Battling burn-out

[Katelynn Scott]

I'll start this thread by saying that while I'm only in my third year of teaching, this has been a very difficult year for me for several reasons. I've started to understand a taste of what more experienced teachers go through when they say, "I'm feeling burned out." I'm sure that many (if not all) professions have stresses that can eventually lead to this phenomenon. Having grown up around pastors and now working with teachers, I hear it spoken about in these two career fields frequently.

SO my question then becomes - what do you do or what have you tried (successfully or unsuccessfully) to battle this burn-out experience?

I, for one, decided I needed to significantly cut back on the amount of grading that I bring home to do at night or on the weekends. This means that my students don't always get their papers and projects back in such a timely fashion. It also means that my planning periods at school feel very full and I'm often "behind." However, spending time with Ryan, reading a book, taking the time to cook a healthy dinner or catch up on calls to my family and friends are things I'm no longer willing to always put on the back burner. I struggle with feeling selfish or ineffective as a teacher, yet I also recognize that in order to maintain my sanity and health, I have to find a balance. It took several nervous breakdowns and some flare-ups with my heart condition for me to realize that I cannot live under such constant stress.

I'm not there yet and I am definitely at the point of counting down the remaining school days until the end of the year (21 for anyone who's wondering) - but I'd love to hear some other ideas from people who have "been there" and "done that."

[Greg Farra]

I work full time and am an unpaid associate at our church. I have had to drop some good things, such as a retreat weekend I was serving on and my small group. These didn't take a lot of time, but it was a relief to know I had a bit more breathing space.

[Susan Unger]

I taught for 7.5 years then had to quit in 2000 for health reasons. Burn out caused a lot of health problems for me, which I am still dealing with today. It is a serious issue as you have discovered.

Doing what you are doing is good. I never gave the tests/quizzes back the next day. It might take me a week to get them done [I had 167 students everyday the last year I taught]. My philosopy was that I wasn't about to kill myself for some tests.

Even though this is a full-time job for you, it really should not be a full-time experience for your life. Find relaxing hobbies. Find a purpose outside of work. Learn stress and time management. Squeeze in a time each day for a walk or other form of exercise. Make "Sunday is a day of rest" into your mantra ;)

Forget feeling selfish and less than a dedicated teacher. Ignore any guilt trips sent your way [by others or yourself]. Because as you realize your health and sanity are more important. If you don't take care of these two things, no one else will. By not taking care of these two things, it will eventually make it harder for you to be a teacher.

And hopefully this won't be your case, but one thing I realized is that we don't all have the physical make up for such a job. This was the case for me.

[John Kennedy]

Been there and did that for 36 years. How long have you been teaching? I'm surprised you're this far along in the year before you started counting days.
Teaching is a high stress profession. People have incredibly high expectations for teachers - many of them incredibly unrealistic. The media, the politicians, and the usual gaggle of idiots are always yammering about increased accountability for schools and teachers and yet they are unwilling to grant the kind of authority that MUST go with it.
Unfortunately the business, itself, is run by people who thrive on making all sorts of promises and then leaving it to the classroom teacher to keep those promises. A lot of the business's wounds are, in that respect, self-inflicted.
DON'T LET YOURSELF GET GUILTED!!! You deserve to have a life away from school. Don't be hesitant about creating and defending boundaries.
Teaching is one of the so-called 'helping professions'. It tends to attract a lot of pretty idealistic people - people who are vulnerable to to the claims of others. In many respects, kind of like the ministry. That's fine. But the down side is that the pressures of the job will run you so ragged that not only will your professional accomplishment suffer - so will everything else in your life, including relationship and health.
I used to joke about starting a business called RENT A SCAPEGOAT. We could come into any situation and assume the blame for whatever went wrong. It would be staffed by teachers. The idea isn't all that far-fetched.
Do more 'spot-checking', lighten the load in whatever way you can. And don't let anybody make you feel bad for taking care of yourself.

[Cindi Hammons]

Let the students trade papers to grade their homework assignments...OR...just give them credit for completing the homework instead of actually grading each one. This cuts down huge amounts of time.

[Billy Cox]

SO my question then becomes - what do you do or what have you tried (successfully or unsuccessfully) to battle this burn-out experience?

My simple suggestion is to make sure that you are regularly doing something that makes you feel alive. I have heard it said that you will never burnout doing something you love, but that's not as true as it sounds. In fact it was the mantra of a pastor who was very successful in ministry and was dead less than a year after retiring.

Don't believe people who make specific behavioral prescriptions, because what makes *them* feel alive may suck the joy out of you. Don't look for a magic bullet either. If there was a simple treatment for whatever ails the human psyche, there would be no such thing as the 'self-help' section of the bookstore.

(and tell Ryan you need him alive and healthy for many years to come :smilies0150: )

[David Pettigrew]

My main antidote for burnout is taking care of myself. Eating healthy, regular exercise, and ADEQUATE SLEEP go a long way. Also, just being aware of where I am emotionally is helpful. I tell myself "It's normal for me to feel this way" after a particularly trying board meeting or even a fantastic worship experience, and give myself permission to not be at 100%

Also, i found the book Mad Church Disease (http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Church-Disease-Overcoming-Epidemic/dp/0310287553) by Anne Jackson incredibly helpful. It was written for those in ministry, but it applies to any profession.

