
“But that is not all! Oh, no. That is not all…” said the Cat in the Hat.
Always Adding – Never Subtracting
Every year, in the schools I’ve been a part of, there is always a new angle of attack that we implement to better serve our students.
To me, based on my conversations with teachers in other districts, it feels like some unified front that the educational overlords install in all schools across the land.
Whether it’s PLCs, data-driven curriculum, time on learning, educational choice, creating global citizens, creating 21st century skills, or whatever the “new coat of paint” initiative is for that year, there always seems to be a push to add on, without a recognition that we may have to subtract in order to make room for this new initiative.
As a result, I often find myself confused about our direction while simultaneously noticing that I have even more on my plate.
Five or so years ago, for example, data driven instruction was a big deal. As a result, I still have to make time to input all of this data we collect on a spreadsheet. But, does anybody look at this data anymore? Also, does anybody even know how to analyze this data correctly? Nobody talks to me about it. Yet, here I am painstakingly inputting it into a spreadsheet even though we haven’t talked about it in 3 years.
This may only amount to 5 hours of extra work over the course of the year. But when you add a new one of these each year, those hours add up! The fact that it doesn’t get used, makes it feel like a complete waste of time.
In addition, because each year has a new push, much of the time it renders your past curriculum obsolete. This means you have to design a new curriculum to match whatever new direction the district is going. This, of course, takes time.
And time (or lack thereof) is a theme that will be woven throughout this post…
Other Major Variables
We’ve already established that the baseline for teachers to prepare, teach and provide meaningful feedback is rather time consuming. We’ve also seen, that given the fact that major changes sweep through education on the regular, it usually means that you can’t reuse past material nearly as often as you’d like.
This section, right here, is where the picture of my burnout really starts to fill in.
One year, I tried to approach a principal about some of this stuff. To her credit she listened intently and asked me to keep track of all the other things that were on my plate. I didn’t know it would eventually end up in this post, but that’s exactly what I did.
It should be noted that I think her job as principal is even harder than mine. And that, to me, is part of the problem as well. We’re all running around like headless chickens!
Nevertheless, here is a list of some of the myriad other responsibilities that factor into the equation. I’m certain I’ve missed things as well so don’t hesitate to chime in below if you have something to add.
List of Other Variables that Led to Me Burning Out
I’ve organized these in categories as best I could.
Category 1 – Behavior
Behavior Charts – Every year I have students with behavior concerns. Kind of comes with the territory in the job. When a student’s behavior gets to a certain level the teacher is expected to design and implement a “simple” behavior chart. This means checking in with the student(s) after each period and reviewing their behavior for that block. “You were on task for half of the time, but the other half you were launching projectiles across the room, so that’s one out of two points,” type of thing. It can end up being contentious because they have something to gain from positive results. Either way it takes bandwidth.
Parent Communication – When a student is exhibiting difficult behaviors it is up to you to communicate with the parents. This requires emails, phone calls, meetings and all the fixings. This can be very time consuming, and there’s no guarantee that the behaviors will change.
Documentation – For the more concerning behaviors, a record needs to be kept. This means that each time a noteworthy behavior occurs we have to enter it in a program explaining the actions we took AND what we plan to do to resolve the issue moving forward.
The Actual Behaviors – The behaviors themselves, day in and day out, can take their toll over time. We all want to be understanding of the underlying difficulty the student is experiencing, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a cumulative effect on your nerves. If there are multiple behavior concerns in the class this can only compound the issue.
Category 2 – IEPs
In Massachusetts, where I work, almost 1 in 5 students has an IEP. My school has special circumstances so there’s an even higher rate. Each student with an IEP means there’s going to be an IEP meeting which equates to a lot of extra work for everyone involved. Here’s a list of some of it.
School and Doctor Surveys – About two weeks before an IEP meeting I get a survey from the school psychologist and from the doctor’s office of the student. Each of these is over 150 questions of 1 – 5 ratings that is used to determine, according to the teacher, how the student is faring. Each one takes over a half hour and requires a lot of concentration. You are also made to understand that some of the questions are redundant and made to test you so you better be consistent!
