The Steps I Am Taking to Recover From Fall Teacher Burnout
Anybody Else Tired?
The title of this post isn’t serious. I know you are tired. If you are teaching, you perhaps have hit a wall called the “November Blues.” These are the feelings you get waiting on Thanksgiving Break. Everything is starting to settle down. For me, the first round of testing is done, routines are established, the first round of parent-teacher conferences are over, and the second set of grades will be due soon. The expectation of who we are in my classroom is going strong. There is still work to do in terms of lifting literacy, inspiring new thoughts, and building capacity for compassion, but we will get there. While November is when everything starts feeling stable, it is also the first time in the year when I often suffer from “paralysis of the mind” or teacher burnout.
Let me explain.
The main clue that burnout is starting to creep up on me is when I can sit in one particular spot at home, at work, or even in my vehicle, and I feel “frozen” due to everything that seems to be piling up in my to-do list, my grading stack, and school-related priorities. This manifests in physical tension, mental exhaustion, and overall apparent lack of self-care. This is even after I get a good night’s rest, have some time to reflect and watch Disney Plus, and spend time with loved ones. Burnout transcends recovery time because drastic measures are needed to offset the fatigue mindset. Think of burnout like the flu. Not only do you have to get better, but you also have to build up your immune system so it doesn’t come back as easily.
I have led multiple professional developments this fall, I am in charge of our school improvement team, I have attended conferences, and I am trying to keep my head above grading and paper-planning water. It has been a process that has been slow. Nobody chooses to have burnout, but a series of choices leads to this exhaustion. Nothing has crept up on me, I just need to regain my sense of balance to offset the frozen tundra that has taken over my teaching life. The one that makes me not want to jump out of bed in the morning.
Eddie B. Comedy has a video for fall burnout that is spot-on:
He brings attention to the sub shortage in education. One of the reasons many of us don’t take the days we need is the vicious cycle that is setting up sub plans, recovering your room and desk from the sub being there, and maintaining an unrealistic pace that is over self-imposed. We care so much about others that burnout sets in before we even know it. When burnout sets in, it is a time to find a good reminder to balance the things that aide in self-care and the actions we take to constantly give to others in the spirit of education.
Next Steps
I am restructuring my time to move my body physically. I have tried to establish routines and make time for exercise over the years. I don’t hate exercise. However, I am one that makes trades for time. I trade grading over kettlebells. I swap a nap for time on the treadmill. I exchange making dinner and cleaning the house for quality moments on my yoga mat. Bottom line? I will make an excuse not to exercise if there is one. Knowing this about myself, I have to get back to the daily reminder about the power of moving my body physically. Not only am I fighting anxiety and stress, but I am giving my brain a reset from the constant torrid of to-do lists. This reset should be the main reason why I am getting back into the good habits of routine. I am starting back with yoga because it helps the most with stress. My goal is to help establish a routine for the month of December and then join Yoga With Adriene in January for her 30-Day Challenge. My goal will be to workout in the morning or right after school before dinner. If I wait until nighttime, I make excuses to just start again the next day.
I am becoming one with my journal. Writing is my form of therapy. While I have to bring myself to come back to routine, I normally follow three main steps when I sit down with my journal:
Take a moment to get myself organized. This involves my monthly and weekly layouts. I make sure I am current on my budget and take a peek at my goals-big and small.
I vent. I also call these AM or Morning Pages. Megan Minns has a great post titled “How to Use Stream Of Consciousness Writing to Clear Your Mind” which is a great place to start. This stream of consciousness writing setup is where I just let out anything that is bugging me, weighing on me or is distracting me from wellness. These are the thoughts that wake me up at 3 am because I am foggy thinking about them.
Then, I dream. I revisit goals, and I think about the “what if.” I dream about the blog, about teaching strategies, about house improvements. I sketch, I mindmap, I color. This is one of my favorite parts of journaling because my guard has been lowered from the first two activities to really let myself feel joy again. As teachers, we can’t stop dreaming about the things that make us happy or push us toward new goals.
I am making my next unit of study so exciting that I am on the edge of my seat ready to teach it. Stuck in a rut? Get excited about what you are teaching. I get distracted sometimes by the “have-to.” I have to teach a narrative summary, I have to teach annotation, I have to show them how to set up a proper paragraph. Yes, all of these things are in my curriculum guide. But, I have to remind myself not to forget about the joy of learning something new. I journaled about “soul projects” for marking period three because I want to put the soul back into my work. I will never be excited about grading papers, but I can be excited about the actual work we are doing during class in terms of reading and in the writing projects we are doing. Enthusiasm is contagious.
I am going back to saying “no” more often. Want me to run professional development? No, ma’am. Want me to pilot a new program? No, thank you. Want me to lead a new committee on _________? Nah. I’m good. When burnout has set in, I need to go back to the land of no. The land of no reprioritizes the goals that I have set for myself, and it puts them at the forefront of my to-do list. I often find that I miss writing for the blog when I have said yes all too often. My main goals need to find the correlating balance with the roles I am serving in my district. I love Amber Rae’s visual of “How to Set Boundaries:”
I am taking the time to catch up on work. I have sixty sick days at the time of the publishing date of this blog post. I don’t say that as a bragging right or something to be jealous of. In fact, it is evidence that I enter the burnout cycle all too quickly because I never take time off. I mentioned above about the sub shortage in so many school districts. Please don’t get me started on the dwindling education programs in this area. We, as teachers, have to shift our mindsets from we can’t take time off to we need to schedule time off each month. No matter what anybody thinks. I am a firm believer in the culture we create amongst ourselves as teachers being fragile in nature. It swings to a level of this community feels like family back over to a toxic level that is unhealthy in a matter of moments. We have to find that the balance of this pendulum in our community and our classrooms to acknowledge when self-care is not selfish.