[Katelynn Scott]

Let the students trade papers to grade their homework assignments...OR...just give them credit for completing the homework instead of actually grading each one. This cuts down huge amounts of time.

Our district has actually banned the "trade and grade." They feel it is a violation of privacy and the confidentiality of students' grades.... John wasn't so far off when he said that there needs to be some sort of "backing" to these expectations. The authority to make positive changes would be nice...

[Bill Morrison]

Katelynn:
As a university professor, I feel your pain. However, I suspect it is even worse at the level at which you teach.
I revived my childhood hobby of stamp collecting and it really seems to help my stress levels. I can't explain it. The job stress is still there, even worse this year, but my hobby provides an escape, a safety valve, something to look forward to.
My doctor keeps getting on me to exercise more. It does seem to relieve some tension, but when I am done I feel pooped and still have all my work to do!!!

BILL

[John Kennedy]

Our district has actually banned the "trade and grade." They feel it is a violation of privacy and the confidentiality of students' grades.... John wasn't so far off when he said that there needs to be some sort of "backing" to these expectations. The authority to make positive changes would be nice...

It's sort of reassuring to hear that after my retirement the people 'downtown' didn't start acting rationally - one of the most frustrating things about the biz is that you live and die professionally on the basis of decisions made by people who are incredibly out of touch with the reality of what goes on in a classroom.

I found, after a while, that 'trade and grade really wasn't the way to go, not because of the confidentiality issue, but because of the 'nit pickiness' of students when they got their hands on someone else's paper. I made a distinction between 'practice' tests which served a review function and which were self-graded and tests that, along with completion of homework, etc., counted for their grade. The 'real' tests were graded by me.
I came to the conclusion that students tended to pay more attention to work that was self-graded than to the ones I graded. When I handed back the work I graded, the looked at their score and gave it no further attention.
One of the interesting by-products of the self grading was getting the idea across that if you 'cheated' and marked stuff right that was wrong, you were only hurting yourself. I taught upper elementary students and the vast majority of them were able to understand that if you marked things right that were wrong, you were simply fooling yourself.
Katelynn, I join the others who have responded to your post with the sincere advice to find whatever strategies enable you to cope with what can be a very stressful situation. Take care of yourself. Your students deserve a teacher who feels like she 'has a life'. Don't let 'em 'guilt you'. Keep on countin'.

[Jim Franklin]

Katelynn, in my first year of elementary teaching experience there was a much older teacher who graded a paper for every subject for every student every day. When school let out for the day I most often headed directly for the teacher's room to unwind (yes, they did have a teacher's room that far back, 1961) and she would come in and ask, "Got all of your papers corrected?" I finally told her that in my education courses we were informed that a grade for every subject for every student every day was not necessary, that one or two per week was adequate to determine a student's achievement level. She was glad I told her because it relieved her of alot of "too much."

To answer your question, I tried to think of each student as a flower that I had planted in a pot at the beginning of school and I tried my best each day to do what a master gardener does to nurture their prize orchids or roses. I don't know of any teacher who does not count the days at this time of year. I know my kindergarten teaching wife does and she has been at it for quite awhile. I have known some teachers who have taken a ministry of education position for their church for a few years as a change of pace and then gone back to the classroom. Perhaps this would work out for you and Ryan. I am sure you felt called to be a teacher and that makes you one of God's chosen vessels to minister to your students. As a professional, you are the "captain" of your ship (classroom) so don't let more experienced teachers or administrators put you in a straight jacket with unrealistic expectations. You are human and you must take care of yourself and you have to maintain your own priorities. God, Ryan, yourself and then the students. Blessings on you, young lady and I wish and pray for your best as you serve our Lord and those to whom you minister.

I so love teaching that at 72 I really enjoy teaching my community education students.

[Susan Unger]

To answer your question, I tried to think of each student as a flower that I had planted in a pot at the beginning of school and I tried my best each day to do what a master gardener does to nurture their prize orchids or roses. Beautifully described.

[Susan Unger]

It's sort of reassuring to hear that after my retirement the people 'downtown' didn't start acting rationally - one of the most frustrating things about the biz is that you live and die professionally on the basis of decisions made by people who are incredibly out of touch with the reality of what goes on in a classroom.

I found, after a while, that 'trade and grade really wasn't the way to go, not because of the confidentiality issue, but because of the 'nit pickiness' of students when they got their hands on someone else's paper. I made a distinction between 'practice' tests which served a review function and which were self-graded and tests that, along with completion of homework, etc., counted for their grade. The 'real' tests were graded by me.
I came to the conclusion that students tended to pay more attention to work that was self-graded than to the ones I graded. When I handed back the work I graded, the looked at their score and gave it no further attention.
One of the interesting by-products of the self grading was getting the idea across that if you 'cheated' and marked stuff right that was wrong, you were only hurting yourself. I taught upper elementary students and the vast majority of them were able to understand that if you marked things right that were wrong, you were simply fooling yourself.
Katelynn, I join the others who have responded to your post with the sincere advice to find whatever strategies enable you to cope with what can be a very stressful situation. Take care of yourself. Your students deserve a teacher who feels like she 'has a life'. Don't let 'em 'guilt you'. Keep on countin'.I noticed with the trade and grade that cheating increased. So, I never did it.