Meeting Forms – Our school requires us to fill out forms with data and proof to support our findings on how the student is performing in class. It’s not clear how much they are read, but they are very time consuming.
Reading/Adhering to the IEP – It seems like we are constantly reminded that the IEP is a legal document. This means that, whatever is written on it, must legally be followed. First off, they are long and very dense (And I have worked with many special educators that carry the huge burden of writing these with so much else on their plates). It takes a lot of time to actually read and understand them. Secondly, each student has special considerations that legally must be followed. This means a lot of care must be taken to meet each individuals specific needs.
I’ve had students that needed all of their worksheets printed on blue paper for example. If you have six students with similar considerations, it’s simply a lot to manage. Also, no teacher wants to feel like they are blocking a student from learning, so you just have to find a way to get it all done.
The Actual IEP Meeting – Some meetings are more stressful than others. In some, you have the pleasure of pointing out how the student is thriving. In others, the tone is very contentious and the school (and you by extension) feels like it’s being put on trial. There can be moderators and advocates. The meetings last over an hour so you had better have your sub plans in place. There’s no guarantee, however, that the parents will show up making your sub plans instantly obsolete.
Category 3 – Home Communication
This is a big one. A teacher is meant to be in constant communication with home, and understandably so. However, it seems like there are so many different ways we are expected to uphold this communication. Even so, there is no guarantee that the messages will be received. Here are some of the ways we are expected to communicate.
Newsletter – Each month we are expected to send a newsletter home highlighting what we have done, as well as what’s coming up. These are time consuming and I find only some of the families actually take the time to read these (and in fairness when my day comes to read them, I’m not certain I will either!).
Website – Many schools are asked to keep up an individual website for their class. This, in theory, is a way for a parent to be able to check in and see what the homework is for the night or see what we are working on in any given subject. This needs to be constantly updated and there’s a good chance there will be something technological to trip you up and eat up that precious time.
New Home Communication/Messaging Apps – Many parents don’t check emails any more so the communication has to reach their phone somehow. This means yet another form of communication. It also equates to another message that needs to be sent AND another device (your phone) you are expected to utilize.
Emails – Oh emails! How I’ve grown to dislike thee! You could have one email from a parent telling you their kid isn’t challenged and the very next could tell you how their child is struggling with the overly difficult material. Or, better yet, you could have the famous not enough/too much homework emails back to back. Whatever the case, emails are a documented form of communication and they have to be handled with care. Nobody wants to feel they are being brushed off. As such, I find that each email I get equates to, at least a 15-minute response.
And while I’m on the email train, let me just note that emails come from all over (not just home). It could be the math specialist reminding you to enter the data, or the reading specialist reminding you of the meeting you have tomorrow before school. These things pile up while you are actively teaching and almost all require a response. In addition, almost all of them equate to extra work (data entry, meetings, forms, behaviors, etc. ). Just once I’d love to receive the email telling me to take the day off and not to worry about sub plans!
Telephone/Phone Messages – At my current school we’re expected to utilize the messaging system on our landline phone in the classroom. So whenever that blinking light is flashing, it means you have to check the message.
Writing it out, it feels like we are expected to communicate in every medium used by teachers in the last century (newsletter, telephone, emails, websites and phone apps). Everything short of the bat signal is used to communicate with teachers and we’re expected to uphold all of these methods. This requires a lot of bandwidth in my humble opinion.
Category 4 – Miscellaneous
Throughout the days, weeks, and months of a school year there are so many other things that come up and ultimately take away from your core responsibilities as a teacher. Here are some examples that I came up with…
Field Trips – Each year each grade is responsible for organizing multiple field trips. This entails the logistics of booking a bus, finding chaperones, notifying parents, getting all the permission slips (which is always an ordeal), and raising money for the field trip.
Field trip fundraisers are also run by the classroom teacher and it usually involves a car wash or yard sale that happens on the weekend. This means you have to organize, get volunteers, and recruit customers to actually buy whatever it is that you’re selling. All told, each field trip is a massive undertaking.
