When I was teaching, I felt various levels of burnout depending on the school at which I happened to be working. My years in the classroom involved two great experiences—a Catholic school and a rural school—sandwiching my time at a rough inner city school. If I had to give my feeling of burnout a rating, say from 1 (no burnout) to 10 (ready to leave teaching even if I had to flip burgers for a living), I would say that my number at the inner city school was around a 9. I wish I had more support at the time. It may have helped with my feelings of frustration and helplessness!
Check out this helpful list of ways to avoid burnout. Some of them are pretty obvious, but others were new to me!
What’s your current burnout number?
after teaching for 34 years, I look forward to being “in school” as I like to call it. I truly believe that if you love what you do, you’ll never call it work. I arrive 2 hours before school and usually stay at least (on an early day) 1 hour after school. I just can’t get enough! Just to clarify, I did raise 3 wonderful and artistic kids, while working, with the help of an uber supportive husband. So at times it was a delicate balancing act. Some of my colleagues are counting the days until retirement; and I just have to say, for me ,when the time is right, I’ll know it. Until then…Che sera, sera.