Teacher Evaluations and Artifacts – Each year we are required to set SMART (an acronym meaning Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based) goals that we strive to attain throughout the year. At the end of the year we have to give proof (artifacts) that we actually attained the goals. We are also required to have a meeting with our evaluator to demonstrate how we achieved our goals.
Honestly, I file this under “teacher accountability measures” because some people feel like we have our feet on the desk reading the newspaper and occasionally glancing up to make sure the students are still alive. Just add it to the pile I guess…
The “5-minute” Survey – Invariably, there will be an important survey that the district or union gives you to fill out. In fairness, it usually does take 5 minutes, but there’s usually some weight (importance) associated with each survey. In addition, it gets added to the always growing to-do list.
Parent Conferences – Twice a year we are required to organize and book parent teacher conferences. There’s no arguing that this is an important venture. But it’s also time consuming to schedule, prepare for, and hold these meetings. Then, if a parent doesn’t show, you are should give at least 3 more attempts to reschedule which can result in a lot of email exchanges.
Sub Plans – These things take so long to do and are so detailed that most teachers (pre-pandemic at least) just decide that it’s just easier to go in sick. In general, as a teacher, you have to be on your A-game. When you are sick, you have to dig even deeper and this takes even more out of you.
But if you do have to miss a day, you can pretty much bank on nearly a day’s worth of work just to be able to stay home. I’ve known many a teacher that started working on sub plans at 4 am then rushed into school in order to get everything set for the sub before school starts.
And because substituting is incredibly difficult (I was a sub for 2 years as I was getting into teaching) and has very poor pay, there’s a good chance you might not even have a sub. This means that you are now leaning on your co-workers who are already overextended just like you. It’s not a great feeling.
Finally, we all have to have emergency sub plans in place which is essentially a week’s worth of teaching material in case we go missing. It’s a one-off but no small feat to map out a week of material that won’t connect to what you have been doing in class.
Staff Bonding – I sincerely like my co-workers. They are dedicated, intelligent, friendly, hard working people. But the sad reality is that I don’t feel like I have any time for them. In fact, I time my walks down the hall so that I have to be somewhere so someone can’t randomly “grab me” in the hall for a “quick chat”.
And by extension, I certainly don’t feel like I have the bandwidth to sign up for a staff breakfast dish that I’ll be bringing in or contribute to/go to a staff baby shower.
My honest take is that these are relics from the past, when teaching wasn’t so untenable. These days, just looking at the breakfast options, for example, you can see that not many people have time either. There might be a few homemade dishes but most are store-bought (fruit platters, donuts, coffee, muffins, juice). This, to me, suggests that other people feel the same way I do. They don’t have time so they happily sacrifice money in order to fulfill their obligation (nobody wants to show up to a party empty-handed).
All the rest – By now you either get it or you don’t so I’m just going to list as many other things as I can that require special attention and/or disrupt the normal rhythm of school.
Here’s the list:
Seating Charts, Decorating Bulletin Boards, Decorating Classroom, Cleaning/Organizing Classroom, Welcoming/Saying good-bye to new/departing students in the middle of the school year, creating packets for students going on vacation, Creating Groups (for math, science or reading work, etc.), Organizing Inter-class activities, Field Day, Halloween, Collecting forms from home, Interaction with specialists (re: behaviors/concerns that happen at specials), interaction with band teachers (re: forms or instruments or contact info for a student), Organizing special visits from experts in various fields, Book Drives, Working with Education Researchers, standardized testing (this should have it’s own write-up), Attendance/Lunch count (something always comes up!), students arriving late/dismissing early, Fire Drills, Clearing closets and tops of book cases to fulfill fire codes before the inspectors come, broken copy machines, computer malfunctions, IT person fixing equipment in the middle of class, Applying for grants, Staff meetings/development, Integrating new curriculum, Students losing library books, Hall passes, random phone calls, updating teacher licensing requirements (including evidence collection) and, deep breath, report cards…
Category 5 – Report Cards
This gets its own category and it’s number 5 because these things are a category 5 hurricane in a teacher’s life!
First off, is it fair to question whether people read these as intently as they once did? With all the teacher connectivity (see category 3) there is usually nothing groundbreaking/informative that comes out of these. I’m not there when parents/students read the report cards, but in my mind’s eye they get a good once over and then goes in a box until the kid comes back from college and is asked to clean out their closet.
Yet they take so much time!
I’d also file this under “Always Adding – Never Subtracting”. We’ve added all these forms of communication (phones, apps, emails, newsletters, websites, messenger pigeon, etc.) but we are still married to these formal report cards that served a much greater purpose in the days of yore.
I’m not going to sound off much more. I’ll just say that if you ask my wife, she’ll tell you that I block off an entire weekend for comments and then input the individual grade late at night when I’m in full zombie mode. And I may have a few choice comments that I let her hear about whether or not “completes cursive writing effectively” needs its own grade (of which there are 65).
I also won’t sound off on whether a parent can look at a page of 65 different grades (numbered 1 – 4) and get a clear understanding of what their child is doing in class.
As luck would have it, this taxing work is done at the end of a semester/year when you are running on empty. For some it’s the coup de grace.
For me, it wasn’t, but it was very closely related to what ultimately took me out.
The Straw that Broke My Back
Just like everything else I’ve listed or written about, if you isolate what I’m about to say and look at it in a vacuum, you’d say “What’s the big deal?”.
It’s when you zoom out and look at the entirety of the picture that hopefully you start to see what I/we are talking about.
In the year before the pandemic, the teachers at my school got an email that teachers would now be printing, labeling and packing their own report cards to send off (We used to submit them and have the front office handle this work. I don’t blame the front office for pushing back on packing a school’s worth of report cards either).
Included in this email were instructions for how to print the report cards so that they were double-sided and fit the margins correctly.
Because we use a separate program to write report cards, we needed a very specific way to print them so they looked just right… The way a report card should.
These directions were incredibly complex and also inaccurate. As a result. there were numerous glitches and adjustments that had to be made. There were new emails with “updated” instructions. There was trial and error and “back to the drawing board” and all the rest.
It was an ordeal.
And it was incredibly time consuming and frustrating.
Then, once you finally got them printed just so, you had the great privilege of packing and addressing each one to be sent off.
The fact that this came on the heels of what is already an incredibly stressful period of actually writing the damn things was certainly part of it.
The other part was a realization I came to as I was hand-writing the addresses for my students. (I was so shell-shocked from printing the report cards that I sure as heck wasn’t going to attempt printing their addresses on stickers).
“This is never going to end,” I realized.
“It’s going to just keep piling on and piling on. If you are waiting for a day when somebody’s going to say ‘you know what, teachers have enough on their plates, let’s NOT add another thing. In fact, let’s start taking things off their plates. Maybe then, they can have enough energy to do their incredibly difficult and important jobs of helping to guide our youth through this increasingly complex maze that we call life,’ then you are absolutely deluding yourself.”
That was it. Like I said, on it’s own it’s just one thing, but the cumulative effect of these things piled up finally took it’s toll. Shortly after, I began having conversations with my wife about quitting teaching.
Not long after that, the pandemic hit and I held on for one more year (I want to make clear that this was NOT a pandemic-related decision).
But, in the end, it was all too much and I started looking for a way out.
By then, I didn’t even feel like I had a choice in the matter.
Side note: I was very fortunate to have made some sound financial decisions (guided by my parents) in my past (saving well and investing). As such I was able to take a year off without having the added stress of scrambling for my next job. This is part of what I write about and I think it can help many teachers. If you are interested, here is a link to my personal finance page which has a lot of related posts for you to get started on.
Life Outside of School
Did I mention that I have a life and responsibilities outside the classroom? Yeah, I know it’s hard to believe (I hope you are enjoying my increasingly overt change in writing tone (from matter of fact to embittered)), but I have this thing I call a life outside of the classroom as well. I can’t just spend every waking moment answering emails, grading papers, writing report cards, filling out surveys, decorating bulletin boards, creating seating charts, prepping for Math, Writing, Reading, Science/Social Studies, and all the rest…
(Before I completely go off, I’m going to bring it back towards “matter of fact”).
Life outside of the classroom has its own inherent responsibilities that need addressing. Any non-teacher reader will understand these but there are groceries to be bought, meals to be cooked, dishes to be washed, housing repairs to be made, cars to be inspected/maintained, technology to be updated, dogs to be walked, birthdays of loved ones to prepare for, holidays to plan, taxes to be filed and all the other little/larger chores that fill our lives.
And did I mention that I have a wife and a kid? Spending quality time with them is extremely important (And raising a child has its own long list of responsibilities connected with it as well).
Part of the teacher burnout equation (for me at least) is that I couldn’t find any balance at all. My life had become a never-ending to-do list and there was always something hanging over my head. I could never catch up.
As a result, my mood was deeply affected. I lost my sense of humor, and I couldn’t give any part of my life what it needed. This led to a feeling that I was doing poorly in all aspects with no end in sight (except for that brief window in summer when you recover from the previous year and the new year is still far enough away that you don’t stress over it.)
That unsuccessful feeling (despite knowing that I am a good person and giving a lot) was certainly part of the equation as well.
More Evidence that I’m onto Something!
Before I rest my case, I would like to draw the jury’s attention to exhibit S (somewhere deep in the alphabet).
In this exhibit, you will find clear evidence that teacher’s are overworked and overwhelmed.
What’s in the exhibit you ask?
It’s very simple, but I think it proves my point effectively. It’s the “Work to Contract” strike that teachers/unions employ as a tactic to get what they are asking for (usually better contracts, which, not surprisingly, I have ideas on).
In this form of strike, teachers band together and say “we are only going to work during the hours that you pay us for.” Basically, the teachers come in, teach, and do the best they can in the time allotted. Then, as soon as the clock strikes the time when they are no longer being compensated for their time, they pack up and go home.
On it’s own, it doesn’t prove anything. But here’s the thing. This form of strike actually works!
I’ve seen and heard of numerous occasions where teachers “working to contract” actually get what they are asking for.
The obvious implication in this is that there is no possible way that teachers can accomplish all that they are being asked to do in the allotted work time they are being paid for.
The districts understand this. They know that the entire system is built upon “dedicated teachers” working tirelessly on their own time to keep the system afloat. So, as a result, they often capitulate and the teachers get their way.
Take it a step further and apply that idea to almost (not all) any other profession. Can you imagine asking a room of construction workers to do extra work without pay? You know, just out of the goodness of their hearts? They’d laugh you out of the room. That’d be the funniest thing they’d heard all month and they’d get a good chuckle out of it for years afterwards…
“Well, it’s 5 o’clock but I’m just going to stick around for another hour and hang some drywall out of the goodness of my heart. AH HA HA HA HA HA!”
What About Vacation Time?
I know what it looks like from the outside. And believe me, I get it. This is where those “You’re a teacher? Must be nice…” comments come from.
Needless to say, that comment is not my favorite. It’s so demeaning and dismissive of what a teacher actually does and the impact they are trying to make.
Nevertheless, I understand how it might look from the outside.
All I’ll say is that, given the work load I’ve outlined above and given the relentless nature of the job, I usually collapse into bed (and usually sick) at the start of each week-long break.
By then, I’m nearly catatonic and can do little else but stare at a wall for a few days. Then, I set about doing all the other things I put off in my life while I was teaching. Finally, by the end I start preparing for the next run with the hopes that I can get somewhat ahead of it for a week or two before it all piles up again.
Are there moments of down-time? Sure. But mostly it’s what I outlined above. So, when framed that way, how relaxing does that sound?
Another way of putting it is that it’s a preventative measure so that teachers don’t completely collapse.
And I will concede that summers have the potential to be relaxing. But I’ll also point out that many teachers find other jobs over the summer to compensate for their poor pay during the year.
In the end there is a cycle that looks something like this:
Start year –> Burn it on both ends –> week break to recover (but not fully) –> Keep repeating this cycle (with each break representing less recovery) –> Summer—> Repeat it all over again.
In that cycle, the breaks are necessary just to keep you afloat.
Relating to the Grizzled Veteran Teacher
I talked about this before with the straw that broke my back, but there came a time where I realized (right or wrong) that this was never going to change. The workload was just going to keep increasing along with the demands.
The powers that be would continue to add and never subtract.
At a certain point, you can’t help but get jaded. You got into this profession to try to make an impact, but there are so many roadblocks put in your path that it becomes deflating.
Eventually, you see where that crotchety veteran teacher is coming from. You know the one. It’s the teacher you vowed you would never become when you started teaching. The one that refuses to do new initiatives and isolates themselves from the school, just teaching all the stuff they already have materials for, regardless of whether it meets the state standards.
It’s probably a survival mechanism that they had to activate in order to make it this far.
That teacher has probably seen leadership change countless times. They’ve seen hundreds of initiatives sweep through education, all with the latest and greatest way to improve education.
But in the end, this teacher knows that it’s just another fad. They tried playing the game for some time. Then, when all was said and done, it just amounted to more busy work with no positive impact on the students.
So eventually, they opted out. And in their heart of hearts, this teacher probably knows that they are wrong on some level. But with so many swings and misses, they probably figure it’s just better to stick with what they know.
I too never want to become that teacher. So, as soon as I felt myself connecting with them, I got out.
Exacerbating Factors
There are some very real factors that can increase a teacher’s burden exponentially. These factors can be completely out of your control, but when combined with all the aforementioned stressors, they can spell doom for a school year.
What I speak of are the major life events that occur and completely derail you. This could be illness, a death of a loved one, an accident, or any other major event that can happen to us all.
In addition, these very same factors can impact the lives of your students which, in turn, impacts you.
Finally, it needs to be said that many of our students are dealing with very difficult situations/trauma at home. Whatever it is, you can bet it doesn’t just stay at home.
Naturally, the teacher wants to help as much as possible, but it usually comes with a heavy cost as well.
When you factor that into all these other contributors to stress, it can completely inundate a teacher. .
Putting a Name to This Primary Source of Burnout
By now I’ve tried, the best I know how, to paint a picture (one I believe to be realistic) of why I burnt out teaching. I was completely and utterly overwhelmed.
Now, for fun, I’d like to try and put a snappy name to it. Please tell me which one you like best!
Name Submission #1 – The Educational Rack
I felt like I was being pulled in a thousand different directions and didn’t have time to do any of it to the standard I would have liked. So, as a result, I didn’t feel good about anything I was accomplishing even though I was being ground down to a nub.
And all the while the work kept piling up, pulling and tightening in new directions.
I won’t get graphic, but the rack is a medieval torture device that worked by pulling on you, hence the name.
Name Submission #2 – The Abysmal Teacher Treadmill
Picture a treadmill on firm ground, but right behind it is giant abyss (Hence the word “abysmal” in the title). What’s in the abyss? I don’t know but I don’t want to find out either.
Standing on the treadmill is you (the teacher). You see the control panel in front of you blinking, but the tread itself is not moving. Also, it’s made clear to you that, no matter what, you cannot get off the treadmill. Unless of course you fall into the abyss, but we don’t like to talk about that…
When the school year starts the treadmill begins at a nice, sustainable, easy pace.
Then, each time an administrator, co-worker, parent, student, or anyone else gives you a task, they look at you , and with an ever-so-slight smile that person calmly press up on either the “speed” or the “incline” of the control panel.
“Don’t forget to enter your data Mr. D.” Beep. Plus 1 speed.
“Can you fill out these surveys before the IEP meeting?” Beep. Plus 1 incline.
“We still need $1,200 to rent the buses for the field trip to Boston. We’d better organize another fundraiser. How about a car wash? Beep, beep, beep. Plus 2 on speed and plus one more on incline. “Oh, and can you call the bus company to book the buses even though we don’t have the money yet?” Beep, plus one more incline. “Also, we’re going to have to fill out the expense reports to access the money we’ve already accumulated from the office. Do you mind?” Beep, plus one speed. “Shoot! We also have to get those permission slips updated and interpreted by Tuesday. Yikes, and we have to do chaperones too…” Beep, beep, beep, beep… You get the point. Before long you are sprinting uphill as fast you can, trying desperately to stay on until some break in the schedule where it lowers/slows for just long enough to catch your breath.
I kind of like this submission. “The Abysmal Teacher Treadmill”. Put it on the ballot.
Name Submission #3 – The Sisyphus Teacher Predicament
I’m no scholar of the classics, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I had a vague recollection of the story of Sisyphus.
In short, Sisyphus pissed off Zeus. Then, Zeus condemned him to an eternity in Hades pushing a massive boulder up a steep hill. Invariably, just as Sisyphus is about to secure the boulder at the top of the hill, it rolls back down and he is doomed to start again and again for the rest of time.
I like this one as well, but I’m leery of the fact that Sisyphus is a pretty obscure mythological reference that wouldn’t land for a lot of people.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot to work with there as well.
Submission 4 – Under Construction – The Endless Pool
I’m still workshopping this one. Maybe one of you could help? But you know those endless pools where you swim in place and the machine pushes a current at you?
There’s something there to be worked with. Like the treadmill you are going nowhere, but you also have a potential to increase the current until you feel like you are drowning…
Well, there you have it, we’ve got some names to work with. Let me know if you have a preference in the comments below.
The Unfortunate Underlying Concerns
That last exercise of putting a name to my primary source of burnout was disturbingly cathartic. Best not to think too deeply on that though…
And back to more serious matters, there is one final element that I simply have to mention with regards to the profession of teaching.
In essence, I have major concerns about the education system I’m a part of.
I feel like I spend more of my time sheltering my students from everything that gets thrown at them, rather than guiding them through on their way to a successful outcome.
Somewhere along the way, education became a multi-billion dollar enterprise. As such, everyone is coming out of the woodwork to inject their input and grab their piece of the pie.
The end result, the way I see it, is a premium on students learning dry skills and finding specific answers rather then stoking a student’s curiosity and encouraging them to explore their passions.
And yes, as teachers, we can still stoke those passions. But it feels an awful lot like we’re swimming upstream. It should not be that way. We should all be pulling in the same (relatively) direction!
I’ll have to explore this more another day, but constantly swimming upstream and balancing so many disparate agendas certainly takes its toll…
In Summary – Wrapping Up My Case.
To try and put a bow on this and wrap up my case of Mr. D. vs. The Education System, I will simply draw your attention to all the exhibits that have been presented to you along the way.
I direct you to the time-consuming core responsibilities of a teacher, namely, preparing, teaching and giving feedback on lessons of core subjects each day.
With 20+ students and the amount of time it takes to individualize each of their experiences, this should take up the bulk of a teacher’s energy.
But on no planet can 15% cannot be considered the “bulk” of anything.
The reality is that there are innumerable, time/energy-sucking tasks that are continually piled on a teacher’s plate. These pile up and prevent teachers from giving their core responsibilities even close to the amount of energy they deserve.
An ever-present feeling of inadequacy coupled with the sensation that no amount of work would ever be enough can result. Each day the teacher has to be absolutely on the ball, and even that can feel inadequate at time. Pressing down that hard on the gas for such a long time can leave a teacher feeling completely depleted.
Add in the fact some of the students you work with can have issues that far exceed your level of expertise and it can become a pretty potent cocktail.
And that doesn’t even account for the fact that teachers have lives outside of school. In these lives we try to lead, there are other responsibilities and it can all add up to a very daunting task.
Finally, one can’t help but question the very system we are a part of. Somewhere along the way, it feels as though the education system has lost its way.
And when you lose faith in the system that is grinding you to a nub, you begin to wonder whether it’s worth it all. As a result, many teachers look for a way out.
Ultimately, that’s what happened to me.
With that, the Defense finally rests.
I just wonder if teachers will ever be able to do the same…
Thank you for reading everyone! That was a longer one, and as you can see, I had a lot to say! If anything resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. This post entitled “Teacher Workload – The Startling Misconception Ruining Education is the only one I eventually found that really hits the nail on the head for what I was talking about. It’s well written and always nice to know I’m not alone. Lastly, if you have a vote for what I should name this overwhelmed phenomenon I am trying to pinpoint, please let me know. As always, you can always feel free to reach out and contact me any time.
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